Chapter VIII: Part 8

Mr. Stanford wished ten acres to be set aside "as a place of burial and of last rest on earth for the bodies of the grantors and of their son, Leland Stanford, Jr., and, as the board may direct, for the bodies of such other persons who may have been connected with the University."

Mr. Stanford lived to see his University opened and doing successful work. The plan of its buildings, suggested by the old Spanish Missions of California, was originally that of Richardson, the noted architect of Boston; but as he died before it was completed, the work was done by his successors, Shepley, Rutan, & Coolidge.

The plan contemplates a number of quadrangles in the midst of 8,400 acres. "The central group of buildings will constitute two quadrangles, one entirely surrounding the other," says the _University Register_ for 1894--1895. "Of these the inner quadrangle, with the exception of the chapel, is now completed. Its twelve one-story buildings are connected by a continuous open arcade, facing a paved court 586 feet long by 246 feet wide, or three and a quarter acres. The buildings are of a buff sandstone, somewhat varied in color. The stone-work is of broken ashlar, with rough rock face, and the roofs are covered with red tile." Within the quadrangle are several circular beds of semi-tropical trees and plants.

Miss Milicent W. Shinn, in the _Overland Monthly_ for October, 1891, says, "I should think it hard to say too much of the simple dignity, the calm influence on mind and mood, of the great, bright court, the deep arcade with its long vista of columns and arches, the heavy walls, the unchanging stone surfaces. They seemed to me like the rock walls of nature; they drew me back, and made me homesick for them when I had gone away."

Behind the central quadrangle are the shops, foundry, and boiler-house. On the east side is Encina Hall, a dormitory for 315 men, provided with electric lights, steam heat, and bathrooms on each floor. It is four stories high, and, like the quadrangle, of buff Almaden sandstone.

On the west side of the quadrangle is Roble Hall, for one hundred young women, and is built of concrete. There are two gymnasiums, called Encina and Roble gymnasiums.

Perhaps the most interesting of all the buildings, the especial gift of Mrs. Stanford, is the Leland Stanford Junior Museum, of concrete, in Greek style of architecture, 313 by 156 feet, including wings, situated a quarter of a mile from the quadrangle, and between the University and the Stanford residence. The collection made by young Leland is placed here, and his own arrangement reproduced. The collection includes Egyptian bronzes, Greek and Roman glass and statues. The Cesnola collection contains five thousand pieces of Greek and Roman pottery and glass. The Egyptian collection, made by Brugsch Bey, Curator of the Gizeh Museum, for Mrs. Stanford, comprises casts of statuary, mummies, scarabees, etc. Mr. Timothy Hopkins of San Francisco, one of the trustees, has given for the Egyptian collection embroideries dating from the sixth to the twenty-first dynasty. He has also given a collection of ancient and modern coins and costumes, household goods, etc., from Corea. There are stone implements from Copenhagen, Denmark, and relics from the mounds of America. Mrs. Stanford is making the collection of fine arts, and a very large number of copies of great paintings is intended. Much attention will be given to local history, Indian antiquities, and Spanish settlements of early California.

The library has 23,000 volumes and 6,000 pamphlets. Mr. Hopkins has given a valuable collection of railway books, unusually rich in the early history of railways in Europe and America, with generous provision for its increase. Mr. Hopkins has also founded the Hopkins Seaside Laboratory at Pacific Grove, two miles west of Monterey, to provide for investigations in marine biology, as a branch of the biological work of the University.

Students are not received into the University under sixteen years of age, and if special students, not under twenty, and must present certificates of good moral character. If from other colleges they must bring letters of honorable dismissal. They are offered a choice of twenty-two subjects for entrance examination, and must pass in twelve subjects. _Tuition in all departments is free._

"The degree of Bachelor of Arts is granted to students who have satisfactorily completed the equivalent of four years' work of 15 hours of lecture or recitation weekly, or a total of 120 hours, and who have also satisfied the requirements in major and minor subjects."

President Jordan says, in the _Educational Review_ for June, 1892: "In the arrangement of the courses of study two ideas are prominent: first, that every student who shall complete a course in the University must be thoroughly trained in some line of work. His education must have as its central axis an accurate and full knowledge of something. The second is that the degree to be received is wholly a subordinate matter, and that no student should be compelled to turn out of his way in order to secure it. The elective system is subjected to a single check. In order to prevent undue scattering, the student is required to select the work in general of some one professor as major subject or specialty, and to pursue this subject or line of subjects as far as the professor in charge may deem it wise or expedient. In order that all courses and all departments may be placed on exactly the same level, the degree of Bachelor of Arts is given in all alike for the equivalent of the four years' course. Should his major subject, for instance, be Greek, then the title is given that of Bachelor of Arts in Greek; should the major subject be chemistry, Bachelor of Arts in chemistry, and so on."

In 1895 there were 1,100 students in the University, of whom 728 were men, and 372 women. Several of the students are from the New England States.

Mr. Stanford spent over a million dollars in the University buildings, and gave as an endowment over 89,000 acres of land valued at more than five million dollars. The Palo Alto estate has 8,400 acres; the Vina estate, 59,000 acres, with over 4,000 acres planted to grapes which are made into wine--those of us who are total abstainers regret such use; and the Gridley estate 22,000 acres, one of California's great wheat farms. In years to come it is hoped that these properties, which are never to be sold, will so increase in value that they will be worth several times five millions.

