of Great Britain, and the second in extent and importance in the
world,—the National, at Paris, France, being first,—has had a
phenomenal growth. It is located at London, and is known as the British
Museum. It dates from 1753, when Parliament purchased, for £20,000, the
Sir Hans Sloane collection, and afterwards consolidated therewith many
other valuable collections. It was given the privilege of copyright,
by which means, and by frequent and fortunate private bequests of
books, it grew apace and became a national repository, not only of
home-written works, but of the literature and rarities of all nations.
The number of its volumes at present exceeds 1,650,000. London does not
contain many public libraries, but there are numerous collections of
scientific and special works of great value to those pursuing certain
lines of knowledge. The second largest and most important collection in
England is that of the Bodleian Library of Oxford, with some 530,000
volumes; followed by that of the University of Cambridge, with some
510,000 volumes. Next in extent and importance in Great Britain is
the library of the Faculty of Advocates, in Edinburgh, Scotland.
It dates from 1682, and contains at present about 400,000 volumes.
The library of Trinity College, Dublin, was founded contemporaneously
with the Bodleian, and easily ranks as the largest and most important
in Ireland, with its 200,000 volumes, to which about 3000 are added
annually. What has been said of the dearth of public libraries in
London is in part true of all Great Britain. There are not a score of
libraries in all her European domain that number over 100,000 volumes,
and it is only within the nineteenth century that the public or free
library system began to grow in favor. Indeed, such growth may be
said to date from as late a period as 1850, when the Manchester Free
Reference Library was established. It has shown in fifty years a most
marvelous growth, and contains at present some 255,000 volumes.
Great Britain has not neglected to encourage the use of libraries among
her colonists. At Ottawa, Canada, is the library of Parliament. It was
founded in 1815, and grew slowly till 1841, when the two libraries of
Upper and Lower Canada were consolidated. It was subsequently destroyed
by fire, and in 1855 reëstablished. Since then it has grown rapidly,
and at present contains over 150,000 volumes. The Laval University
library, at Quebec, is the next most extensive in Canada, containing
over 100,000 volumes. The South African Public Library was founded at
Cape Town in 1818, and has grown to contain some 50,000 volumes, many
of them of great importance as bearing on the languages and customs
of African peoples. In Australia are many libraries of considerable
extent, whose volumes are, as a rule, free to all readers. The largest
of these is at Melbourne, and is called the Public Library of Victoria.
It is a collection of considerably over 150,000 books and pamphlets,
many of which relate to Australasian themes. The Sidney Free Public
Library is next to that at Melbourne in importance. It is said to
contain the largest collection of works special to Australia in the
world.
The book collections of China, and indeed throughout the Orient, are
by no means inconsiderable, and the favorite works relate to religion,
philosophy, poetry, history, and the sciences. They are generally large
and of encyclopædic style and proportions. Thus a Chinese history of
national events from the third century B. C. to the seventeenth A. D.
occupies sixty-six volumes, as bound in European style for the British
Museum. Libraries in Japan are more numerous, convenient, and extensive
than in China and elsewhere in the Orient. The University library at
Tokio, Japan, contains well nigh 200,000 volumes.
Of South American libraries the largest is the National, at Rio
Janeiro, Brazil, with some 240,000 volumes. The other republics of
South America which passed through their wars for independence and
their formative periods, not to say their internal jealousies and
strifes, during the nineteenth century, have had but little opportunity
or inclination to collect large libraries. Yet the spirit of education
is by no means dormant, and the nuclei of many libraries have been
formed, in which much pride is taken, and which bid fair to grow great
in importance as scholarship expands and other fostering conditions
come to prevail more generally. Even in the small and tumultuous
republics of Central America there are some valuable collections of
books which, in the course of time, will be greatly augmented and
prove a source of literary and national pride. Notwithstanding all the
ups and downs of the Mexican republic during the century, she has,
since the separation of church and state in 1857, evolved a creditable
educational system, and built up many excellent libraries, especially
in the capital, Mexico. The largest of these is the National, which
contains over 100,000 volumes.
