ou, doubtless, in wandering about Philadelphia--perhaps during
our great centennial visit to that city--may have noticed the venerable
building of the Philadelphia Library company, and in the walls of it an
old tablet with this inscription: "Be it remembered in honor of the
Philadelphia youth (then chiefly artificers) that, in 1731, they
cheerfully, at the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin, one of their number,
instituted the Philadelphia Library, which though small at first, is
become highly valuable and extensively useful, and which the walls of
this building are now destined to contain and preserve." Now, in
reality, that year 1731, when that first subscription library was
started in America, begins a new epoch in the intellectual life of the
American people, the epoch of systematic cooperation for the procurement
by the people of the great intellectual and spiritual boon of books.
Immense results have followed from that example set in 1731. Therefore,
let us stop a moment longer, and listen to Benjamin Franklin's own
account of the way in which he came to think of that capital project.
"At the time I established myself in Pennsylvania, there was not a good
bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston.
Those who loved reading were obliged to send for their books from
England; the members of the Junto had each a few. We had left the
alehouse, where we first met, and hired a room to hold our club in. I
proposed that we should all of us bring our books to that room; where
they would not only be ready to consult in our conferences, but become a
common benefit, each of us being at liberty to borrow such as he wished
to read at home. This was accordingly done, and for some time contented
us. Finding the advantage of this little collection, I proposed to
render the benefit from the books more common by commencing a public
subscription library. I drew a sketch of the plan and rules that would
be necessary, and got a skilful conveyancer to put the whole in form of
articles of agreement to be subscribed; by which each subscriber engaged
to pay a certain sum down for the first purchase of the books and an
annual contribution for increasing them. So few were the readers at that
time in Philadelphia, and the majority of us so poor, that I was not
able with great industry to find more than fifty persons, mostly young
tradesmen, willing to pay down for this purpose forty shillings each and
ten shillings per annum