Mr. and Mrs. Stanford made their wills, giving to the University "additional property," that the endowment, as Mr. Stanford said, "will be ample to establish and maintain a university of the highest grade." It has been stated, frequently, that the "full endowment" in land and money will be $20,000,000 or more.

Senator Stanford's death came suddenly at the last, at Palo Alto, Tuesday, June 20-21, 1893. He had not been well for some time; but Tuesday he had driven about the estate, with his usual interest and good cheer. He retired to rest about ten o'clock; and at midnight his wife, who occupied an adjoining apartment, heard a movement as if Mr. Stanford were making an effort to rise. She spoke to him, but received no answer. His breathing was unnatural; and in a few minutes he passed away, apparently without pain.

Mr. Stanford was buried at Palo Alto, Saturday, June 24. The body lay in the library of his home, in a black cloth-covered casket, with these words on the silver plate:--

LELAND STANFORD.

BORN TO MORTALITY MARCH 9, 1824.
PASSED TO IMMORTALITY, JUNE 21, 1893.
AGED 69 YRS., 3 MOS., 12 DAYS.

Flowers filled every part of the library. The Union League Club sent a floral piece representing the Stars and Stripes worked in red and white in "everlasting," with star lilies on a ground of violets. There was a triple arch of white and pink flowers representing the central arch of the main University building. There were wreaths and crosses and a broken wheel of carnations, hollyhocks, violets, white peas, and ferns.

At half-past one, after all the employees had taken their last look of the man who had always been their friend,--one, seventy-six years old, who had worked with Mr. Stanford in the mine, broke down completely,--the body was borne to the quadrangle of the University by eight of the oldest engineers in point of service on the Southern Pacific Railroad. The funeral _cortège_ passed through a double line of the two hundred or more employees at Palo Alto, several Chinese laborers being at the end of the line. Senator Stanford was always opposed to any legislation against the Chinese.

The body was placed on a platform at one end of the quadrangle, the remaining space being filled with several thousand persons. About sixteen hundred chairs were provided, but these could accommodate only a small portion of those present. The platform was decorated with ferns, smilax, white sweet peas, and thousands of St. Joseph's lilies. The temporary chancel was flanked by two remarkable flower pieces: on the left, a _fac-simile_ of the first locomotive ever purchased and operated on the Central Pacific Railroad, the "Governor Stanford," sent by the employees of the company. The boiler and smoke-stack were of mauve-colored sweet peas; the headlight and bell were of yellow pansies; the cab of white sweet peas bordered by yellow pansies; the tender of white sweet peas edged by pansies and lined with ivy; on the side of the cab, in heliotrope, the name Governor Stanford. On the right of the bier was the gift of the employees of the Palo Alto stock-farm, a representation in sweet peas of the senator's favorite bay horse.

After the burial service of the Episcopal Church, a solo, "O sweet and blessed country," and address by Dr. Horatio Stebbins of the First Unitarian Church of San Francisco, the choir sang "Lead Kindly Light," and the body of Senator Stanford was conveyed through the cypress avenue to the mausoleum in the ten acres adjoining the residence grounds. The tomb is in the form of a Greek temple lined with white marble, guarded by a sphinx on either side of the entrance.

Here beside the open doors stood another beautiful floral tribute, a shield eight feet high, of roses, lilies, and other flowers sent by the employees of the Sacramento Railroad shops. Worked in violets were the words "The Laborers' Tribute to the Laborers' Friend." The choir sang, "Abide with Me," the body was laid in the tomb, and the bronze doors were closed. A few days later the body of Leland Stanford, Junior, the boy whose death, as Dr. Stebbins said at the senator's funeral, "drew the sunbeams out of the day," was laid beside that of his father. Some time the mother will sleep here with her precious dead.

Mr. Stanford's heart was bound up in his University. He said, after his son died, "The children of California shall be our children." Mr. Sibley of Pennsylvania tells how, three years after Leland Junior died, he and Mr. Stanford "went together to the tomb of the boy, and the father told amid tears and sobs how, since the death of his son, he had adopted and taken to his heart and love every friendless boy and girl in all the land, and that, so far as his means afforded, they should go to make the path of every such an one smoother and brighter."

Mr. Stanford told Dr. Stebbins, in speaking of the University: "We feel [he always used the plural, thus including that womanly heart from whose fountains his life had ever been refreshed] that we have good ground for hope. We are very happy in our work. We do not feel that we are making great sacrifices. We feel that we are working with and for the Almighty Providence."

By the will of Mr. Stanford the University receives two and a half million dollars, but this bequest is not yet available. He always felt, and rightly, that his wife owned all their large fortune equally with himself; therefore he placed no restrictions upon her disposal of it. Inasmuch as she is a co-founder of the University, she will doubtless add largely to its endowment. Should she do this, the power of Leland Stanford Junior University for good will be almost unlimited.

Even granite mausoleums crumble away; but great deeds last forever, and make their doers immortal.

CAPTAIN THOMAS CORAM

AND HIS FOUNDLING ASYLUM.

One of the best of England's charities is the Foundling Asylum in London, founded in 1739 by Captain Thomas Coram. He was not a man of family or means, but he had a warm heart and great perseverance. For seventeen years he labored against indifference and prejudice, till finally his home for little waifs and outcasts became a visible fact, and for more than a century has been doing its noble work.