[Illustration: JOHN RUSSELL YOUNG.
First Librarian of New Library of Congress.]
The growth of libraries in the United States during the nineteenth
century has been phenomenal. If its leading libraries have not yet
matched those of the old world in extent, they are, nevertheless,
unique in their freshness, exceptional in their number, original in
their systems, and most effective in their uses. And what is here said
of the leading libraries is still more true of the smaller, for in no
country has the library system so ramified as in the United States,
and come down to such close touch with the people. Not only cities,
towns, and even villages have their libraries, but States, schools, and
myriads of special organizations, all of which are centres of culture
and sources of literary pride.
The oldest library in the United States is that of Harvard College. It
was founded in 1638, and was destroyed by fire in 1764. It was speedily
restored, and became the recipient of many private donations, which
not only greatly increased the number of its volumes, but placed it
in possession of a handsome endowment fund. Since its removal to Gore
Hall, in 1840, it has been open to the public for reading within its
walls, but only the students of the university and other privileged
persons may borrow books. Its present collection numbers over half
a million of volumes of books and pamphlets. In the year 1700, two
other libraries were founded,—that of Yale College, and that which
afterwards became known as the New York Society Library. The first of
these grew very slowly until the beginning of the nineteenth century,
when it took on new life, and at the end of the century contains
some 250,000 volumes. The latter also grew very slowly, and in 1754
became a subscription library. It is peculiarly the library of the old
Knickerbocker families and their descendants, and the number of its
volumes gravitates around 100,000.
In 1731, Benjamin Franklin projected what he called a “subscription
library” at Philadelphia. It was incorporated as the Library Company
of Philadelphia, and grew rapidly through bequests of books and money.
In 1792 it absorbed the very valuable Loganian Library, and in 1869
Dr. Benjamin Rush left a bequest of over $1,000,000 to found its
Ridgeway Branch. The building erected for this purpose is, with the
exception of the new Library of Congress structure at Washington, the
handsomest, most commodious, and best arranged for library purposes
of any in the United States. The collection of the Library Company of
Philadelphia, commonly called the Philadelphia Library, now numbers
well nigh 200,000 volumes. Of the sixty-four libraries in the United
States reported to have been founded before the year 1800, thirty were
established between 1775 and 1800. The more important of these—that
is, those which rank as 20,000-volume libraries and over—are the
Massachusetts Historical Society Library, at Boston, founded in 1791;
the Georgetown College Library, at Georgetown, D. C., founded in 1791;
the Dartmouth College Library, at Hanover, N. H., founded in 1769; the
Columbia College Library, New York City, founded in 1754; the library
of the College of Physicians, at Philadelphia, founded in 1789; the
College of New Jersey Library, at Princeton University, founded in
1746; the Brown University Library, at Providence, R. I., founded in
1768; the Department of State Library and House of Representatives
Library, Washington, D. C., founded in 1789; the Williams College
Library, at Williamstown, Mass., founded in 1793.
From this standpoint we get a fair view of the tremendous strides of
library growth in the United States during the nineteenth century. The
sixty-four libraries of 1800 have grown to well nigh four thousand, not
counting those of less than 1000 volumes; and the less than 500,000
volumes of 1800 have increased to well nigh 30,000,000, omitting
those in libraries of less than a thousand volumes. Over six hundred
libraries in the United States take rank as 20,000-volume libraries
and over, at the end of the century; and in the six statistical years
between 1888 and 1893, which mark the greatest ratio of increase in
volumes, there was a growth equal to 66 per cent over all that had
preceded.
