THE PAINTING.
The general painted decoration, as carried out for the architect by Mr. Garnsey, is always loyal to the architecture, and yet asserts the essential and peculiar value of color. First and foremost the constructional value of color is fully realized. In the central Reading Room, for instance, not only have the white walls and stucco been brought into color harmony with the rich red and yellow of the Numidian and Sienna marbles, but the tints have been so distributed and their strength graduated in relation to the spaces they cover, that a strictly structural fabric of color has been constructed in and around the architectural edifice. The grand suite of rooms running round the entire second story is a charming example of color sequence. The keynote is yellow, the most joyous of all colors—the hue of sunshine. The note is struck positively in the four pavilions, where the yellow has been carried as far as possible in the two directions of red or blue. These positive colors are connected by the tertiary tints in the intervening rooms, where the walls are dull yellow or olive, relieved by red and green in the frieze. In the room on the north side the painter has suffused the olive-green with a neutralized bloom of the complementary violet, thus securing a harmony of opposition as well as of similarity. In the central room on the east side, the scheme for a brief space swings to blue, with yellow in the frieze, and the more important rooms on the west side echo some of the brilliancy of the adjacent stair-hall. To name but one other phase of this work in which the decorator has worked so well for the architect, the emotional value of color or its quality of expression is exhibited in numerous instances. Above the high oak wainscot of the Librarian’s Room, the panels are a deep blue, enamelled with subdued arabesques. Age seems to have dimmed them. There is a patina of green rust upon the ivory ceiling, the tender touch of time upon the owls and lamps, that hints at the antiquity of thought. Compare with this the robustness of the design of the ceiling in the Pavilion of the Seals. The first impression is of a turbulence of gorgeous clouds veiled in a golden haze. Gradually the details of form and color grow, and we discover an elaborate harmony in which the great Seal of the United States and the American flag, are predominating features.
Of the special paintings which complete and accentuate this great general scheme of architecture, Mr. Blashfield’s occupy the most important position.[13] The problem was a conflicting one. The space demanded a noble theme and stately treatment, conforming to the monumental majesty of the structure, and yet responding to the tenderness and airiness of the cobweb of arabesque. It was necessary to continue and also to conclude the converging ribs; to solidify and also to disperse them; to create a design subordinate to the architecture and yet completing it and dominating it. His treatment is geometrical. Four figures crown the axial spaces, conspicuously white, full fronted, self-contained, emphasizing the spaciousness and symmetry of the structure, and symbolizing the four basic constituents of civilization. Each of these is supported by a figure to the right and left, which are so subtly posed that they prolong the converging lines of the ribs of the dome. While the eye is thus continually carried up, it is diverted horizontally by the interlacing lines of the limbs, the necklace of recurring banderoles and cartouches, and finally by the majestic sweep of wings, the sculpturesque simplicity of which merges the painting into the architecture above. To this wreath of form the artist has imparted a suffused bloom, tenderly iridescent; giving quiet distinction to each figure and a satisfying harmony to the whole composition. His intellectuality reveals itself, not only in the technical solution of his problem, but also in the depth and comprehensiveness with which he has interpreted his theme. It matters not which figures one selects; all are beautiful and richly suggestive. Compare the representation of Religion and of Philosophy; the yearning of the one for outside strength and light with the calm, passionless scrutiny of the other; or the dreamy transcendentalism of Islam, and his rounded limbs, with the square strenuous determination of the young giant, America. This composition, however, is not a circle, the recognized geometrical symbol of eternal completeness, but a concave ring whose lines converge toward a centre outside of and above itself. That centre is the figure in the Lantern, representing that Higher Wisdom to which the wisest are always striving to attain. This concave ring represents Civilization, which, kept in perfect balance by the harmony of the various elements of human life, spins easily and surely upon its axis. This is the greatest good of all; but it is impossible to maintain Civilization without Progress; it must forever speed upward to the Higher Wisdom.
Mr. Pearce’s panels in the north corridor are notable examples of decorative color. The positive tints are clear and fresh against soft backgrounds of secondary greens and violets. The composition, except in the panel of The Standard-Bearers, leans to the pictorial rather than to the decorative method. Perhaps Labor and Religion combine the two methods most happily. In the former the lines of the limbs repeat and relieve each other most agreeably. There is enough sameness of movement to emphasize the sharing of toil, sufficient difference to suggest individual effort. There is a suggestive contrast in Religion between the man’s awe and the woman’s placid confidence. He recognizes the mystery, she the comfort of fire. A germ of the love of the beautiful is shown in the choice for an altar of the curious stone which they have propped up so unstably, and yet with so much affectionate care.