Captain Coram was born at Lyme Regis, in Dorsetshire, in 1668, a seaport town which carried on some trade with Newfoundland. It is probable that his father was a seafaring man, as the lad early followed that occupation. When he was twenty-six years old we hear of him in the New World at Taunton, Mass., earning his living as a shipwright.

He did not wait to become rich--as indeed he never was--before he began to plan good works. He had saved some money by the year 1703, when he was thirty-five; for we see by the early records that he conveyed to the governor and other authorities in Taunton, fifty-nine acres to be used whenever the people so desired, for an Episcopal church or a schoolhouse. This gift, the deed alleges, was made "in consideration of the love and respect which the donor had and did bear unto the said church, as also for divers other good causes and considerations him especially at that present moving."

Later he gave to Taunton a quite valuable library, a portion of which remains at present. A Book of Common Prayer is now in the church, on whose title-page it is stated that it was the gift "by the Right Honorable Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the Honourable House of Commons of Great Britain, one of His Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council, and Treasurer of His Majesty's Navy, etc., to Thomas Coram, of London, Gentleman, for the use of a church, lately built at Taunton, in New England."

About this time, 1703, Mr. Coram moved to Boston, and became the master of a ship. He was deeply interested in the colonies of the mother country, and though in a comparatively humble station, began to project plans for their increase in commerce, and growth in wealth. In 1704 he helped to procure an Act of Parliament for encouraging the making of tar in the northern colonies of British America by a bounty to be paid on the importation. Before this all the tar was brought from Sweden. The colonies were thereby saved five million dollars.

In 1719, when on board the ship Sea Flower for Hamburgh, that he might obtain supplies of timber and other naval stores for the royal navy, Captain Coram was stranded off Cuxhaven and his cargo plundered.

Some years later, in 1732, having become much interested in the settlement of Georgia, Captain Coram was appointed one of the trustees by a charter from George II.

Three years after this, in 1735, the energetic Captain Coram addressed a memorial to George II., about the settlement of Nova Scotia, as he had found there "the best cod-fishing of any in the known parts of the world, and the land is well adapted for raising hemp and other naval stores." One hundred laboring men signed this memorial, asking for free passage thither, and protection after reaching Nova Scotia.

Captain Coram was so interested in the project that he appeared on several occasions before the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, and was, says Horace Walpole, "the most knowing person about the plantations I ever talked with." For several years nothing was done about his memorial, but before his death England took action about her now valuable colony.

About 1720 Captain Coram lived in Rotherhithe, and going often to London early in the morning and returning late at night, became troubled about the infants whom he saw exposed or deserted in the public streets, sometimes dead, or dying, or perhaps murdered to avoid publicity. Sometimes these foundlings, if not deserted, were placed in poor families to whom a small sum was paid for their board; and often they were blinded or maimed as they grew older, and sent on the streets to beg.

The young mother, usually homeless and friendless, was almost as helpless as her child if she tried to keep it and earn a living. People scorned her, or arrested her and threw her into prison: the shipmaster tried to find a remedy for the evil.

He talked with his friends and acquaintances, but no one seemed to care. He besought those high in authority, but few seemed to think that foundlings were worth saving. The poor and the disgraced should bear their sorrows alone. Some from all ranks thought the charity a noble one, and wondered that it had been so long neglected; but none gave a penny, or put forth any effort.

"His arguments," wrote Coram's most intimate friend, Dr. Brocklesby, "moved some, the natural humanity of their own temper more, his firm but generous example most of all; and even people of rank began to be ashamed to see a man's hair become gray in the course of a solicitation by which he was to get nothing. Those who did not enter far enough into the case to compassionate the unhappy infants for whom he was a suitor, could not help pitying him."

Captain Coram finally turned to woman for aid, and obtained the names of "twenty-one ladies of quality and distinction" who were willing to help in his project of a foundling asylum. Not all "ladies of quality" were willing to help, however; for in the Foundling Hospital may be seen this note, attached to a memorial addressed to "H.R.H., the Princess Amelia."

"On Innocents' Day, the 28th December, 1737, I went to St. James' Palace to present this petition, having been advised first to address the lady of the bedchamber in waiting to introduce it. But the Lady Isabella Finch, who was the lady in waiting, gave me rough words, and bid me gone with my petition, which I did, without opportunity of presenting it."

Finally Captain Coram's incessant labors bore fruit. On Tuesday, Nov. 20, 1739, at Somerset House, London, a meeting of the nobility and gentry was held, appointed by his Majesty's royal charter to be governors and guardians of the hospital. Captain Coram, now seventy-one years of age, addressed the president, the Duke of Bedford, with great feeling. "My Lord," he said, "although my declining years will not permit me to hope seeing the full accomplishment of my wishes, yet I can now rest satisfied; and it is what I esteem an ample reward of more than seventeen years' expensive labor and steady application, that I see your Grace at the head of this charitable trust, assisted by so many noble and honorable governors."

The house for the foundlings was opened in Hatton Garden in 1741, no child being received over two months old. No questions as to parentage were to be asked; and when no more infants could be taken in, the sign, "The house is full," was hung over the door. Sometimes one hundred women would be at the door with babies in their arms; and when only twenty could be received, the poor creatures would fight to be first at the door, that their child might find a home. Finally the infants were admitted by ballot, by means of balls drawn by the mothers out of a bag. If they drew a white ball, the child was received; if a black ball, it was turned away.

