Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 28:110 (Apr 1871)
Article: Free Public Libraries
Author: J. W. Wellman

BSac 28:110 (April 1871) p. 209

Free Public Libraries1

Rev. J. W. Wellman

The library, in the sense of a treasury of books, is not a modern institution. It can boast of great antiquity. The ancient Egyptians made vast collections of parchments. Osymandyas, one of the ancient kings of Egypt, it is claimed, was the first who founded a library. On the entrance of his library building were inscribed the words, “The Dispensary of the Soul”; and on the walls was sculptured “a judge, with the image of truth suspended from his neck, and many books or rolls lying before him.” There was a library at Memphis so early in history that Homer was accused of having stolen from it the Iliad and the Odyssey, and of afterwards publishing them as his own. But the most famous collection in Egypt was that wonderful library at Alexandria, founded by Ptolemy Soter about B.C. 300, and afterwards greatly enlarged by Ptolemy Philadelphus. It contained at one time seven hundred thousand volumes; and when destroyed by the Saracens a.d. 642, so vast was the collection, that the parchments were distributed among the four thousand baths of the city to be burned, and it required “six months to consume them.”

BSac 28:110 (April 1871) p. 210

The Hebrews had their archives, their repositories of literature. The Persians possessed a “a house of the rolls.” The Greeks gathered large numbers of books in public and private repositories. Plutarch tells of a library at Pergamus of two hundred thousand volumes. A public library was founded at Rome B.C. 167. Among the various magnificent projects of Julius Caesar for the embellishment of the Capitol, “was that of a public library, which should contain the largest possible collection of Greek and Latin works.” During the reign of Augustus learning was liberally patronized, and large collections of books were made; and afterwards libraries were gathered, to which the public had access, not only at Rome, but in the principal colonies and cities of the empire. But in various ways, by fire, volcanoes, earthquakes, and by the irruptions of Northern barbarians, these invaluable libraries of Italy, which had been growing for several centuries, were destroyed.

The advent of Christianity opened a new era in the history of this institution. When the gospel came, wherever it went, it awoke a wonderful intellectual life, especially among the common people. Throughout Christendom, in the first Christian centuries, schools were established for the instruction of children and youth, and higher institutions of learning were founded in various places. Great Christian scholars soon arose, who wrote books, as well as gathered them into libraries. Libraries were necessarily establis...