In the east corridor, Mr. Alexander’s six panels are to be taken as so many fragments cut from the picture of the ages. They are terse and vigorous; they compel our interest. The figures are dramatic, in the true sense that they are doing something simple and natural, while their local surroundings, like the old chorus, interpret the significance—in some cases, from the standpoint of to-day, the insignificance—of the act. For, by the exercise of keen imagination, and through the resources of his technique, the artist has rendered with pathetic vividness the dumbness and isolation of early man and the unresponsiveness of his surroundings. With the skill of an expert dramatist, he has developed the growing permanence of the record, and the widening of the circle of influence, and led up to the climax when the written speech of one becomes the property of all.
In Mr. Walker’s panels, Nature and not Humanity is the inspiration. In his largest panel, she is exhibited in the unrestraint of stream and rock and verdure. Yet she is represented in Mr. Walker’s paintings not so much for her own sake as for the inspiration which she lends to the mind of the poet. It is Nature viewed through the medium of the imagination—Nature refined by the alchemy of human emotion.
In the opposite panel, man’s relation to Nature is introduced; in a suggestion of the old idyllic, pastoral life, with a hint, too, on one side of the panel, of man’s creative genius, the stately edifice into which, working upon Nature’s plan, he has built his own personality. The scheme is completed by the smaller panels in which the artist has suggested the various moods of lyric poetry, as illustrated by the special genius of Shakespeare, Milton, Tennyson, Emerson, Keats, and Wordsworth.
Mr. Vedder, in his Government series, has played upon a simple scale of low-toned reds, blues, greens, and yellows, thus responding in his work to the mosaic and marble which surround it. Each composition has a separate geometrical motive, built up by the distribution of the colors, the balance or contrast of light and dark, the flow of the lines, and, not least, by the arrangement of the spaces. The central panel succeeds completely in its twofold purpose of giving dignity and height to the entrance, and of expressing the solidity and elevation of Government. The use of line is throughout remarkable. In the panels of Good Administration and Peace and Prosperity the lines of direction are downward from the zenith. In the former, these lines fall in tenderly embracing curves; in the latter they widen out and form that strongest of all structures, a broad-based pyramid. In Corrupt Legislation, the eye is first arrested by the tilted leg and slovenly slipper, and follows down to the money-bag. We know it all: the shamelessness, shiftlessness, and corruption. It is a compression of multiplied experience into one illuminating flash. The direction of the picture is diagonal, and the masses of form and color purposely accentuate its lop-sidedness. Yet the picture seems evenly balanced, for the simplicity and distinctness of the standing figure attracts one’s eye from the intentional confusion of the opposite side. In the spaces one will notice the harsh gashes made by the chimneys, and the unpleasant parallelism of the smoke wreaths, so suggestive of the dead monotony of sordid lives. The triumph of ordered disorder is reached in the panel of Anarchy, which is based on a reversal of geometric methods. The masses of dark and light tumble diagonally across the picture towards the desolate space with the broken wheel. The spaces at the top are shattered and splintered as if by an explosion. But most remarkable is the jagged space near the centre. It is as if a shot had ploughed its way through the chaos and allowed a glimpse of the void beyond.
Mr. Vedder’s Minerva recognizes at once the strong points and the limitations of mosaic. The design itself is a mosaic in which the full and empty spaces, and the light and darker portions, and the embroidery of lines, together form a rich brocade. Sumptuousness is added by contrasting the smooth outlines of the one side with the intricate elaboration of the other. It is very interesting to note how the spear ties together the lighter portions, and prevents the strong figure from being too sharply silhouetted.
Around the statuesque simplicity of Mr. Shirlaw’s Sciences flows a sinuous play of lines, and their broad masses of color reflect the surrounding tints, so that these panels are more than punctuations; they are at once the focus-points and distributing centres of the whole corridor. There is a geometrical plan apparent in the building-up of the figures. Often the main lines intersect diagonally, and one is tranquil, the other energetic; there are centres of repose and of movement to which these lines converge; and these are also the points of main interest in the symbolism of the picture. In Mathematics, for instance, the line of the nude position, suggesting the naked accuracy of figures, leads up to the calm, frank face; while the more intricate line of the drapery winds across diagonally, and merges in the convolutions of the scroll, with its hint of abstruse calculations. The arrangement of the draperies, indeed, is invariably worthy of close attention. Compare the stem-like lines and petal-shaped folds which cling to the form of Botany, with the successive eddies that circle round Astronomy.