Nor has the century been more triumphant and wonderful in the
accumulation of volumes and the number of book repositories than
in the variety of systems and multiplicity of agencies by means of
which library information is arranged and disseminated. Conspicuous
among these has been the inauguration and growth of the free library
system, by means of which public funds are provided for the support
of libraries whose use is free to all. Hardly less conspicuous, and
perhaps even more far reaching, has been the adoption by many States
of the school-district library system, which draws upon a certain
proportion of the school fund for the collection and maintenance of the
district library. Again, most of the States have established libraries
of their own for public use, and as centres to which may be gathered
and whence may be disseminated the knowledge that appertains to the
respective State localities. Special library systems have grown into
great favor, covering and encouraging collections of historic works,
of scientific literature, of information relating to law, medicine,
theology, etc. In fact, there is hardly a line of investigation and
mental activity that has not come to be represented in its library
collections.
[Illustration: THE CARNEGIE FREE LIBRARY, PITTSBURGH, PA.]
At the head of all the century’s library triumphs in the United States
stands the Library of Congress. It is the national repository, and
is to the country what the British Museum is to Great Britain and
the Bibliothèque Nationale is to France. It was founded in 1800,
when the seat of government was moved to Washington. In 1814 it was
burned by the British soldiers, its home being then in the Capitol,
which was also destroyed. The government purchased Thomas Jefferson’s
collection of 7000 volumes as the nucleus of a new library. This grew
to contain 55,000 volumes by 1851, when all but 20,000 volumes were
again destroyed by an accidental fire. In 1852 it was refitted, the
government appropriating $75,000 for the purpose. On the restoration of
its halls in the Capitol, in fire-proof form, it began to grow rapidly
in volumes. In 1866, it received the 40,000 volumes which constituted
the library of the Smithsonian Institute. In 1870, the privilege of
copyright was transferred to it from the Patent Office. This, together
with the annual appropriation made by Congress, served to give it a
more rapid growth than ever, and to nationalize its importance. It
speedily grew rich in collections of history, science, law, and every
branch of literature appertaining to this and other countries. Under
its privilege of copyright, two copies of every volume desiring such
protection are required to be deposited within it. It must, therefore,
ere long become quite fully representative of the literary productions
of the country. In 1882, it was augmented by the presentation of the
private collection of the late Dr. Joseph M. Toner, of Washington,
containing 27,000 volumes and nearly as many pamphlets. By 1890 it had
outgrown its ability to accommodate its collections, and Congress made
a very liberal appropriation for the erection of a new and separate
library building, which was completed and occupied by 1897–98, the late
Hon. John Russell Young being its first librarian. It is the largest,
most elegant, and best fitted repository of books in the world, being
capable of accommodating over 2,000,000 volumes. The public are
privileged to use its books within the building, but only members of
Congress and certain designated officials of the Departments may take
them away. It is open from 9 A. M. to 4 P. M., except upon Sundays and
other legal holidays. Its location is on Capitol Hill, quite contiguous
to the Capitol itself.
A pioneer of the system of free libraries, and the one which comes next
to the Library of Congress in the number of its volumes, is the Public
Library of Boston, founded in 1848. It has had a phenomenal growth,
and is the centre of a wide range of literary influence. Its numerous
branches extend throughout the city and surrounding towns, bringing
free reading to every locality. The number of its volumes exceeds
700,000. The free library system stands sponsor for a host of libraries
throughout the larger cities. The Public Library of Cincinnati was
founded upon this basis in 1867. It at once attained great popularity
and speedily grew till, by the end of the century, its volumes
numbered approximately 220,000. The same popularity and rate of growth
characterized the Public Library of Chicago and that of Philadelphia.
The former was founded in 1872, and now contains over 220,000 volumes.
The latter was not founded until 1891, but by the year 1900 it grew
to contain 203,102 volumes, with fifteen branches, or divisions,
throughout the city, and an annual circulation of 1,778,387 volumes.