The present Foundling Hospital was begun in 1740, and the western wing finished and occupied in 1745, on the north side of Guilford Street, London, the governors having bought the land, fifty-five acres, from the Earl of Salisbury.

Hogarth, the painter, was deeply interested in Captain Coram's benevolent object. He painted for the hospital some of his finest pictures, and influenced his brother artists to do the same. Hogarth's "March to Finchley" was intended to be dedicated to George II. A proof print was accordingly presented to the king for his approval. The picture gives "a view of a military march, and the humors and disorders consequent thereon."

The king was indignant, and exclaimed, "Does the fellow mean to laugh at my guards?"

"The picture, please your Majesty," said one of the bystanders, "must be considered as a burlesque."

"What! a painter burlesque a soldier? He deserves to be picketed for his insolence," replied the king.

The picture was returned to the mortified artist, who dedicated it to "the king of Prussia, an encourager of the arts."

So many fine paintings were presented to the hospital,--one of Raphael's cartoons, a picture by Benjamin West, and others,--and such a crowd of people came daily to see them in splendid carriages and gilt sedan chairs, that the institution "became the most fashionable morning lounge in the reign of George II."

This exhibition of pictures of the united artists was the precursor of the Royal Academy, founded in 1768. Before this time the artists had their annual reunion and dinner together at the Foundling Hospital, the children entertaining them with music.

Hogarth, notwithstanding his busy life, requested that several of the infants should be sent to Chiswick, where he resided; and he and Mrs. Hogarth looked carefully after their welfare. It was the custom to send the babies into the country to be nursed by some mother, as soon as they were received at the hospital.

Handel, as well as Hogarth, was interested in the foundlings. The chapel had been erected by subscription in 1847. George II subscribed £2,000 towards its erection, and £1,000 towards supplying a preacher. Handel offered a performance in vocal and instrumental music to raise money in building the chapel. The most distinguished persons in the realm came to hear the music. Over a thousand were present, the tickets being half a guinea each.

Each year, as long as Handel was able to do so, he superintended the performance of his great Oratorio of the Messiah in the chapel, which netted the treasury £7,000. When he died he made the following bequest: "I give a fair copy of the Score, and all the parts of my Oratorio called the Messiah, to the Foundling Hospital."

A singular gift to the hospital was from Omychund, a black merchant of Calcutta, who bequeathed to that and the Magdalen Hospital 37,500 current rupees, to be equally divided between them.

Captain Coram lived ten years after his good work was begun. He loved to visit the hospital, and looked upon the children as if they were his own. He rejoiced in every gift, although he had no money of his own to give. He had buried his wife, Eunice, after whom the first girl at the hospital was named. The first boy was called Thomas Coram, after the founder.

During the last two years of Captain Coram's life, when it was known by his friends that he was without funds, Dr. Brocklesby called to ask him if a subscription in his behalf would offend him. He replied, "I have not wasted the little wealth of which I was formerly possessed in self-indulgence and vain expenses, and am not ashamed to confess that, in this my old age, I am poor."

Mr. Gideon, his friend, obtained various sums from those interested. The late Prince of Wales subscribed twenty guineas yearly.

Captain Coram, content with supplying his barest needs, turned his thoughts to more benevolence. He desired to unite the Indians in North America more closely to British interests, by establishing among them a school for girls. He lived long enough to make some progress in this work, but he was too old to be very active.

He died at his lodgings near Leicester Square, on Friday, March 29, 1751, at the age of eighty-four, his last request being that he might be buried in the chapel of his Foundling Hospital. He was buried there April 3, at the east end of the vault, in a lead coffin enclosed in stone. His funeral was attended by a great concourse of people. The choir of St. Paul's Cathedral, with many notables, were at the hospital to receive the body, and pay it suitable honors. The shipmaster had won renown, not by learning or wealth, but by disinterested benevolence. Seventeen years of patient and persistent labor brought its reward.

In the southern arcade of the chapel one may read a long inscription to the memory of

CAPTAIN THOMAS CORAM,
WHOSE NAME WILL NEVER WANT A MONUMENT AS
LONG AS THIS HOSPITAL SHALL SUBSIST.

In front of the hospital is a fine statue of the founder by William Calder Marshall, R.A.; and within, in the girls' dining-room, is Coram's portrait by Hogarth.

After fifteen years from the time of opening the hospital, the governors, their land having risen in value so that their income was larger, and Parliament having given £10,000, determined that their institution should be carried on in an unrestricted manner, as is the case in Russia and some other countries on the Continent.

In Moscow the Foundling Hospital admits 13,000 children yearly. The mother may reclaim her child at any time before it is ten years of age. The state knows that the child has received a better start in life than it could have done with the poor mother.

The Foundling Asylum at St. Petersburg, established by Catherine the Great, is the largest and finest in the world. The buildings cover twenty-eight acres, and the institution has an annual revenue from the government and from private sources of nearly $5,000,000. Thirteen thousand babies are sometimes brought in one year, who but for this blessed charity would probably have been put out of the way. Twenty-five thousand foundlings are constantly enrolled. In Russia infanticide is said to be almost unknown.

Married people, if poor, may bring their child for one year. If not able to provide for it at the end of that time, then it belongs to the state. The boys become mechanics, or enter the army and navy; and the girls become teachers, nurses, etc.

The Foundling Hospital in London determined to welcome all deserted or destitute infants, and save as many as possible from sin and want. A basket was hung outside the gate of the hospital, and one hundred and seventeen infants were put in it the first day.