In Mr. Reid’s panels the sensitive vibration of color and the luxurious lines eloquently express the delight of the Senses. But there is no note of decadence. There is so much decision in the drawing, free expansion in the masses of form and color, and such energy in the flashing color of the drapery, that we feel in these beautiful women, not the enervation of pampered senses, but merely a moment’s pleased suspension of activity. This is least noticeable in the elegant deliberation of Taste; it is finished to a delicate point in the exquisite conception of Touch. This is a picture of an instant of arrested energy, shown in the forward lean of the body, and the momentary stillness of the outstretched arm on which the butterfly has alighted. In a moment the insect will be gone, the limbs will relax and vibrate again with active life. Throughout, it is enjoyment of the senses, not abandonment to them, that the artist has depicted.
What may be called the debonair quality of Mr. Barse’s figures is very noticeable. It is due not only to the purity of type, and to the tenderness and simplicity of the coloring, laid on so flatly in two or at most three tones; but mainly to the sensitive elaboration of line. The figures are of ample proportion, and the draperies voluminous, but the artist’s appreciation of the value of line in mural decoration does not stop with the broad effects. He weaves into his draperies a diaper of delicate folds, each of which counts. In this way, by contrasting the smooth portions with the comparative intricacy of others, he gives to his figures, notwithstanding their simplicity, a certain richness, a quiet assertiveness, and a most agreeable refinement.
The striking contrast of dark and light in Mr. Benson’s panels gives them decorative distinction; a nearer view reveals the emotional tenderness of detail. The white figures, graciously delicate in drawing and color, are silhouetted against a dark background, brocaded with a bold design, and lustrous with interpenetrating tints. The originality of conception in the four Seasons is interesting. They are the four seasons of human feeling: the Springtime of anticipation; the Summer of possession; the Autumn, not of harvest, but of waning joyousness; the Winter of accepted loss. Yet hope and youth remain, and the beauty deepened by experience in the last face is an earnest of still another spring and summer, which shall be fuller, richer, and more precious.
Mr. Cox’s paintings in the Southwest Gallery exhibit a strong sense of responsibility to the aims and limits of mural decoration. The method he has adopted is to carry the surrounding architecture up into his pictures and melt it into a canopy of sky. Before this he has suspended, in the case of Science, a delicate arabesque, as it were, of line and color accentuated by three important masses. Everything that could interfere with the flatness of his decoration has been rigidly eliminated. It is to the wall and not beyond it that he would direct our attention. The architectural features are only faintly depicted, and the foliage breaks up the background without introducing another plane. But it is in the figures that the artist’s mastery over his restrictions is most complete. With practically no recourse to light and shade, but relying solely on drawing and the handling of a few tones, he has given form and substance to his figures. The work throughout reveals clearness of purpose and certainty of accomplishment.
The decorations by Mr. Maynard, in the Pavilion of the Discoverers, strike a distinctly independent note. The starting-point of the scheme is the honor-roll of illustrious men toward whom the central composition stands as a sort of coat-of-arms, symbolically expressing the principle which links the names into a common family. The treatment, in fact, is heraldic, and subtly suggests the mediæval chivalry out of which the various movements grew. This formal character is assisted by the symmetrical distribution of the colors. Virility of mind and method characterizes every detail of the compositions. Compare, for instance, the panels of Discovery and Adventure. Energy, assertion, and full-blooded life characterize all the figures. The aims and animating impulse which especially distinguish the Discoverer are expressed in the eager, generous movement of one of the flanking figures, and in the strong calm and steadfastness of the other, shown, for example, in the self-restraint of the sword-arm. In Adventure, on the other hand, the roystering abandon of the figures, the easy carriage of the sword, epitomize the Adventurer’s sordid purpose and unscrupulous methods.
Mr. Maynard’s figures in the Staircase Hall (the Virtues) are dignified and elegant. Though they are so many vivid interludes to the repose of the architecture, and are instinct with buoyant vitality, yet, by their coloring, sensitive refinement, and noble proportions, they echo the surrounding marble.
Mr. R. L. Dodge has adopted a similar composition to Mr. Maynard’s in the Southeast Pavilion, in his designs symbolizing the four natural elements. The color schemes are in a light key. The backgrounds, to which the panels are most indebted for their decorative value, have a considerable poetic quality. Their intention is clear, and its expression agreeably fanciful. The names in the tablet below have an interesting significance, recording the Greek personification of the characteristics of the elements. The majesty of ocean, for instance, was embodied in Poseidon; Proteus personified its quality of assuming any shape; Galatea, its surpassing beauty.
