Of those libraries founded during the century in the United States, and which have secured a rank as over 20,000-volume libraries, there are very many that approach the 100,000 mark, and their average of volumes would gravitate around 50,000. It is by no means true that the importance and usefulness of a library must be measured by its number of volumes. Very many of the best managed, serviceable, and popular libraries contain even less than 20,000 volumes.
The spirit of knowledge which has created in the United States such a demand for libraries has been happily supplemented by a spirit of liberality. Nowhere in the world have there risen so many and such munificent donors of means to found and support libraries. Without appearing invidious, mention may well be made of some of these munificent givers and founders. Conspicuous among them is John Jacob Astor, founder of the Astor Library in New York City, with its splendid endowment fund of $1,100,000; James Lenox, who founded the Lenox Library of New York City, and invested in buildings and endowment $1,247,000; George Peabody, who founded, in 1857, at Baltimore, the Peabody Institute and Library, with an endowment of $1,000,000; Walter L. Newberry, of Chicago, who, in 1889, left $2,000,000 to found a free public library in the northern part of the city; John Crerar, of Chicago, who left an immense estate to found and endow the Crerar Library; Enoch Pratt, of Baltimore, who gave $1,150,000 to found the Enoch Pratt Free Library; Dr. James Rush, of Philadelphia, who left, in 1869, a bequest of over $1,000,000 to form the Ridgway Branch of the Philadelphia Library; Andrew Carnegie, who founded the Pittsburgh Free Library and several others in different places.
The century’s progress in library management has kept pace with the growth of volumes. Cataloguing and arranging of books have been reduced to a science. Training of librarians and of students in the use of books has become an educational course in many higher institutions of learning. Library architecture and the numerous appliances for distributing books or rendering them accessible on the shelves, have all been improved, so that the library of the end of the century is as much a seductive retreat as a world of knowledge.
PROGRESS OF THE CENTURY IN ARCHITECTURE
By WILLIAM MARTIN AIKEN, F.A.I.A.,
Former U. S. Supervising Architect.
Towards the close of the last century there arose in England a decided fashion for Greek columns and pediments, which was brought about by the publication in 1762 of the discoveries by Stuart and Revett at Athens, and was still further stimulated by the bringing to England of the Elgin marbles in 1801, so that every building of any importance, whether church or school or country residence, had its portico with Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian columns. Thus began the Greek revival; then followed the more slender columns, with arches and vaults, of the Roman; and to these were very shortly added the cupola or the dome and the balustrade of the Renaissance.
In London, the Bank of England by Sir John Soane, the British Museum by Robert Smirke (a pupil of Soane’s), the University by Wilkins, were all built early in this century, as were the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and the High School at Edinboro, magnificent colonnades adorning the front of each. St. Pancras Church, in London, has a spire of superimposed copies of the Temple of the Winds at Athens—each smaller than the one beneath it,—and there are side porches which reproduce the caryatid portico of the Pandroseum. But the most successful building in England which was designed upon Greek lines is St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, which has a central hall lit from above; at either end is a court-room, and beyond, at one end, is an Odeon, or Music Hall.
The taste for classical design gradually declined in England, and a new cult was assiduously propagated through the writings of Pugin, Brandon, Rickman, and Parker, whose text was that classicism represented paganism, and this, together with the remodeling of Windsor Castle, in 1826, by Sir Jeffrey Wyatville, caused a general interest in the revival of Gothic architecture; for some time, however, much illiterate work was done in the adjustment of old forms to new conditions.
Throughout the last half of this century, the battle of the styles has been maintained by the adherents of the differing schools with varying success, and, although there may be notable examples to the contrary, it has virtually resulted in the adoption of Gothic designs for ecclesiastical buildings, conditions being much the same as formerly for these structures; whereas, for secular buildings, with ever-changing requirements, the classic or the Renaissance, which has shown even greater pliability, has been considered more appropriate.