Abuses of this kind intention soon crept in. Parents too poor to care for their children sent them from the country to London, and they died often on the way thither. One man, who carried five infants in a basket, got drunk on the journey, lay all night on a common, and three out of the five babies were found dead in the morning. Often the carriers stole all the clothing of the little ones, and they were thrown into the basket naked. Within four years about fifteen thousand babies were received, but only forty-four hundred lived to be sent out into homes. The mothers hated to part with their infants, and would often follow them for miles on foot. The poor mother would leave some token by which her child could be identified. Sometimes it was a coin or a ribbon, or possibly the daintiest cap the poverty of the mother would permit her to make. Sometimes a verse of poetry was pinned on the dress:--

"If Fortune should her favors give,
That I in better plight might live,
I'd try to have my boy again,
And train him up the best of men."

"The court-room of the Foundling," says a writer in "Chambers's Journal," "has probably witnessed as painful scenes as any chamber in Great Britain; and again, when the children, at five years old, are brought up to London, and separated from their foster-mothers, these scenes are renewed."

"The stratagems resorted to by women to identify their children," says "Old and New London," "and to assure themselves of their well-being, are often singularly touching. Sometimes notes are found pinned to the infant's garments, beseeching the nurse to tell the mother her name and residence, that the latter may visit the child during its stay in the country. They will also attend the baptism in the chapel, in the hope of hearing the name conferred upon the infant; for, if they succeed in identifying the child during its stay at nurse, they can always preserve its identification during its subsequent abode in the hospital, since the children appear in chapel twice on Sunday, and dine in public on that day, which gives opportunity of seeing them from time to time, and preserving the recollection of their features."

So many children were brought to the hospital after all restrictions were removed, in 1756, the death-roll was so large, and the expenses so great, that after four years different methods were adopted. There are now about five hundred children in the Foundling Hospital, who remain till they are fifteen years old, when they are apprenticed till of age at some kind of labor. None are received at the hospital except when a vacancy occurs, as the size of the buildings and funds will not permit more inmates. Usually about forty are received, one-sixth of those who apply. There is a fund provided to help those in later life who prove idiotic or blind, or unfitted to earn their support.

Sundays visitors in London go often to hear the trained voices of the foundlings. The girls, in their white caps and white kerchiefs, sit on one side of the organ, a gift from the great Handel, and the boys, neatly dressed, on the other side. There is a juvenile band of musicians among the boys; and so well do they play, that, on leaving the institution, they often find positions in the bands of Her Majesty's Household Troops or in the navy. Lieutenant-Colonel James C. Hyde presented the boys with a set of brass instruments, and some valuable drawings of native artists of India, for the adornment of their walls.

Some time ago I visited with much interest the New York Foundling Hospital, on Sixty-eighth Street, six stories high, founded by and in charge of the Sisters of Charity. During the year 1895 there were cared for 3,109 infants and little children, and 516 needy and homeless mothers. On one side of the Foundling Hospital is the Maternity Hospital, and on the other side the Children's Hospital.

The cradle to receive the baby is placed within the vestibule, so that the Sister, when the bell is rung, may talk kindly with the person bringing it, and often persuades her to remain for some months and care for her child. No information is sought as to names, family, etc. Other infants are taken into the country to be nursed by foster-mothers, and the institution does not lose its close oversight of the little ones.

When these infants are unclaimed, they are usually sent to homes in the West to be adopted. Since the opening of the Foundling Hospital in 1869, twenty-six years ago, 27,171 waifs have been received and cared for.

The "Nursery and Child's Hospital," Fifty-first Street and Lexington Avenue, carries on a work similar to the Foundling Asylum, and, though under Protestant control, is not a denominational enterprise.

In Cleveland, Ohio, one of the most interesting charities is the "Lida Baldwin Infants' Rest," for which Mr. H. R. Hatch has given an admirable building, at 1416 Cedar Avenue, costing $17,000 or $18,000. Babies, if over two years old, are taken to the Protestant Orphan Asylum on St. Clair Street. The "Rest" is named after the first wife of Mr. Hatch, an enterprising and philanthropic merchant, who, among other gifts, has just presented a handsome granite library building, costing nearly $100,000, to Adelbert College of Western Reserve University.

When Reuben Runyan Springer died in Cincinnati, Ohio, Dec. 10, 1884, at the age of eighty-four years, he did not forget to give the Sisters of Charity $20,000 for a foundling asylum. His family were originally from Sweden. When a youth he was clerk on a steamboat from Cincinnati to New Orleans, and soon acquired an interest in the boat, and began his fortune. Later, he was partner in a grocery house. Mr. Springer gave to the Little Sisters of the Poor $35,000, Good Samaritan Hospital $30,000, St. Peter's Benevolent Society $50,000, besides many other gifts. To music and art he gave $420,000. To his two faithful domestics and friends, he gave $7,500 each, and to his coachman his horses, carriages, harness, and $5,000. His various charities amounted to a million dollars or more.

Most cities have, or ought to have, a foundling asylum, though often it bears a different name. The Roman Catholics seem to be wiser in this respect, and more careful to save infant life, than we of the Protestant faith.

HENRY SHAW

AND HIS BOTANICAL GARDEN.

It is rare that a poor boy comes to America from a foreign land, with almost no money in his pocket, and leaves to his adopted town and State a million four hundred thousand dollars to beautify a city, to elevate its taste, and to help educate its people.

