dedicated in April (11, 12, and 13), 1907, with imposing ceremonies
which were attended by several hundred prominent men from America and
Europe. This building, which is about six hundred feet long and four
hundred feet wide, contains a library, an art gallery, halls of
architecture and sculpture, a museum, and a hall of music; while the
Carnegie Technical Schools are operated in separate buildings near by.
It is built in the later Renaissance style, being very simple and yet
beautiful. Its exterior is of Ohio sandstone, while its interior finish
is largely in marble, of which there are sixty-five varieties, brought
from every famous quarry in the world. In its great entrance hall is a
series of mural decorations by John W. Alexander, a distinguished son of
Pittsburgh. The library, in which the institution had its beginning in
1895, contains about 300,000 volumes, has seven important branches, and
one hundred and seventy-seven stations for the distribution of books.
Mr. Edwin H. Anderson inaugurated the library at the time of its
creation, and, after several years of successful service, was followed
by Mr. Anderson H. Hopkins, and he by Mr. Harrison W. Craver, who is now
the efficient librarian. The Fine Arts department contains many casts
of notable works of architecture and sculpture, sufficient to carry the
visitor in fancy through an almost unbroken development from the
earliest times in which man began to produce beautiful structures to the
present day. It is now the aim of this department to develop its
galleries on three lines: first, to gather early American paintings from
the very beginning of art in this country; second, to acquire such
portraits of eminent men as will, in the passage of years, make these
halls to some extent a national portrait gallery; and, third, to obtain
such pieces of contemporary art as will lead to the formation of a
thoroughly representative collection of modern painting. The Art Gallery
is already rich in this latter purpose, and is renowned for its annual
competitive exhibits which are open to the artists of all countries for
prizes offered by the Carnegie Institute. Mr. John W. Beatty, Director
of Fine Arts, has made the building up of this department his ripest and
best work. The Museum embraces sections of paleontology, mineralogy,
vertebrate and invertebrate zooelogy, entomology, botany, comparative
anatomy, archaeology, numismatics, ceramics, textiles, transportation,
carvings in wood and ivory, historical collections, the useful arts, and
biological sciences. Its work in the department of paleontology is
particularly noteworthy as it has extended the boundaries of knowledge
through its many explorations in the western fossil fields. The
success of the Museum is largely due to the energy and erudition of Dr.
W. J. Holland, its amiable director. In the music-hall, a symphony
orchestra is maintained, and free recitals are given on the great organ
twice every week by a capable performer. When the orchestra began its
work thirteen years ago, it is doubtful if there were very many persons
in Pittsburgh, other than musical students, who knew the difference
between a symphony, a suite, a concerto, and a fugue. To-day there are
thousands of people in this city who can intelligently describe the
shading differences in the Ninth Symphony and give good reasons for
their preference as between the two movements of the "Unfinished." The
first conductor of the orchestra was Frederic Archer, for three years,
who was followed by Victor Herbert, for three years, and then came Emil
Paur, who is now in charge. The Technical Schools embrace a School of
Applied Science, a School for Apprentices and Journeymen, a School of
Applied Design, and a School for Women, and already possess a capable
faculty of one hundred and fifteen members, and a student body numbering
1,916. Dr. Arthur A. Hamerschlag is an enthusiastic and capable director
of this educational scheme. The Institute is governed by a Board of
Trustees, of which William N. Frew is President, Robert Pitcairn, Vice
President, Samuel Harden Church, Secretary, and James H. Reed,
Treasurer. Charles C. Mellor is chairman of the Museum committee, John
Caldwell, of the Fine Arts committee, George A. Macbeth, of the Library
committee, and William McConway, of the Technical Schools committee.