In the next pavilion—the Pavilion of the Seals—Mr. Van Ingen has attacked his problem from the standpoint of color. The treatment of the subject is formal, for which, however, the artist has abundant warrant in tradition. The soul is infused into it by color. In the density and richness of the tones, the sumptuous texture of the surfaces, he has embodied the abstract idea of the solidity, grandeur, and delicate complexity of well-ordered government. The color schemes vary. In Post-Office and Justice, there is a diffusion of motive. Rose and violet penetrate the panel, playing with each other and affecting the other colors with subtle variations. In Treasury, however, the blue-green impression, which swims over the whole, is brought into a depth of tone in the woman’s dress; while in War there is a crispness of color throughout in quick accord with the alertness of the figure and the flash of her robes. These panels are essentially a painter’s vision, expressed through a painter’s special medium.
Mr. W. L. Dodge, in the Pavilion of Art and Science, has grappled with his problem in a big way; exhibiting an eager acceptance of difficulty, and a resolute choice of intricate interest. For instance, he has arranged the light to fall upon his figures at short range, so that, instead of a simple scheme of light and shade, there is a multiplicity of unexpected effects. This purpose has expanded under the influence of the various subjects. The panels of Art and Music are crowded with sensations. We feel that here the painter is consciously and unconsciously reproducing the sensations of his Art life. In Literature, however, he has emerged into a more impersonal atmosphere. In Science the reproduction of sensations even more clearly yields to the creation of thought. Lastly, the ceiling is the climax of this growing artistic and intellectual effort. Here the problem is at its biggest, and the technical solution most successful. It is not by this or that accident of professional attainment that Mr. Dodge wins us here. It is because we feel that here the technique finally becomes the handmaid of real creative faculty.
In Mr. Melchers’s War and Peace, it is not beauty, in the popular acceptation of the term, that attracts us. Our interest is seized by their masterful character, held by their strong technique, and confirmed by their deep human significance. The brush-work is simple and sure, applied with breadth and in few tones, imitating the manner of frescoes in the old manner, painted rapidly while the plaster was still damp. Everything counts, and the artist’s thought is brought close to us. The composition varies with the subjects. In Peace, Mr. Melchers has relied on smooth masses balanced athwart a pleasing leafy background. Movement is suspended. War, however, shows the vigorous construction of moving forms: solid masses and a tangle of gnarled limbs displayed naked against a harsh landscape. We have muscular and mental tension. We see only the horror and hideousness of war, and none of its pomp and circumstance. Laurel, indeed, crowns the leader’s head, but his son is stretched a corpse upon the rude bier. One man blows a trumpet, but none of the dogged faces kindles. Only the hounds show eagerness, and they are straining at the leash to get home. The religious procession is in its way just as strong. It is entirely unsentimental. These simple folk are entering naturally into what is merely a part of their life and thought.
A great deal of the charm of Mr. McEwen’s panels is due to the landscapes, which are instinct with poetical imagination. The artist has given them an atmosphere which sets them back in the past, when the world was in its youth and full of promise rather than fulfilment. In the episodes selected, it is not the heyday of heroic achievement that he has commemorated, but the first impulses, such as those of Jason and Paris, or the reverses and inadequate results of human effort as illustrated in the other heroes. Stripped of its glamor, this is perhaps the true story of heroism in all ages.
Mr. Gutherz in his seven panels on the ceiling of the House Reading Room, has symbolized Light in its physical and metaphysical aspects. The starting-point of the scheme is the central panel—“Let there be light”—and the others follow in prismatic sequence. He has not painted the clearness of light, but its subtle play upon various surfaces. For example, from the central figure, “whose face no man hath seen and lived,” radiates a pale saffron glow, struggling through the formless void of primeval chaos, and piercing it with stars and splinters of light. In the next panel of Progress light is burnishing the dry atmosphere of an eastern sky; while in that of Research it acts and re-acts upon the particles of deep water, and spends itself in a soft suffused luminousness.
Mr. Dielman has adopted in his History an almost sculptural design; in Law rather a pictorial. In the latter the group on the spectator’s right is an especially attractive portion of the composition. In the case of the centre figure, it is well worthy of notice how the flexible lines on one side woo the figures, while on the other the drapery as well as the figure of Fraud slinks away from the hard line of the sword and the strong angle of the arm.