Henry Shaw of St. Louis, Mo., was born in Sheffield, England, July 24, 1800. He was the oldest of four children, having had a brother who died in infancy and two sisters. His father, Joseph Shaw, was a manufacturer of grates, fire-irons, etc., at Sheffield.

The boy obtained his early education at Thorne, a village not far from his native town, and used to get his lessons in an arbor, half hidden by vines, and surrounded by trees and flowers. From childhood he had a passion for a garden, and worked with his two little sisters in planting anemones and buttercups.

From the school at Thorne the lad was transferred to Mill Hill, about twenty miles from London, to a "Dissenting" school, the father being a Baptist. Here he studied for six years, Latin, French, and probably other languages, as he knew in later life German, Italian, and Spanish. He became especially fond of French literature, and in manhood read and wrote French as easily and correctly as English. He was for a long time regarded as the best mathematician in St. Louis.

In 1818, when Henry was eighteen, he and the rest of the family came to Canada. The same year his father sent him to New Orleans to learn how to raise cotton; but the climate did not please him, and he removed to a small French trading-post, called St. Louis, May 3, 1819.

The youth had a little stock of cutlery with him, the capital for which his uncle, Mr. James Hoole, had furnished. His nephew was always grateful for this kind act. He rented a room on the second floor of a building, and cooked, slept, ate, and sold his goods in this one room. He went out very little in the evening, preferring to read books, and sometimes played chess with a friend. It is thought that he rather avoided meeting young ladies, as he perhaps naturally preferred to marry an English girl, when able to support her; but when the fortune was earned he was wedded to his gardens, his flowers, and his books, so that he never married. The young man showed great energy in his hardware business, was very economical, honest, and always punctual. He had little patience with persons who were not prompt, and failed to keep an engagement.

Though usually self-poised, possessing almost perfect control over a naturally quick temper, a gentleman relates that he once saw him angry because a man failed to keep an appointment; but Mr. Shaw regretted that he had allowed himself to speak sharply, and asked the offending person to dine with him. His head-gardener, Mr. James Gurney, from the Royal Botanical Garden in Regent's Park, London, said many years ago of Mr. Shaw, "In twenty-three years I never heard him speak a harsh or an irritable word. No matter what went wrong,--and on such a place, and with so many men, things will go wrong occasionally,--he was always pleasant and cheerful, making the best of what could not be helped."

Mr. Shaw gave close attention to business in the growing town of St. Louis, and in 1839, after he had been there twenty years, was astonished to find that his annual profits were $25,000. He said, "this was more money than any man in my circumstances ought to make in a single year;" and he resolved to go out of business as soon as a good opportunity presented itself. This occurred the following year, in 1840; and at forty years of age, Mr. Shaw retired from business with a fortune of $250,000, equivalent to a million, probably, at the present day.

After twenty years of constant labor he determined to take a little rest and change. In September, 1840, he went to Europe, stopping in Rochester, N.Y., where his parents and sisters then resided, and took his younger sister with him.

He was absent two years, and coming home in 1842, soon arranged for another term of travel abroad. He remained in Europe three years, travelling in almost all places of interest, including Constantinople and Egypt. He kept journals, and wrote letters to friends, showing careful observation and wide reading. He made a third and last visit to Europe in 1851, to attend the first World's Fair, held in London. During this visit he conceived the plan of what eventually became his great gift. While walking through the beautiful grounds of Chatsworth, the magnificent home of the Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Shaw said to himself, "Why may not I have a garden too? I have enough land and money for something of the same sort in a smaller way."

The old love for flowers and trees, as in boyhood, made the man in middle life determine to plant not so much for himself as for posterity. He had finished a home in the suburbs of St. Louis, Tower Grove, in 1849; and another was in process of building in the city on the corner of Seventh and Locust Streets, when Mr. Shaw returned from Europe in 1851.

For five or six years he beautified the grounds of his country home, and in 1857 commissioned Dr. Engelmann, then in Europe, to examine botanical gardens and select proper books for a botanical library. Correspondence was begun with Sir William J. Hooker, the distinguished director of the famous Kew Gardens in London, our own beloved botanist, Professor Asa Gray of Harvard College, and others. Dr. Engelmann urged Mr. Shaw to purchase the large herbarium of the then recently deceased Professor Bernhardi of Erfurt, Germany, which was done, Hooker writing, "The State ought to feel that it owes you much for so much public spirit, and so well directed."

March 14, 1859, Mr. Shaw secured from the State Legislature an Act enabling him to convey to trustees seven hundred and sixty acres of land, "in trust, upon a portion thereof to keep up, maintain, and establish a botanic garden for the cultivation and propagation of plants, flowers, fruit and forest trees, and for the dissemination of the knowledge thereof among men, by having a collection thereof easily accessible; and the remaining portion to be used for the purpose of maintaining a perpetual fund for the support and maintenance of said garden, its care and increase, and the museum, library, and instruction connected therewith."

For the next twenty-five years Mr. Shaw gave his time and strength to the development of his cherished garden and park. "He lived for them," says Mr. Thomas Dimmock, "and, as far as was practicable, _in_ them; walking or driving every day, when weather and health allowed, and permitting no work of importance to go on without more or less of his personal inspection and direction. The late Dr. Asa Gray, than whom there can be no higher authority, once said, 'This park and the Botanical Garden are the finest institutions of the kind in the country; in variety of foliage the park is unequalled.'"

