Granted The Sound Rule To Be That A Man Should Pay For What He Has,
Or Go Without It; In Practice, However, It Is Found Impossible To
Carry This Rule Out Strictly.
Why does the nation give A. B., for
instance, and all comers a large, comfortable, well-ventilated,
warm room
To sit in, with chair, table, reading-desk, &c., all more
commodious than what he may have at home, without making him pay a
sixpence for it directly from year's end to year's end? The three
or nine days' visit to Oropa is a trifle in comparison with what we
can all of us obtain in London if we care about it enough to take a
very small amount of trouble. True, one cannot sleep in the
reading-room of the British Museum - not all night, at least - but by
day one can make a home of it for years together except during
cleaning times, and then it is hard if one cannot get into the
National Gallery or South Kensington, and be warm, quiet, and
entertained without paying for it.
It will be said that it is for the national interest that people
should have access to treasuries of art or knowledge, and therefore
it is worth the nation's while to pay for placing the means of
doing so at their disposal; granted, but is not a good bed one of
the great ends of knowledge, whereto it must work, if it is to be
accounted knowledge at all?
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