Mr. Simmons’s Muses exhibit a certain restless power, tempered by the sensibility of drawing and color. The first impression is of a vivid blue or red spot. The note is at once daring and original and in time irresistibly persuasive. For these panels are daring, not only in color but in the treatment of the subject. The painter has infused into the old Greek conception some of the intricacy of modern thought, without, however, losing the classic character. Observe, for instance, his representation of Tragedy. Greek tragedy was concerned with facts, the sin and the vengeance, not with psychological considerations. The actor’s mask covered even his face. But in the panel before us is a suggestion of the whole perplexing problem of human sin and suffering. Or note the conception of Calliope, with the hands uplifted like Aaron’s, partly in supplication, partly in encouragement, and with the shadow across those pitying eyes; it would be unintelligible but for the Inferno or Paradise Lost. In the thought and execution we feel a certain quality of what one may be allowed to call, perhaps, diablerie. Sometimes it becomes palpable to sight, as in the pale yellow flame in the panel of Polyhymnia. It is something more than technique—it is a spark struck out of the artist’s personal consciousness.
A few words in conclusion upon the significance of this Library. The union of sculpture and painting with architecture has always marked the brilliant period of a country, not only in arts and sciences, but in material and social advancement. The movement in this country, begun by Richardson and John la Farge, in Trinity Church, Boston, has been steadily fostered by our leading architects, gained an immense impulse at the World’s Fair, was endorsed by the Trustees of the Boston Public Library, and may now in the Library of Congress be said to have received the sanction of Government. It is a pre-eminently democratic movement, for art so directed becomes an idealized embodiment of the national life, and is brought within the reach of millions. And the benefit will react upon Art itself, since her domain is thereby widened, her opportunities increased, and an incentive supplied to higher and nobler work. Studied in connection with the great buildings of Europe, this Library, representing the various aims and methods of so many men, working from different points of view towards the same purpose, will afford an opportunity for analysis and comparison that should yield rich fruit. One may even venture to predict that, properly used, it will lead to that artistic ideal, the formation of a distinctively American School of Mural Painting. A school, founded upon the methods of the past; but differing in its animating impulse; no longer catering, as in the Italian Renaissance, to the cultivated caprice of a few powerful patrons, or reflecting an age when faith and civic virtues had waned, but broadening out to express the aspirations of a self-governing People, who profess belief in Religion, Country, Home, Themselves, and Humanity at large.
THE
FUNCTION
OF A
NATIONAL LIBRARY.
BY AINSWORTH R. SPOFFORD.
THE FUNCTION OF A NATIONAL LIBRARY
BY AINSWORTH R. SPOFFORD
The uses of a great national collection of books are so manifold and far-reaching that it is difficult to sum them up in any succinct statement. The Library at Washington, steadily growing for generations, was founded primarily for the use and reference of Congress. As the library of our national legislature, whose responsible labors cover the wide field of domestic welfare and foreign relations; it should contain all that can contribute to their service and information. This being its primary function, and a great and comprehensive library having been thus gathered, a far wider field of usefulness is found in opening its treasures freely to the public. Gathered as it has been by appropriations of public money, supplemented for more than a quarter of a century by the steady acquisitions coming in under copyright law, it has become to a degree the representative of American science, and the conservatory of the Nation’s literature. As the only Government library of comprehensive range, every year of its existence should be marked by incessant progress toward completeness in every department. In the new and splendid home for the Nation’s books provided by the far-sighted liberality of Congress, readers whose pursuits are endlessly varied should be assured of finding the best literature of all lands. It is a fact pregnant with meaning that the nations which possess the most extensive libraries maintain the foremost rank in civilization.
The universality of its range and of its usefulness should not lead any to overlook the fact that it is, first of all, the Library of Congress. Here, at the political capital of the country, the Senators and Representatives who are responsible for the legislation of seventy millions of people are assembled. In dealing with the wide range of interests involved, there is almost no knowledge which may not at some time be wanted, or which can come amiss. Here are settled or modified the principles of the internal economy and foreign policy of the Nation. Here resort the innumerable promoters of local, or individual, or corporate, or State, or Territorial, or National, or foreign interests, all of whose propositions are to be examined, weighed, and brought to the test of reason, precedent, justice, and facts of record. Here are apportioned those expenditures of public money which carry on the Government and tend to the development of the country. Here questions of internal revenue and tariff taxation, public land policy, the pension system, patents, copyrights, postal service, agriculture, education, Indian policy, internal commerce, immigration and naturalization, the fisheries, merchant shipping, the army, the navy, the coast survey, the civil service, the public debt, the whole financial system, and the people’s measure of value, are discussed and settled. In the vast and complicated system involved in a government so complex as the American, where State rights and Federal supremacy are constantly brought in question, Congress and its Committees are taxed with responsibilities which demand the widest political, historical, and judicial knowledge. Only a library of completely encyclopædic range, filled with books and periodicals which illustrate every subject, and throw light upon the history and policy of every nation, is adequate to equip them for their work.