[Illustration: Panther Hollow Bridge, Schenley Park]
The annual celebration of Founder's Day at the Carnegie Institute has
become one of the most notable platform occasions in America, made so by
the illustrious men who participate in the exercises. Some of these
distinguished orators are William McKinley and Grover Cleveland, former
Presidents of the United States; John Morley and James Bryce, foremost
among British statesmen and authors; Joseph Jefferson, a beloved actor;
Richard Watson Gilder, editor and poet; Wu Ting Fang, Chinese diplomat,
and Whitelaw Reid, editor and ambassador. At the great dedication of the
new building, in April, 1907, the celebration of Founder's Day surpassed
all previous efforts, being marked by the assembling of an illustrious
group of men, and the delivery of a series of addresses, which made the
festival altogether beyond precedent. On that occasion there came to
Pittsburgh, as the guests of the Institute, from France, Dr. Leonce
Benedite, Director Musee du Luxembourg; Baron d'Estournelles de
Constant, Member of the French Senate and of the Hague Court of
Arbitration; Dr. Paul Doumer, late Governor-General of Cochin China, and
Dr. Camille Enlart, Director of the Trocadero Museum; from Germany, upon
the personal suggestion of his Majesty, Emperor William II, His
Excellency Lieutenant-General Alfred von Loewenfeld, Adjutant-General to
his Majesty the Emperor; Colonel Gustav Dickhuth, Lecturer on Military
Science to the Royal Household; Dr. Ernst von Ihne, Hof-Architekt Sr.
Maj. d. Kaisers; Dr. Reinhold Koser, Principal Director of the Prussian
State Archives, and Prof. Dr. Fritz Schaper, sculptor; from Great
Britain, Mr. William Archer, author and critic; Sir Robert S. Ball,
Director of Cambridge Observatory; Dr. C. F. Moberly Bell, manager
London "Times"; Sir Robert Cranston, late Lord Provost of Edinburgh; Sir
Edward Elgar, composer; Mr. James Currie Macbeth, Provost of
Dunfermline; Dr. P. Chalmers Mitchell, Secretary Zooelogical Society of
London; Sir William Henry Preece, Consulting Engineer to the G. P. O.
and Colonies; Dr. John Rhys, Principal of Jesus College, University
of Oxford; Dr. Ernest S. Roberts, Vice Chancellor of Cambridge
University; Mr. William Robertson, Member Dunfermline Trust; Dr. John
Ross, Chairman Dunfermline Trust, and Dr. William T. Stead, editor
"Review of Reviews"; and from Holland, Jonkheer R. de Marees van
Swinderen, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the
United States, and Dr. Joost Marius Willem van der Poorten-Schwartz
("Maarten Maartens"), author.
[Illustration: Entrance to Highland Park]
Mr. Andrew Carnegie has founded this splendid Institute, with its school
system, at a cost already approximating twenty million dollars, and he
must enjoy the satisfaction of knowing it to be the rallying ground
for the cultured and artistic life of the community. The progress made
each year goes by leaps and bounds; so much so that we might well employ
the phrase used by Macaulay to describe Lord Bacon's philosophy: "The
point which was yesterday invisible is to-day its starting-point, and
to-morrow will be its goal." The Institute has truly a splendid mission.
III
The University of Pittsburgh was opened about 1770 and incorporated by
the Legislature in 1787 under the name Pittsburgh Academy. In 1819 the
name was changed to the Western University of Pennsylvania, but, holding
to the narrower scope of a college, it did not really become a
university until 1892, when it formed the Department of Medicine by
taking over the Western Pennsylvania Medical College. In 1895 the
Departments of Law and Pharmacy were added and women were for the first
time admitted. In 1896 the Department of Dentistry was established. In
1908 (July 11th) the name was changed to the University of Pittsburgh.
The several departments of the University are at present (1908) located
in different parts of the city, but a new site of forty-three acres has
been acquired near Schenley Park on which it is planned to bring them
all together. These new plans have been drawn under the direction of the
chancellor, Dr. Samuel Black McCormick, whose faith in the merit of his
cause is bound to remove whole mountains of financial difficulties. The
University embraces a College and Engineering School, a School of Mines,
a Graduate Department, a Summer School, Evening Classes, Saturday
Classes, besides Departments of Astronomy, Law, Medicine, Pharmacy, and
Dentistry. It now has a corps of one hundred and fifty-one instructors
and a body of 1,138 students.
