This rather retrograde condition of things in Germany has probably been counterbalanced hitherto by the very advanced system of public education prevailing, and by the facilities in the grasp of nearly all classes of society for attending the universities, which are numerous. Our argument applies to a portion of Great Britain likewise—namely, Scotland, where university education again is more accessible than in England; but all the same in the northern part of this isle, thirst for learning is contagious, and public libraries are there rapidly on the increase. Germany has been called the home of intellect and philosophy, therefore it is only fitting that the doors of knowledge should be wide open to the humblest of the nation if they wish to aspire to it.

ARCHIBALD Clarke.

Born 1830-Died 1897.

Obituary.

MR. WILLIAM ARCHER, F.R.S.1

MR. WILLIAM ARCHER, F.R.S., formerly librarian of the National Library of Ireland, died at his house, 52, Lower Mount Street, Dublin, on August 14th, 1897. Mr. Archer was librarian of the National Library of Ireland during the first eighteen years of its history. He had been appointed librarian of the Royal Dublin Society in 1876, and upon the re-naming and re-constitution of the library at the close of 1877 he became librarian of the National Library of Ireland. He was 47 years of age then, having been born in 1830. Of Mr. Archer's work outside librarianship suffice it to say here that he was of European fame for his microscopic work in the Algæ, especially the Diatoms, and that he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, while it was still unknown to himself that his name was up for candidature.

The National Library of Ireland owes him a great debt. He was probably the first European librarian who advocated the arrangement of books on the shelves by the decimal system of classification, invented by Mr. Melvil Dewey. His supplemental catalogues are among the very best examples of the dictionary catalogue. His views upon library construction were wise, and it is due to him that the present building of his library possesses certain striking advantages, such as the stack arrangement of book presses, segregation of book stores from reading room, absence of long ladders, etc.

For many years Mr. Archer was an unfailing attendant of the annual meetings of the Library Association of the United Kingdom, and won the strong esteem and good-will of his fellow-librarians. In 1884, when the Library Association visited Dublin, he was one of the local secretaries, and upon him, indeed necessarily, fell the chief labour in preparing for what was generally thought a very successful meeting.

In their Report for 1895, the Trustees of the National Library of Ireland speak as follows of Mr. Archer, who had resigned on April 7th of that year :

"It is not possible to conclude without reference to the extraordinary services of the former librarian. It is a mere echo of general opinion to say that to the original and enlightened action of Mr. Archer this library owes a great debt. To him is due the admirable classified catalogue, a work highly prized by English librarians, and the adopting of the decimal notation and classification for shelf arrangement, a system now spreading in the libraries of America, of Great Britain, and of Continental Europe, but almost unknown when Mr. Archer first adhered to it. To him also are due many of the better points in the plan of the present library building. But

A short notice of Mr. Archer has appeared in an early number of the Irish Naturalist, and by the kindness of the Editor we are able to print an excellent portrait of Mr. Archer.

perhaps his greatest service to the library is his constant inculcation of the thought that all the machinery and the clever devices of librarians have one important end-to serve the reader, to place rapidly before every student, sooner or later, the source of information which he needs. All that does not tend, directly or remotely, to this purpose, is not librarianship. Pleased with his own by-paths of interest it is easy for a library-worker to wander from essentials. In such a case the great energy and earnestness with which Mr. Archer would urge the guiding principle would bring him back; and the vitality of that principle cannot but make the action of the man whom it moves not only of real service to others, which should be the matter of primary consequence to him as library-worker, but of interest and service to his own personality also."

JAMES HEYWOOD, M.A., F.R.S., J.P.

MR. JAMES HEYWOOD, M.A., F.R.S., whose death at Kensington Palace Gardens has just been announced, was born in 1810, and was therefore in his 88th year.

He was first educated at the school of the Rev. Dr. Carpenter, in Bristol, attended classes in the Edinburgh University, and in 1833 he obtained the place of Senior Optime in the Honour List at Trinity College, Cambridge.

In 1850 Mr. Heywood was returned member for North Lancashire, and obtained a day in the House of Commons for a motion to address the Crown, "That Her Majesty would give such directions as to her might seem meet to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the English and Irish Universities." As a result of this, and of the inquiry which followed, a Bill was passed which abolished the religious test in the Universities, and Mr. Heywood subsequently took his Degrees as Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts, being the first Nonconformist to do so.

He devoted his time largely in the interests of science, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1837.

Mr. Heywood may be justly called the pioneer of the public library movement in London, having in 1874 established in Notting Hill a public library, which he maintained for many years entirely at his own expense, and on practically the same lines as those now carried on under the Acts. This library he presented to the Commissioners when Kensington adopted the Acts in 1887. A memorial in the shape of a marble bust of himself, executed by Mr. John Adams, Acton, was presented to him in November, 1888, but he afterwards gave it to the Commissioners, who have placed it in the Kensington Central Library.