In like manner, the Supreme Court and the other courts of the United States, established at the Seat of Government, the Interstate Commerce Commission, and the tribunals frequently created to consider and report upon questions of national or international importance, require and receive the constant aid of the rich assemblage of authorities here gathered. It was found that more than two-thirds of the books relating to Venezuela and its border-countries of South America, needed for reference by the Venezuelan Commission, were in the Library of Congress.
Not less important and valuable is the service rendered by this Library to all the Departments and Bureaus of the Government. Questions frequently arise requiring investigations so broad and extensive as to overtax the stores of even the largest library to supply all the information sought for.
To a National Library which is, in some degree, the intellectual centre of a great capital, resort numberless seekers after books and information. Here is found the busy journalist, turning over files of forgotten, but carefully preserved newspapers, to ascertain or to verify facts, dates, or opinions. Here the Senator or Representative seeks and finds precedents and illustrations, authorities and legal decisions, parliamentary history and the experience of nations, to embody in his reports, or apt citations and poetic gems to adorn his speeches. Hither come the students of history, American and foreign, assured of finding the chronicles that illustrate every period, early or recent, in whatever language. Here are found devotees of art, studying the manuals or the histories of painting and sculpture, or the engraved galleries of Europe, for examples of the beautiful. Hither come the architect, the mechanic and the engineer, in search of designs, of models, or of patents, or of some book which contains the last word in electrical science. Here, too, come professional men of every class, lawyers after leading cases, clergymen investigating commentaries or religious homilies, physicians reading medical or surgical or hygienic treatises, teachers and professors striving to add to their learning. The readers in the wide and attractive fields of literature are still more numerous than those who pursue the graver walks of science. Here, the vast number and variety of works of fiction have their full quota of absorbed readers. The enthusiasts of poetry and drama follow close upon, and the student of biography finds no end of memoirs that are equally full of entertainment and instruction. Essays and criticism enlist the attention of many, while many more find their delight in the perusal of voyages and travels. Here the eager student of metaphysics or moral science feeds his intellect upon the great masters of human thought, and the man ambitious of great reforms busies himself over the books on social science. Here comes the student of natural science in quest of botany, zoölogy, or the other kingdoms of nature, and the politician searches after the arguments and the history of parties. Here the zealous grubber after facts of genealogy burrows among endless tables of family births, deaths, and marriages, and the ever present investigator of heraldry traces the blazonry of crests and coats-of-arms. Here frequent the feminine searchers after costumes, fanciful or historical, and here the lovers of music resort to feed their sense of harmony upon the scores of the great composers. The student of oratory revels in the masterpieces of ancient or modern eloquence, and the lover of classic lore luxuriates in the pages of Greek or Roman poets, philosophers, or historians. The law of nations (that undiscoverable science) engages the baffled researches of some, while many others pursue, through a world of controversial writings, the knotty problems of finance. Some readers visit the Library for prolonged and serious and fruitful investigation—others for only momentary purpose to verify a quotation, or to settle a wager about the origin, the meaning, or the orthography of a word. Many books have been written, and many more have been edited or corrected, by the aid of the copious stores of every great library.
To respond adequately to all these and countless more demands upon its intellectual resources, a National Library must clearly be one of universal range. This comprehensive aim for the National Library will appear still more important when it is considered that it is, in effect, the only really representative library of the nation. Not that other collections (and many of them, let us hope) are not equally far-reaching in their scope and their aim at completeness; but the Government Library being the only one endowed with the full copyright production of the country, its law of growth is necessarily in advance of that of other collections, however well endowed—provided only that adequate care be taken by Congress for its proper increase in other directions. The copyright law brings into it, year by year, virtually the entire intellectual product of the nation so far as protected by copyright; as well as a steadily increasing share (since the extension of the area of copyright protection through the international provisions of the act of 1891) of the works of foreign authors. Thus the National Library acquires a great store of publications which the other libraries do without, from lack of means, or of room, or of disposition to purchase.
