The apettator, inptentber 4, 1852
The opening of the Free Library at Manchester is a " great feat," worthy of the attendance that inaugurated it, although that attendant company comprised the greatest and benignist satirist of our day. A public library of twenty-one thousand volumes, to be freely lent to the inhabitants, without charge, in their own homes, is an institution wholly new to the world, save in its local companion the library of Peel Park, which Joseph Brotherton had so great a share in founding. The fact that the new institution of Manchester transcends the local philosophy of " commercial principles," in being a positive gift without sale or return, is no blame but glory to Manchester; which is greater than it supposed itself to be. . . .
Mr. Dickens, who went to Italy and published an unconscious confession that he understood nothing of Italy, Italian or the Italians—who went to America and published, for correction, his ingenious Notes on America—goes down to Manchester to tell the world that he does not understand the Manchester School, but that he supposes it to be one of the same with the new People's Library in Manchester !
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