“The most wonderful phenomena in American social development.”—H. B. Adams.[110]
Of these donors Andrew Carnegie has been the chief and the exemplar. His generosity has been wise, helpful, discriminating. He has avoided pauperizing his beneficiaries and has stipulated that they also help themselves, sometimes in building, always in supporting. He has carefully apportioned his gifts to the size and needs of each institution or community. Most other donors have followed his example, and the library movement has been judiciously forwarded by these public-spirited friends. Of the buildings reported in the Massachusetts 1899 Report, 103 were gifts (10 old buildings, 93 new) from private donors, and 19 more part public, part private. It is not always possible to praise the libraries they have built; it is wise sometimes to ignore their motives; but the wisdom of their intentions deserves high praise and lavish gratitude. This generosity has not been confined to America. Edwards[111] notes that out of 180 special libraries he enumerates from all countries, 164 were gifts. Fletcher[112] listed 60 such gifts in America when he wrote, without counting Carnegie. The best gifts are those which give a sum for building and another for books and care. Thus John Jacob Astor[113] left to the Astor library, $175,000 for a building, $120,000 for books, and $205,000, the interest to go to maintenance.
This tide of benefactions may last even through the generation which will follow Carnegie and his fellows, and will doubtless parallel the progress of public building for many years to come.
All donors, however, have not been as wise. Some of them have overweighted quiet communities with grotesque piles. Some of them have impoverished poor communities by expensive piles without endowment.
“There is a small library building in a Connecticut town, designed on a lavish classical scale. Its centre is formed by a large, round and empty vestibule fit rather to receive a swimming tank than a delivery desk. A beautiful dome covers this vestibule, and makes the exterior look like a mortuary chapel. Such a mistake has cost $300,000, besides the expense of administration.”—O. Bluemner.[114]
But this bizarre feature was not all the architect’s fault, it was mainly the donor’s. A prominent architect told me that this commission was first given to him. He studied the needs of the town, and its characteristics, and following his instructions not to spare cost, he designed as fine a library as he thought would suit and serve such a place. On taking his sketch to the donor, he was met with the contemptuous speech. “If that is the finest library you can get up, I will find an architect who can do better.” And he did. “Thus,” said my friend, “I learned a lesson not to cut down my fee by being too conscientious.”
The worst mistake a donor can make is to give the building of the library to some protegé, or favorite architect, without engaging a library expert to advise him. There is one prominent university where all the buildings are useful and beautiful but one. This a donor gave, but got a young friend to design it in New York, without seeing the site, or consulting the professors in charge. The result is a blot and a shame.
A Library no Taj Mahal. If any millionaire sees this whose affection for a lost friend leads him to build a library as a memorial, let me earnestly beg him to make his building very modest and practical,—with a commensurate endowment, if he will. But if he wants to build a beautiful tomb, as he has a right to do, let him select some other more appropriate form. A library, of all institutions, is alive and always busy. The work it can do might be a lasting memorial to a lovely and useful character, but not if it is smothered and deadened by an architectural snuffer. I would suggest that a fine gift to a small town would be a group of buildings, say a town hall, a library and a high school, the three separate but connected by arcades, a noble but not oppressively grand and out-of-place trio; each simple and perfect for its use and place.
The library, properly criticised by Mr. Bluemner, cost $300,000. The town in which it is situated had at the time its library was given, about 4,000 population. In looking over the list of Carnegie gifts, I note that a town of 6,000 was allotted $15,000 as his idea of a suitable building for so small a place. Twenty libraries of this size could be built for the cost of the Connecticut misfit.