It is easy to say that the greater part of the books and periodicals thus acquired are trash; but it is to be considered that very substantial reasons can be urged why one library should preserve the entire product of the American press, irrespective of intrinsic value. First, every nation should have, at its capital city, all the books that its authors have produced, in perpetual evidence of its literary history and progress—or retrogression, as the case may be. Secondly, this complete assemblage of our literature in the Library of the Government (that is, of the whole people) is an inestimable boon to authors and publishers, many of whose books, after years have elapsed, may owe to such a collection their sole chance of preservation. Thirdly, it is a most valuable aid to would-be writers to have access to all the works that have been published in the special field they seek to cultivate. Fourthly, one comprehensive library—inclusive and not exclusive—should exist, because all other libraries must be in a greater or less degree exclusive. Fifthly, all American books should be preserved as models—even if many of them are models to be avoided. One learns as much frequently from the failures of others, as from their successes. Sixthly, it is already provided by law (and very wisely), that all copyright publications of whatever character, shall be deposited in the Library of Congress, and the Nation is as much bound to conserve these things, in evidence of copyright, as to preserve the models in the Patent Office, in evidence of patent right. Seventhly, there is no standard of selection or of exclusion that could be adopted which would stand against the fact of the endlessly varying judgments of different men, or even of the same men at different periods. What is pronounced trash to-day may have an unexpected value hereafter, and the unconsidered trifles of the press of the nineteenth century may prove highly curious and interesting to the twentieth, as examples of what the ancestors of the men of that day wrote and thought about.
Of course it should be one of the foremost aims of our National Library to secure all books, pamphlets, maps and periodicals relating to our own country. Everything that can illustrate the discovery, settlement, history, biography, natural history, or resources of America should be gathered. The already rich collection of Americana comprises a large share of the earlier works respecting America, nearly all of which are now rare, as well as of the early printed books of the various American presses, and many published in places where no books are now printed. Assiduous pains have been taken to increase these collections from auctions and from sale catalogues in this country and in Europe.
Another function of the Library of the Nation is to furnish a repository for special collections of books, manuscripts, and memorials, which may be dedicated by their donors to public use. Now, for the first time, the Government of the United States is placed in a position where it can receive and preserve in a fitting manner, in a noble fireproof edifice, of ample proportions, such gifts of private libraries, etc., as any of its citizens may present. One such donation, from a public-spirited citizen of Washington, the late Dr. J. M. Toner, has already been presented and accepted by Congress. It is to be expected that the example will be followed by other collectors of private libraries, who feel a natural reluctance that their collections of special value, costing years of time and much money to assemble, should be scattered abroad after they have ceased to enjoy them, leaving no memorial behind.
In this connection it should be noted that the National Library furnishes the most obvious and appropriate repository for special collections of manuscripts. When organized into departments, the systematic collection, arrangement, and preservation of manuscripts, with calendars both alphabetical and chronological, open to public use, will form one of the cardinal objects to be kept in view. This too long-neglected field, though zealously cultivated by the leading historical societies of the country, has had no proper recognition at the hands of the American Government. While the manuscript papers of four American Presidents have been purchased, because offered to Congress by their heirs, no attempt to obtain and preserve those of the other Presidents has been made, nor has any fund been devoted by Congress to secure the papers of other public men. All the principal nations of Europe, and even the Dominion of Canada, have an archivist, or custodian of manuscripts, responsible for keeping, indexing, and increasing these collections, whose importance as original documents illustrating the history and biography of the nation can hardly be overrated. To avail of all opportunities offered for securing such manuscript collections, and to seek out others, thus preserving for posterity unique and valuable historical materials which would otherwise remain in private hands, subject to constant diminution or destruction, should be one cardinal function of the National Library. Many such would be freely given by their owners, if assured of permanent care and preservation in that institution.
The acquisition and preservation of pamphlet and periodical literature should be sedulously cultivated by National Libraries. No fact is more familiar to students than the rapid disappearance of these ephemeral but often valuable publications. The chances of procuring any desired pamphlet a few months after its publication are incalculably smaller than those of securing copies of any book. Hence the importance of adding them to the one representative library of the Nation while they are yet fresh and procurable. As this species of literature is seldom protected by copyright, the greater portion of the pamphlets of any period must remain unrepresented in the Government Library unless their authors will take the trouble, by wise forethought, to send copies of their productions to Washington. Of the great value of pamphlets, as exponents of the thought of the time, and the questions which agitate the public mind, expressed frequently in condensed and forcible style, there can be no question.