Once when Mr. Shaw was escorting a lady through his gardens, she said, "I cannot understand, sir, how you are able to remember all these different and difficult names."--"Madam," he replied, with a courtly bow, "did you ever know a mother who could forget the names of her children? These plants and flowers are my children. How can I forget them?"

So devoted was Mr. Shaw to his work, that he did not go out of St. Louis for nearly twenty years, except for a drive to the neighboring village of Kirkwood to dine with a friend.

Nine years after the garden had been established, in 1866, Mr. Shaw began to create Tower Grove Park, of two hundred and seventy-six acres, planting from year to year over twenty thousand trees, all raised in the arboretum of the garden. Walks were gravelled, flower-beds laid out, ornamental water provided, and artistic statues of heroic size, made by Baron von Mueller of Munich, of Shakespeare, Humboldt, and Columbus. The niece of Humboldt, who saw the statue of her uncle at Munich, wrote to Mr. Shaw, saying that "Europe had done nothing comparable to it for the great naturalist."

Mr. Shaw used to say, when setting out these trees, that he was "planting them for posterity," as he did not expect to live to see them reach maturity. They were, however, of good size when he died in his ninetieth year, Sunday, Aug. 25, 1889.

"The death, peaceful and painless," says Mr. Dimmock, "occurred in his favorite room on the second floor of the old homestead, by the window of which he sat nearly every night for more than thirty years until the morning hours, absorbed in the reading which had been the delight of his life. This room was always plainly furnished, containing only a brass bedstead, tables, chairs, and the few books he loved to have near him. The windows looked out upon the old garden which was the first botanical beginning at Tower Grove.

"On Saturday, Aug. 31, after such ceremonial as St. Louis never before bestowed upon any deceased citizen, Henry Shaw was laid to rest in the mausoleum long prepared in the midst of the garden he had created--not for himself merely, but for the generations that shall come after him, and who, enjoying it, will 'rise up and call him blessed.'"

Mr. Shaw was beloved by his workmen for his uniform kindness to them. Once when a young boy who was visiting him, and walking with him in the garden, passed a lame workman, and did not speak, although Mr. Shaw said "Good-morning, Henry," the courteous old gentleman said, "Charles, you did not speak to Henry. Go back and say 'Good-morning' to him." Mr. Shaw employed many Bohemians, because he said, "They do not seem to be very popular with us, and I think I ought to help them all I can."

Mr. Shaw was always simple in his tastes and economical in his habits. He drove his one-horse barouche till his friends, owing to his infirmities from increasing age, prevailed upon him to have a carriage and a driver.

Four years before the death of Mr. Shaw he endowed a School of Botany as a department of Washington University, giving improved real estate yielding over $5,000 annually. He desired "to promote education and investigation in that science, and in its application to horticulture, arboriculture, medicine, and the arts, and for the exemplification of the Divine wisdom and goodness as manifested throughout the vegetable kingdom."

Dr. Asa Gray had been deeply interested in this movement, and twice visited St. Louis to consult with Mr. Shaw. By the recommendation of Dr. Gray, Mr. William Trelease, Professor of Botany in Wisconsin University at Madison, a graduate of Cornell University, and associated for some time with Professor Gray in various labors, was made Englemann Professor in the Henry Shaw School of Botany.

Professor Trelease was also made director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, and has proved his fitness for the position by his high rank in scholarship, his contributions to literature, and his devotion to the work which Mr. Shaw felt satisfaction in committing to his care. His courtesy as well as ability have won him many friends. Mr. Shaw left by will various legacies to relatives and institutions, his property, invested largely in land, having become worth over a million dollars. He gave to hospitals, several orphan asylums, Old Ladies' Home, Girls' Industrial Home, Young Men's Christian Association, etc., but by far the larger part to his beloved garden. He wished it to be open every day of the week to the public, except on Sundays and holidays, the first Sunday in June and the first Sunday in September being exceptions to the rule. When the garden was opened the first Sunday of June, 1895, there were 20,159 visitors, and in September, though showery, 15,500.

Mr. Shaw bequeathed $1,000 annually for a banquet to the trustees of the garden, and literary and scientific men whom they choose to invite, thus to spread abroad the knowledge of the useful work the garden and schools of botany are doing; also $400 for a banquet to the gardeners of the institution, with the florists, nurserymen, and market-gardeners of St. Louis and vicinity. Each year $500 is to be used in premiums at flower-shows, and $200 for an annual sermon "on the wisdom and goodness of God as shown in the growth of flowers, fruits, and other products of the vegetable kingdom."

The Missouri Botanical Garden, Shaw's Garden as it is more commonly called, covering about forty-five acres, is situated on Tower Grove Avenue, about three miles southwest of the New Union Station. The former city residence of Mr. Shaw has been removed to the garden, in which are the herbarium and library, with 12,000 volumes. The herbarium contains the large collection of the late Dr. George Engelmann, about 100,000 specimens of pressed plants; and the general collection contains even more than this number of specimens from all parts of the world. The palms, the cacti, the tree-ferns, the fig-trees, etc., are of much interest. There is an observatory in the centre of the garden; and south of this, in a grove of shingle-oaks and sassafras-trees, is the mausoleum of Henry Shaw, containing a life-like reclining marble statue of the founder of the garden, with a full-blown rose in his hand.