Other libraries of the United States founded or rehabilitated during
the nineteenth century, and which ere its close have taken rank as
libraries containing over 100,000 volumes, are the New York State
Library, at Albany, with approximately 190,000; the State Library at
Annapolis, Md., with 100,000 volumes; the Enoch Pratt Free Library,
at Baltimore, with 165,000 volumes; the Peabody Institute Library, at
Baltimore, with 125,000 volumes; the Athenæum Library, at Boston, with
185,000 volumes; the City Library, at Brooklyn, N.Y., with 120,000
volumes; the University Library, at Chicago, with nearly 400,000
volumes; the Newberry Library, at Chicago, with 125,000 volumes; the
Public Library at Detroit, with 135,000 volumes; the Cornell University
Library, at Ithaca, N. Y., with 175,000 volumes; the library of the
State Historical Society, at Madison, Wis., with 110,000 volumes; the
Mercantile Library, at Philadelphia, with 175,000 volumes; the library
of the University of Pennsylvania, with 120,000 volumes; the Astor
Library, New York City, with 265,000 volumes; the Mercantile Library,
New York City, with 250,000 volumes; the Public Library at St. Louis,
Mo., with 105,000 volumes; the Sutro Library, at San Francisco, with
210,000 volumes.
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.
Among those whose success has been greatest in Gothic work may be
mentioned Sir Charles Barry, who was knighted for designing the
Parliament Buildings, begun in 1840 and completed twenty years later;
George Gilbert Scott, who did the Assize Courts, in Manchester, and New
Museum, Oxford; George Edmund Street, whose Law Courts in London are so
full of defects in plan yet so excellent in details; Alfred Waterhouse,
whose interesting (Norman) Museum of Natural History gave substantial
encouragement to the use of terra cotta; T. G. Jackson, the author of
much collegiate architecture at Oxford and elsewhere; J. L. Pierson,
the designer of eight churches in London; William Burgess, Sir Arthur
Blomfield, and James Brooks, all well known for the high character
of their work, as is also J. D. Sedding, whose broad sympathies and
refined spirit ranked him as one of the most talented men of his day.
The first international exposition was held in London in 1851, and
the single building in which it was contained was perhaps the most
marvelous exhibit. It was designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, and was the
first example of the use of iron and glass on a scale of such gigantic
proportions.
The so-called “Victorian Gothic” was used to a great extent for secular
work as late as 1870, and as it was much stimulated by the writings
of Street upon Spain and Northern Italy and by Ruskin’s “Stones of
Venice,” there were frequent attempts at polychromy, shown in the use
of different colored stone, brick, and terra cotta, and, in the Albert
Memorial, by means of mosaic.
R. W. Edis and E. W. Godwin were among the foremost practitioners of
the time, but in spite of the cleverness and boldness of design shown
in some of their city and suburban buildings, neither they nor others
could prolong the life of the fashion, and it presently yielded to the
revival of a previous one, and the Renaissance forms of the time of
Queen Anne became the vogue, especially for country houses,—nowhere
more homelike than in England.
In the suburb of Bedford Park, in Lowther Lodge, as in his designs
for the Alliance Assurance Company and the new Scotland Yard, Norman
Shaw showed the facility of his clever pencil, and Ernest George Peto
gave many evidences of his skill and taste; their work, however, often
having a flavor of the Flemish.
The building of the Thames Embankment, the opening of new
streets,—such as Holborn Viaduct and Shaftesbury Avenue,—with
the widening and straightening of others, have done much for the
improvement of modern London.
In France, there were very many important public buildings begun in
the first ten years of this century,—during the reign of Napoleon
I.,—although some of them were not completely finished until the
time of Napoleon III. (1848–1870). Among those in Paris were the Arc
de l’Étoile by Chalgrin, the largest triumphal arch ever built, being
similar in height and width to the front of Notre Dame Cathedral,
omitting the upper portion of the towers; Arc du Caroussel by Percier
& Fontaine—both these arches commemorating the victories of Napoleon;
the churches of the Madeleine by Vignon, and of Ste. Geneviève, in
honor of the great men of France; and the wing connecting the palaces
of the Tuileries with the Louvre, parallel to (but furthest from) the
river.
The Corps Législatif, which was formerly the Palais Bourbon, was
remodeled in 1807 by Poyet, and has for its river front a portico with
pediment sustained by twelve columns, a greater number than any other
existing building can show.