Of the periodical literature, in its vast extent and variety, now including, in the United States alone, more than twenty thousand different publications, a National Library should acquire and preserve the more important portions. These, in the absence of any possibility of providing room for all, may be held to embrace (1) All American reviews and magazines, with a selection of the leading English and European ones. (2) The daily newspapers of the larger cities of the country, and a few, at least, of the principal journals of England and the Continent, not forgetting the American republics, and Canada. (3) Two, at least, of the most widely circulated journals of each State and Territory in the Union, representing each political party. This has been the established policy of the Library for thirty years past, and the bound files of these periodicals constitute one of the most largely used portions of the Library. Only by keeping up full sets of the notable serials, whether literary, political, religious, historical, scientific, legal, medical, technical, agricultural, economic, etc., can the Library answer the just demands of the national legislature and of the public. In whatever direction American libraries may be inferior to those of other and older nations, they are (at least in the larger collections) well equipped with the literature of periodicals. The materials thus furnished to the politician, the historical writer, or the student of literature, are of great and incalculable value. A National Library is not for one generation alone, but for all time. So much the more important is its function of handing down to the readers and students of the future a full and authentic mirror of each age in its progressive growth, to be found most vividly in the pages of the daily and weekly journals, and the magazines and reviews of every class. These periodicals furnish the best impress of the times which can be derived from any single source. Stored up in a permanent fireproof repository, they are ever ready to be drawn upon by those who know how to use them.
One little known and imperfectly understood function of the National Library is to furnish evidence of literary property to all who are interested in copyrights. This is rendered possible through the removal to Washington, by the copyright act of 1870, of all original records of copyright, previously scattered in more than forty different offices throughout the various States. The registry of copyrights having been transferred to the Librarian of Congress, at the same time, and continued ever since, it is easy to follow out the record of any individual copyright, and thus to trace questions concerning literary property for more than a century. This facility is of great value to publishers and authors, in the various negotiations constantly being made in questions of renewal of the terms of copyrights expiring, or in suits at law seeking to establish or to invalidate copyrights by litigation, or to prevent infringement. Incident to this, it is a part of the function of the Library to produce any copyright book, or other publication in its possession, for inspection by whom ever it may concern.
An incidental benefit of the Library is found in its rich accumulation of works of the fine arts. These include, besides the multitude of illustrations and galleries to be found in books, hundreds of thousands of examples of graphic art, many of them costly and valuable, acquired by copyright. Arranged in classes, in the spacious art-gallery provided, they form a most instructive and entertaining exhibit of the progress of the arts of design.
Of the numerous and beautiful works of art embraced in the decoration of the Library building, full account is taken elsewhere in the present volume. Suffice it to say here, that readers and frequenters of the Library who are surrounded with such architectural and artistic attractions, will find rich suggestions on every hand, as they pursue their several aims. What more inspiring adjuncts to study or contemplation can exist than the sumptuous marble arches, the statues of illustrious authors, the graphic paintings and sculptured emblems illustrative of science, literature, and art, and the many inscriptions drawn from the writings of the great scholars of the world? The stately Library building with its precious contents thus contributes not only to the public intelligence, but also to elevate and to refine the public taste.
While every consideration favors the most liberal hours of frequentation and use of the collection, it is manifestly not a proper function of a National Library to furnish a circulating library for the people of the city in which it is located. All experience proves that a great library of reference cannot be made a library of general circulation without destroying its function as a reference library. Every frequenter of the National Library has a right to expect that the books it contains will be found when called for. This is impossible if a large portion of them are out in circulation. Nor can this be met by the claim that duplicates would enable the Library to loan freely. There are no more than enough duplicates to meet the uses of members of Congress who have the legal privilege of drawing books. Moreover, the few who would be convenienced by the loaning out of the books would be favored only to the inconvenience of the many, who would find very many of them continually absent from the shelves. The greatest good of the greatest number would thus be unjustly sacrificed.
The suggestion has been made that one of the two copies of books received by copyright might be utilized for the purposes of circulation. This is conclusively met by the fact that the copyright deposits are a trust under the law, like the models in the Patent Office, and while one copy may properly be kept in the Library, for the use of Congress and for public reference, the other should be sedulously preserved in the copyright archives. All comers, however, have free enjoyment of the benefits of this great Library within its attractive walls, and are welcomed by its liberal management to share its literary, scientific, and artistic treasures.