The conditions in a new and rapidly growing city cannot be properly understood without careful consideration of such material facts as we have been considering. But there is yet another story to tell. It is doubtful whether any cities in the United States of the size contain so many beautiful pictures and fine libraries. The Minneapolis Public Library is well known to all interested in library management by reason of the liberality and novelty of its methods. In the spring of 1859 Bayard Taylor delivered a lecture in the village and gave the proceeds, less than one hundred dollars, to a library association, which took the name of the Minneapolis Atheneum. Later Dr. Kirby Spencer devised to it a fund which now yields about $8000 each year, for the purchase of books of a certain designated class and character. The Atheneum was not a public library, but it was liberally managed by the trustees and the community was enabled to use it under reasonable restrictions. The trustees finally took the lead in the establishment of a public library into which the collection of the Atheneum was merged. The law created a library board with limited powers of taxation. Public-spirited citizens contributed a valuable site on which there was erected a building not surpassed by any structure of its kind in the country for convenience and general efficiency. In addition to the central building, there are two branch buildings, one erected by the city and the other presented to the city by ex-Governor John S. Pillsbury, who had already made his name synonymous with public generosity by his liberal gifts to the State University. The first librarian was Herbert Putnam, afterwards of the Boston Public Library, and now the Librarian of the Congressional Library at Washington. His successor, an eminent scholar, Dr. James K. Hosmer, has continued building upon the foundation laid by Mr. Putnam. The system gives to the public a much greater liberty of access to the books than had been considered safe and desirable in other large libraries. The plan has been successful and there have been no losses or injuries to the books which would justify the withdrawal or restriction of such freedom. The library now contains 113,000 books, and during the past year the circulation was over 600,000, which was an average of three books for each inhabitant of the city.

[OLE BULL MONUMENT IN LORING PARK.]

The picture gallery and school of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts occupies the third floor of the Library Building. The city owns a number of good paintings, which it purchased at the sale of the gallery that formerly belonged to the Exposition Company. Several fine paintings have been presented to the municipality by Mr. J.J. Hill of St. Paul, whose wealth has also been used to advance and cultivate the taste for artistic work in the city of St. Paul. When the collection of casts selected by General Cesnola for the Metropolitan Museum of Art arrived in New York before the building was ready, it was promptly purchased by citizens of Minneapolis, and donated to the Exposition Company, which was then holding annual exhibits. It is now the property of Mr. T.B. Janney, by whom it has been placed in the Public Library, and thus for all practical purposes dedicated to the art education of the people. Mr. Hill in St. Paul and Mr. T.B. Walker in Minneapolis have private collections which include many famous and valuable pictures.

A start has been made in the work of beautifying the city and honoring illustrious citizens by the placing of Fjelde's statue of Ole Bull in Loring Park and Daniel C. French's statue of ex-Governor John S. Pillsbury in the grounds of the State University. A law has recently been passed which provides for the creation of permanent art commissions in St. Paul and Minneapolis. It is hoped that these bodies will prevent the purchase or acceptance of unworthy pictures or statues by the municipalities.

In proportion to the population the parks in Minneapolis exceed in acreage those of any other city in America and of all but three foreign cities. There are twenty-two parks and parkways, not counting numerous parklets formed by the intersection of streets. At the present time the park board controls 1552.81 acres. In the centre of the city lies Loring Park, with its beautiful lake and well-kept verdure. Starting from this point, Kenwood Boulevard carries us along a wooded bluffy region from whose heights are obtained changing views of the Lake of the Isles, which is now entirely enclosed by a boulevard. A short half-mile south is Lake Calhoun, along the eastern terrace of which we pass to the borders of Lakewood Cemetery and thence through Interlaken, rich in the beauty of its wild woods, to the shores of Lake Harriet and its pavilion. At the south angle of the lake the boulevard leads off to Minnehaha Creek, which is the outlet of Lake Minnetonka and flows easterly through a romantic valley until, falling over the Trenton limestone within a half-mile of the Mississippi, it forms the romantic Falls of Minnehaha. Around the Falls of Minnehaha there is a park of one hundred and twenty-five acres, containing a zoological garden and bordered by the grounds of the Soldiers' Home, which for all æsthetic purposes is a part of it.

[LORING PARK—MINNEAPOLIS.]

Another matter of striking interest is the bicycle-path system, which crosses the city in every direction and extends for miles into the country. The paths are constructed and sustained by a license tax of fifty cents on each wheel which uses them. During the past year this tax produced more than $20,000, all of which was expended in the construction and maintenance of the paths.

[THE FALLS OF MINNEHAHA.]

The State University is the crowning feature of the non-commercial institutions of the city and State. The first class was graduated in 1873, and ten years thereafter the graduating class numbered thirty-five. Its great weakness, as of all Western institutions, was the lack of proper preparatory schools, and President Folwell devised a unique plan by which the State high schools became feeders for the University. There are now about 3500 students in the University, making it the second or third largest in size in the United States. Upon the foundation broadly laid by the first president of the institution, President Northrup has since 1884 builded until the institution now has a magnificent income and an equipment second to few in the country.

Another notable feature in connection with the local government in Minneapolis is her method in dealing with the liquor question. After a period of controversy an ordinance was passed under which a line was drawn around the downtown district. Within this patrol limit saloons can exist upon the payment of a license fee of $1000 a year. As a result, the residence part of the city is entirely free from the demoralizing influence of the saloon.