IV
The author ventures to repeat in this little book a suggestion which has
been made by him several times, looking to a working cooeperation or even
a closer bond of union between the Carnegie Institute and the University
of Pittsburgh. In an address delivered at the Carnegie Institute on
Founder's Day, 1908, the author made the following remarks on this
subject:
The temptation to go a little further into the future first
requires the acknowledgment which St. Paul made when he wrote of
marriage: "I speak not by authority, but by sufferance." There will
soon begin to rise on these adjacent heights the first new
buildings of the Western University (now University of Pittsburgh),
conceived in the classic spirit of Greece and crowning that hill
like a modern Acropolis. With its charter dating back one hundred
and twenty-five years the University is already venerable in this
land. Is it not feasible to hope that through the practical
benevolence of our people, some working basis of union can be
effected between that institution and this? Here we have painting,
and sculpture, and architecture, and books, and a wonderfully rich
scientific collection, and the abiding spirit of music. We have
these fast-growing Technical Schools. And yet the entire scheme
seems to be lacking something which marks its unfinished state. The
Technical Schools do not and should not teach languages,
literature, philosophy, and the fine arts, nor the old learned
professions, but these must always rest in the University. Should
not one school thus supplement the other? And then, the students on
each side of this main building would find available here those
great collections which, if properly demonstrated, would give them
a larger opportunity for systematic culture than could be offered
by any other community in the world. For we should no longer permit
these great departments of the fine arts and of the sciences to
remain in a passive state, but they should all be made the means of
active instruction from masterful professors. Music, its theory,
composition, and performance on every instrument should be taught
where demonstrations could be made with the orchestra and the
organ. Successful painters and sculptors, the elected members of
the future faculty, should fix their studios near the Institute and
teach painting and sculpture as well as it could be done in Paris
or Munich. Architecture should thrive by the hand of its trained
votaries, while science should continue to reveal the secrets of
her most attractive mysteries. Then, as the ambitious youths of the
ancient world came to Athens to obtain the purest culture of that
age, so would our modern youths, who are already in the Carnegie
Technical Schools from twenty-six States, continue to come to
Pittsburgh to partake of the most comprehensive scheme of education
which the world would obtain. Believing firmly in the achieving
power of hopeful thought, I pray you think on this.
[Illustration: The Carnegie Institute]
V
In the East End is the Pennsylvania College for Women (Presbyterian;
chartered in 1869), which has one hundred and two students. On the North
Side (Allegheny) are the Allegheny Theological Seminary (United
Presbyterian; founded in 1825), which has six instructors and sixty-one
students; the Western Theological Seminary (Presbyterian; opened in
1827), with sixty-four students and twelve instructors, and a library of
34,000 volumes; and the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary
(founded in 1856). There are five high schools and a normal academy and
also the following private academies: Pittsburgh Academy, for both boys
and girls; East Liberty Academy, for boys; Lady of Mercy Academy, for
girls and for boys in the lower grades; the Stuart-Mitchell School, for
girls; the Gleim School, for girls; the Thurston School, for girls; and
the Ursuline Young Ladies' Academy.
The Phipps Conservatory (horticulture), the largest in America, and the
Hall of Botany are in Schenley Park and were built by Mr. Henry Phipps.
There is an interesting zooelogical garden in Highland Park which was
founded by Mr. Christopher L. Magee.
