In the reports of the progress of the institution which have been annually prepared for your information, you have been accustomed to hear its prosperity ascribed to the rule by which works on party politics and controversial divinity are directed to be excluded from the library.1 You have not, perhaps, been told that this rule has never been systematically obeyed—that its existence has been from the very foundation of the institution a cause of perplexity and dissension in the committee, and that it has at length brought your institution into serious difficulties. Will you allow me for a few minutes to draw your attention to these facts? I am anxious to do this because I believe them to be important and because I think that the question which they suggest is one which can no longer be evaded. In the first place, I remark that the rule has never been systematically obeyed. Its strict observance is indeed impracticable. We require a previous definition of the term party politics and controversial divinity. The authorities of the institution have never agreed upon this point. Different committees have assigned to them very different meanings, and even the same committee has given to them at one time a lax [and] at another time a rigid interpretation. In the stricter and only definite acceptation of the terms, every work is a party work as far as it maintains the opinions of a party, [and] every work is controversial which contains a defence or decided expression of opinions that are controverted. As this view has been often acted upon we may for the present regard it as the true one. Now consider for a moment to how great an extent politics and theology have influenced our national literature. They run through our history and much of our poetry and philosophy—they enter into our best works of fiction—they tinge our magazine and periodical essays—they are the two poles to which every stronger mind is irresistibly drawn. Rigidly interpret the rule for their exclusion and you shut up your library against the ablest writers, the most earnest thinkers, of this and every age. You banish from your shelves Locke and Smith, Taylor and Barrow, Chalmers and Whately, Alison and Vaughan.2 How will you supply the place of this class of writers? What provision can you make for the instruction of the old, for the moral nurture of the young, if you forbid all inquiry into the greatest and most serious questions with which a human being is concerned? The great extent to which the practice of novel reading prevails among the younger members of the institution ought to be a subject of deep concern to its friends, and should stimulate them to inquire into the real merits of that system of exclusion under which so pernicious a habit has been permitted to grow up.
In the second place the impossibility of enforcing the rigid observance of the rule has led to innumerable dissensions in your committee. This will not appear surprising if you consider that when obedience to the strict requirements of the rule is impossible the question must arise, to what extent and in favour of what interest it may be violated. From the bias of prejudice the best are not free. Hence unconscious aggression on the feelings and opinions of others, real or supposed injustice, [and] angry recrimination. Under your first president such dissensions are said to have been frequent and high, and they have not entirely ceased under his present able successor.
A temporary difficulty into which the Institution has been brought by the operation of this Rule, is now to be noticed. A few weeks since, the Secretary received an offer, made on behalf of a Lady, of a donation of books which were accepted by the Committee. When received, it was found that most of them contravened the Rule. It is true that they were works of the highest character, written in the most tolerant and most Christian spirit, bearing on the title pages the honoured names of Whately and Sumner, with others almost equally eminent.3 They treated controversially of politics and of the Christian Religion, and they were therefore deemed indefensible. The Secretary was accordingly directed to follow his letter of acceptance by a second, requesting permission to return a large portion of the gift. A short time previously, a donation of the works of Dr. Arnold had been accepted.4 It will not be contended that none of these are controversial. I use the word in no disparaging sense. It will scarcely be disputed that some of them are eminently controversial. Into such inconsistencies are your Committee betrayed, by the differing interpretations of a vague rule.
But there is, beside this, a standing difficulty under which every conscientious member of the Committee must labour as long as the Rule is suffered to remain. It is the difficulty of reconciling Conscience with Expediency. While the Rule exists, it demands obedience. If that obedience is strictly rendered, the interests, the very utility of the Institution, are sacrificed. Hence a conflict of feeling, more painful than the conflict of opinion. Herein is a plain wrong. The highest advantage of the Institution is dearly purchased by the sacrifice of a single conviction of duty on the art of its meanest servant.
And for what purpose is a Rule so fraught with evil maintained? To prevent discord? Has it not rather tended to promote discord? Is there evidence in the experience of other Institutions that the admission of standard works on the forbidden subject has produced disunion. The inquiries which I have had the opportunity of making on this subject have led me to the conclusion that no such danger is to be apprehended. Society is indeed founded on mutual concession and forbearance; they are part of the lesson of life. Should it then be proclaimed that a literary institution is the only place in which their operation cannot be trusted? Whenever angry discussions with reference to politics and theology do arise, it is at least evident that it is not from the perusal of the highest class of works on those subjects. The patient labour of analysis, and the calm deductions of reason, are not the means by which party spirit achieves its miserable triumphs.
There are some subjects in which Indifference is Ignorance or Weakness. Such are all which relate to questions of Human Duty. The Christian religion is the foremost of these, and I hold that the investigation of its principles is a proper study for the Members of a Mechanics’ Institute. The diversity of the forms and modes in which it presents itself to different minds, affords us reason for its exclusion, but should rather instruct us to be impartial in our choice of authors. I dislike Puseyism but I would permit it to speak for itself in Newman on Development.5 I am not an Unitarian but I would make room for the mild and eloquent Channing.6 I have no moral sympathies with what is called Calvinism but would find a place for the unrivalled dissertations of Jonathan Edwards. And the same liberal system would extend to Politics and Social Economy.
From the doors of your Library every jealous barrier should be withdrawn. On its silent shelves the Free Trader and the Protectionist, the feudalist and the advocate of change, should array their facts and marshal their arguments, for the effectual battle of Truth. From a selection fairly made, from the different schools into which opinion is divided, and in such measure as the demand might warrant, I should apprehend no increase of a factious and intolerant spirit. On the contrary it is among those who have read and thought the least, that the unhappy tendencies of party and of sect chiefly prevail.
The dictates of a wise and liberal policy require, that you make your Institution as free and open as possible, that you record it as the conviction of your minds, and the fundamental principles of your Society, that there is no branch of learning, human or divine, for the study of which facilities may not be provided in a Mechanics’ Institute.
In lectures and in classes, I have not much faith. In a well-organized and impartially conducted Library open to every class of readers and of subjects I have great faith. The right to acquire knowledge like every other right involves a responsibility. It may be neglected or abused, and for such neglect or abuse you will be answerable, but the right exists, and they are at best mistaken in their friendship who would deprive you of its exercise. Choose your representatives in the Committee with care, and having chosen them, confide to them in a free and generous spirit, the interests of your Institution, abolishing all vexatious restraints upon the liberty of their decisions. The only restriction which is worthy of the Institution is that imposed by the good sense and right feeling of its members. As this is sufficient to prevent the introduction of immoral and licentious publications, so it would bar the admission of all work in either Politics or Religion, which should not be conceived in a spirit befitting the pursuit of Truth, and answering to the dignity of the subject.