During the past year several ponds have been made in the garden for the Victoria Regia, or Amazon water-lily, and other lilies. On the approach of winter, over a thousand plants are taken from the ground, potted, and distributed to charitable institutions and poor homes in the city.

Much practical good has resulted from the great gift of Henry Shaw. According to his will, there are six scholarships provided for garden pupils. Three hundred dollars a year are given to each, with tuition free, and lodging in a comfortable house adjacent to the garden. So many persons have applied for instruction, that as many are received as can be taught conveniently, each paying $25 yearly tuition fee.

The culture of flowers, small fruits, orchards, house-plants, etc., is taught; also landscape-gardening, drainage, surveying, and kindred subjects. "It is safe to predict," says the Hon. Wm. T. Harris, Commissioner of Education, "that the future will see a large representation of specialists resorting to St. Louis to pursue the studies necessary for the promotion of agricultural industry."

Dr. Trelease gives two courses of evening lectures at Washington University each year, and at the garden he gives practical help to his learners. He investigates plant diseases and the remedies, and aids the fruit-grower, the florist, and the farmer, in the best methods with grasses, seeds, trees, etc. He deprecates the reckless manner in which troublesome weeds are scattered from farm to farm with clover and grass seed. He and his assistants are making researches concerning plants, flowers, etc., which are published annually.

The memory of Henry Shaw, "the first great patron of botanical science in America," is held in honor and esteem by the scientific world. The flowers and trees which he loved and found pleasure in cultivating, each year make thousands happier.

Nature was to him a great teacher. In his garden, over a statue of "Victory," these words are engraved in stone: "O Lord, how manifold are thy works: in wisdom hast thou made them all."

The seasons will come and go; the flowers will bud and blossom year after year, and the trees spread out their branches: they will be a continual reminder of the white-haired man who planted them for the sake of doing good to others.

Harvard College received a valuable gift May, 1861, through the munificence of the late Benjamin Bussey of Roxbury, Mass., in property estimated at $413,092.80, "for a course of instruction in practical agriculture, and the various arts subservient thereto." The superb estate is near Jamaica Plain. The students of the Bussey Institute generally intend to become gardeners, florists, landscape-gardeners, and farmers. The Arnold Arboretum occupies a portion of the Bussey farm in West Roxbury. The fund given by the late James Arnold of New Bedford, Mass., for this purpose now amounts to $156,767.97.

JAMES SMITHSON

AND THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.

Another Englishman besides Henry Shaw to whom America is much indebted is James Smithson, the giver of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. Born in 1765 in France, he was the natural son of Hugh, third Duke of Northumberland, and Mrs. Elizabeth Macie, heiress of the Hungerfords of Audley, and niece of Charles, Duke of Somerset.

At Pembroke College, Oxford, he was devoted to science, especially chemistry, and spent his vacations in collecting minerals. He was graduated May 26, 1786, and thereafter gave his time to study and original research. In 1790 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and became the friend of many distinguished men, both in England and on the Continent, where he lived much of the time. Among his friends and correspondents, were Sir Humphry Davy, Berzelius (the noted chemist of Sweden), Gay-Lussac the chemist, Thomson, Wollaston, and others.

He wrote and published in the _Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society_, and also in Thomson's _Annals of Philosophy_, many valuable papers on the "Composition of Zeolite," "On a Substance Procured from the Elm Tree, called Ulmine," "On a Saline Substance from Mount Vesuvius," "On Facts Relating to the Coloring Matter of Vegetables," etc. At his death he left about two hundred manuscripts. He was deeply interested in geology, and made copious notes in his journal on rocks and mining. His life seems to have been a quiet one, devoted to intellectual pursuits.

Professor Henry Carrington Bolton, in the _Popular Science Monthly_ for January and February, 1896, relates this incident of Smithson: "It is said that he frequently narrated an anecdote of himself which illustrated his remarkable skill in analyzing minute quantities of substances, an ability which rivalled that of Dr. Wollaston. Happening to observe a tear gliding down a lady's cheek, he endeavored to catch it on a crystal vessel. One-half the tear-drop escaped; but he subjected the other half to reagents, and detected what was then called microcosmic salt, muriate of soda, and some other saline constituents held in solution."

When Mr. Smithson was over fifty years of age, in 1818 or 1819, he had a misunderstanding with the Royal Society, owing to their refusal to publish one of his papers. It is said that prior to this he intended to leave all his wealth, over $500,000 to the society.

About three years before his death, he made a brief will, giving the income of his fortune to his nephew, Henry James Hungerford, and the whole fortune to the children of his nephew, if he should marry. In case he did not marry, Smithson bequeathed the whole of his property "to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."

Mr. Smithson, says Professor Simon Newcomb, "is not known to have had the personal acquaintance of an American, and his tastes were supposed to have been aristocratic rather than democratic. We thus have the curious spectacle of a retired English gentleman bequeathing the whole of his large fortune to our Government, to found an establishment which was described in ten words, without a memorandum of any kind by which his intentions could be divined, or the recipient of the gift guided in applying it."

Mr. Smithson died June 27, 1829, in Genoa, Italy, at the age of sixty-four. His nephew survived him only six years, dying unmarried at Pisa, Italy, June 5, 1835. He used the income from his uncle's estate while he lived, and upon his death it passed to the United States. Hungerford's mother, who had married a Frenchman, Madame Théodore de la Batut, claimed a life-interest in the estate of Smithson, which was granted till her death in 1861. To meet this annuity $26,210 was retained in England until she died.