The Pittsburgh "Gazette," founded July 29, 1786, and consolidated with
the Pittsburgh "Times" (1879) in 1906 as the "Gazette Times," is one of
the oldest newspapers west of the Alleghany Mountains. Other prominent
newspapers of the city are the "Chronicle Telegraph" (1841); "Post"
(1842); "Dispatch" (1846); "Leader" (1870; Sunday, 1864); "Press"
(1883); and the "Sun" (1906). There are also two German dailies, the
"Volksblatt und Freiheits-Freund" and the "Pittsburgher Beobachter," one
Slavonic daily, one Slavonic weekly, two Italian weeklies, besides
journals devoted to society and the iron, building, and glass trades.
The publishing house of the United Presbyterian Church is located here,
and there are several periodical journals published by the various
religious bodies.
The city has some very attractive public buildings and office buildings
and an unusual number of beautiful churches. The Allegheny County
Court-House, in the Romanesque style, erected in 1884-88 at a cost of
$2,500,000, is one of Henry H. Richardson's masterpieces. The Nixon
Theater is a notable piece of architecture. The Post-Office and the
Customs Office are housed in a large Government building of polished
granite.
[Illustration: Court-house]
The city has twenty or more hospitals for the care of its sick, injured,
or insane, ten of which have schools for the training of nurses. There
is the Western Pennsylvania Institute for the Instruction of the Deaf
and Dumb in Pittsburgh, which is in part maintained by the State, where
trades are taught as a part of the educational system. The State also
helps to maintain the Western Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind,
the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Women, and the Home for Colored
Children. Among other charitable institutions maintained by the city are
the Home for Orphans, Home for the Aged, Home for Released Convicts, an
extensive system of public baths, the Curtis Home for Destitute Women
and Girls, the Pittsburgh Newsboys' Home, the Children's Aid Society of
Western Pennsylvania, the Protestant Home for Incurables, the Pittsburgh
Association for the Improvement of the Poor, and the Western
Pennsylvania Humane Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,
Children, and Aged Persons. Under the management of Women's Clubs
several playgrounds are open to children during the summer, where
competent teachers give instruction to children over ten years of age in
music, manual training, sewing, cooking, nature study, and color work.
The water supply of Pittsburgh is taken from the Allegheny River and
pumped into reservoirs, the highest of which is Herron Hill, five
hundred and thirty feet above the river. A slow sand filtration plant
for the filtration of the entire supply is under construction and a part
of it is in operation. In this last year the Legislature has passed an
act prohibiting the deposit of sewage material in the rivers of the
State, and this tardy action in the interest of decency and health will
stop the ravages of death through epidemic fevers caught from poisoned
streams.
VI
Pittsburgh maintains by popular support one of the four symphony
orchestras in America. She has given many famous men to science,
literature, and art. Her astronomical observatory is known throughout
the world. Her rich men are often liberal beyond their own needs,
particularly so William Thaw, who spent great sums for education and
benevolence; Mrs. Mary Schenley, who has given the city a great park,
over four hundred acres in the very heart of its boundaries; and Henry
Phipps, who erected the largest conservatory for plants and flowers in
our country. There is one other, Andrew Carnegie, whose wise and
continuous use of vast wealth for the public good is nearly beyond human
precedent.
[Illustration: Zooelogical Garden in Highland Park]
If Pittsburgh people were called upon to name their best known singer,
they would, of course, with one accord, say Stephen C. Foster. His songs
are verily written in the hearts of millions of his fellow-creatures,
for who has not sung "Old Folks at Home," "Nelly Bly," "My Old Kentucky
Home," and the others? Ethelbert Nevin is the strongest name among our
musical composers, his "Narcissus," "The Rosary," and many others being
known throughout the world.
Charles Stanley Reinhart, Mary Cassatt, and John W. Alexander are the
best known among our painters. Henry O. Tanner, the only negro
painter, was born in Pittsburgh and learned the rudiments of his art
here. Albert S. Wall, his son, A. Bryan Wall, George Hetzel, and John W.
