PHP4 classes loading

[tklawsuc]

I hope I am posting this in the right place. I have a PHP4 application that has 50+ classes (some custom some 3rd party). One of the things I wanted to implement was something like the __autoload in php5. Can I get some feedback on the performance/efficiency/effectiveness of the following attempt to have an autoload class?

class Loader
{
    var $paths = array();	//classes’ paths

    function Loader()
    {
        //specify all our classes and where they can be found either relative to Loader or absolute path
        $paths['Class1'] = 'Class1.class.php’;
        $paths['Class2'] = '/absolute_path/Class2.class.php’;
        // …
    }

    //load the class file if not yet loaded and return a reference to the requested instance
    function &load($class)
    {
        if (!class_exists($class)) require($paths[$class]);
        $inst =& new $class;
        return $inst;
    }
}

$App =& new Loader();
$inst1 = $App->load('Class1');
inst2 = $App->load('Class2');