A Plea for a National Library by Lawrence Burpee, 1911
Just over a century ago, in 1911, Lawrence Burpee published an article entitled “A Plea for a National Library” in Andrew MacPhail’s February issue of the University Magazine , an influential literary magazine to which many leading Canadian academics, politicians, and authors contributed. Burpee came up with a great idea: he suggested that the Dominion government create a national library in Ottawa close to Parliament Hill. His essay examined models, such as European national libraries and especially the Library of Congress in the United States, to argue that a national institution was essential to Canada's intellectual and cultural development. Burpee obviously was dissatisfied that Canada lagged behind other nations. He asked: “Are we Canadians either so inferior, or so superior, to the rest of the world, that we cannot use, or do not need, such an institution?” Obviously, Burpee was a progressive thinker! Lawrence Burpee, nd You can read his entire article on the Internet Arch...