Beatty have painted good pictures, as have another group which includes
William A. Coffin, Martin B. Leisser, Jaspar Lawman, Eugene A. Poole,
Joseph R. Woodwell, William H. Singer, Clarence M. Johns, and Johanna
Woodwell Hailman. Thomas S. Clarke is a Pittsburgh painter and sculptor.
Philander C. Knox, United States Senator, and John Dalzell, member of
the House of Representatives, are prominent among those who have served
Pittsburgh ably in the National Government.
VII
And how about letters? Has Pittsburgh a literature? Those rolling clouds
of smoke, those mighty industries, those men of brawn, those men of
energy, that ceaseless calculation of wages and dividends--can these
produce an atmosphere for letters? It seems unthinkable. Yet hold! Only
the other day on the train a man who has been a resident of New York for
thirty-five years remarked in this author's presence that "Pittsburgh is
the most intellectual city in America." He had never visited Pittsburgh
and the author did not and does not know his name. "How about Boston?"
asked another traveler. "Boston used to be, but is not now," he
answered. Then I, in my timid and artless way, ventured to ask him why
he spoke thus of Pittsburgh. "Because," said he, "distant as I am from
Pittsburgh, more inspiration in artistic and intellectual things has
come to me from that city than from any other place in America." But
that may have been his dinner or the cigar.
Literature I once attempted to define as the written record of thought
and action. If this be an adequate definition, then Pittsburgh writers
have substantially enriched the field of literature in every department,
and given our city permanent fame as a place of letters. As we begin our
survey of the local field, the wonder grows that the literary production
is so large, and that the character of much of it is so very high. Let
Pegasus champ his golden bit as he may, and beat his hoof upon the empty
air, Pittsburgh men and Pittsburgh women have ridden the classic steed
with grace and skill through all the flowered deviations of his bridal
paths. This is scarcely the place to attempt a critical estimate, and it
would be an ungracious and a presumptuous task for me to appraise the
literary value of that work with any great degree of detail. The
occasion will hardly permit more than a list of names and titles; and
while pains have been taken to make this list complete, it is possible
that some books may have been overlooked, but truly by inadvertence
only.
VIII
Perhaps the most important piece of literature from a local pen is
Professor William M. Sloane's "Life of Napoleon." This is a painstaking
and authoritative record of the great Frenchman who conquered everybody
but himself. Dr. William J. Holland, once chancellor of the University
of Pittsburgh, now director of the Carnegie Museum, has given to the
field of popular science "The Butterfly Book"--an author who knows every
butterfly by its Christian name. Then Andrew Carnegie's "Triumphant
Democracy" presents masses of statistics with such lightness of touch as
to make them seem a stirring narrative. His other books, "An American
Four-in-Hand in Britain" and "Round the World" present the vivid
impressions of a keen traveler. His "Life of James Watt" conveys a
sympathetic portraiture of the inventor of the steam engine. His "Gospel
of Wealth" is a piece of deep-thinking discursiveness, although it
really seems a superfluous thesis, for Mr. Carnegie's best exposition of
the gospel of wealth unfolds itself in two thousand noble buildings
erected all over the world for the diffusion of literature; in those
splendid conceptions, the Scottish Education Fund; the Washington
Carnegie Institution for Scientific Research; the Pension for College
Professors, which has so much advanced the dignity and security of
teaching; the Pension for Aged and Disabled Workmen; the Hero Fund, with
its provision of aid to the injured and to the worthy poor; the many
college endowments; and, greater than all, the Peace Palace at The
Hague, through which he will make his appeal to the conscience of
civilization during all time to organize and extend among the nations of
the earth that system of arbitrated justice which has been already
established within the borders of each State.
[Illustration: Carnegie Technical Schools (uncompleted)]
But if I continue to group our Pittsburgh authors in this arbitrary
fashion, those who come at the end will think I mean the last to be
least. Therefore, let me pursue the theme indiscriminately, as I meant
to do all along had not that same Pegasus, in spite of my defiance, run
away at the very start.
IX