Near the library are the $125,000 conservatories given to the people by Mr. Phipps, and a source of most elevating pleasure. Mr. Carnegie's gifts in and about Pittsburg amount already to $5,000,000; yet he is soon to build a library for Homestead, and one each for Duquesne and the town of Carnegie. "Such other districts as may need branch libraries," says Mr. Carnegie, "we ardently hope we may be able to supply; for to provide free libraries for all the people of Pittsburg is a field which we would fain make our own, as chief part of our life-work. I have dropped into the plural, for there is one always with me to prompt, encourage, suggest, discuss, and advise, and fortunately, sometimes, when necessary, gently to criticise; whose heart is as keenly in this work as my own, preferring it to any other as the best possible use of surplus wealth, and without whose wise and zealous co-operation I often feel little useful work could be done."
Mr. Carnegie has given $50,000 to Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York, for a histological laboratory. He is also the founder of the magnificent Music Hall on the corner of Fifty-second Street and Seventh Avenue, New York City. The press says his investment in the Music Hall Company Limited equals nine-tenths of the full cost of the hall. "It was the dearest wish of the elder Damrosch that a grand concert-hall suitable for oratorio, choral, and symphony performances might be built in New York. The questions of cost, endowment, etc., have been discussed many times by his associates and successors, without definite result. It was the liberality and public spirit of Andrew Carnegie which finally made possible the establishment of a completely equipped home for music."
The main hall, exquisite in its decorations of ivory white, gold, and old rose, will seat about three thousand persons, with standing-room for a thousand more. In the decorations 1,217 lamps are placed. Of these, 189 are in the ceiling and the walls of the stage, 339 around the boxes and balconies, and 689 in the main ceiling. When the electric current is turned on at night the effect is magical. The electric-light plant consists of four dynamos, each weighing 20,000 pounds. Besides the main hall, there are several smaller rooms for recitals, lectures, readings, receptions, and studios.
Mr. Carnegie will need no other monument than his great libraries, the influence of which will increase in the coming centuries.
THOMAS HOLLOWAY: HIS SANATORIUM AND COLLEGE.
Thomas Holloway, one of England's most munificent givers, was born in Devonport, England, Sept. 22, 1800. His father, who had been a warrant officer in a militia regiment, had become a baker in Devonport.
Finding that he could support his several children better by managing an inn, he removed to Penzance, and took charge of Turk's Head Inn on Chapel Street. His son Thomas went to school at Camborne and Penzance until he was sixteen.