Chapter IX: Part 9

For several years it was difficult to decide in what way Congress should use the money "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." John Quincy Adams desired a great astronomical observatory; Rufus Choate of Massachusetts urged a grand library; a senator from Ohio wished a botanical garden; another person a college for women; another a school for indigent children of the District of Columbia; still another a great agricultural school.

After seven years of indecision and discussion the Smithsonian Institution was organized by act of Congress, Aug. 10, 1846, which provided for a suitable building to contain objects of natural history, a chemical laboratory, a library, gallery of art, and geological and mineralogical collections. The minerals, books, and other property of James Smithson, were to be preserved in the Institution.

Professor Joseph Henry, whose interesting life I have sketched in my "Famous Men of Science," was called to the headship of the new Institution. For thirty-three years he devoted his life to make Smithson's gift a blessing to the world and an honor to the name of the generous giver. The present secretary is the well-known Professor Samuel P. Langley.

The library was after a time transferred to the Library of Congress, the art department to the Corcoran Art Gallery, and the Smithsonian Institution began to do its specific work of helping men to make original scientific research, to aid in explorations, and to send scientific publications all over the world. Its first publication was a work on the mounds and earthworks found in the Mississippi Valley. Much time has also been given to the study of the character and pursuits of the earliest races on this continent.

The Smithsonian Institution now owns two large buildings, one completed in 1855, costing about $314,000, and the great National Museum, which Congress helped to build. This building has a floor space of 100,000 square feet, and contains over three and one-half million specimens of birds, fishes, Oriental antiquities, minerals, fossils, etc. So much of value has been gathered by government surveys, as well as by contributions from other nations by way of exchange, that halls twice as large as those now built could be filled by the specimens. So popular is the museum as a place to visit, that in the year ending June 30, 1893, over 300,000 persons enjoyed its interesting accumulations.

Correspondence is carried on with learned societies and men of science all over the world. The official list of correspondents is over 24,000. The transactions of learned societies and some other scientific works are exchanged with those abroad. The weight of matter sent abroad by the Smithsonian Institution at the end of the first decade was 14,000 pounds for 1857; at the end of the third decade 99,000 pounds for the year 1877. The official documents of Congress, or by the government bureaus, are exchanged for similar works of foreign nations. In one year, 1892-1893, over 100 tons of books were handled.

The "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge" now number over thirty volumes, and are valuable treatises on various branches of science. The scholarly William B. Taylor said these books "distributed over every portion of the civilized or colonized world constitute a monument to the memory of the founder, James Smithson, such as never before was builded on the foundation of £100,000."

The Smithsonian Institution has been a blessing in many ways. It organized a system of telegraphic meteorology, and gave to the world "that most beneficent national application of modern sciences,--the storm warnings."

In the year 1891 the Institution received valuable aid from Mr. Thomas G. Hodgkins of Setauket, N.Y., by the gift of $200,000. The income from $100,000 is to be used in prizes for essays relating to atmospheric air. Mr. Hodgkins, also an Englishman, died Nov. 25, 1892, nearly ninety years old. He gave $100,000 to the Royal Institution of Great Britain, and $50,000 each to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and to Animals. He made his fortune, and having no family, spent it for "the diffusion of knowledge among men."

A very interesting feature was added to the work of the Smithsonian Institution in 1890, when Congress appropriated $200,000 for the purchase of land for the National Zoölogical Park. As no native wild animals in America seem safe from the cupidity of the trader, or the slaughter of the pleasure-loving sportsman, it became necessary to take measures for their preservation. About 170 acres were purchased on Rock Creek, near Washington; and there are already more than 500 animals--bisons, etc.--in these picturesque grounds. These will be valuable object-lessons to the people, and help still further to carry out James Smithson's idea, "the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."

PRATT, LENOX, MARY MACRAE STUART, NEWBERRY, CRERAR, ASTOR, REYNOLDS,

AND THEIR LIBRARIES.

ENOCH PRATT.

Enoch Pratt was born in North Middleborough, Mass., Sept. 10, 1808. He graduated at Bridgewater Academy when he was fifteen; and a position was found for him in a leading house in Boston, where he remained until he was twenty-one years of age. He had written to a friend in Boston two weeks before his school closed, "I do not want to stay at home long after it is out."

The eager, ambitious boy, with good habits, constant application to business, the strictest honesty, and good common-sense, soon made himself respected by his employers and his acquaintances.

He removed to Baltimore in 1831, when he was twenty-three years old, without a dollar at his command, and established himself as a commission merchant. He founded the wholesale iron house of Pratt & Keith, and subsequently that of Enoch Pratt & Brother. "Prosperity soon followed," says the Hon. George Wm. Brown, "not rapidly but steadily, because it was based on those qualities of honesty, industry, sagacity, and energy, which, mingled with thrift, although they cannot be said to insure success, are certainly most likely to achieve it."

Six years after coming to Baltimore, when he was twenty-nine years old, Mr. Pratt married Maria Louisa Hyde, Aug. 1, 1837. Her paternal ancestors were among the earliest settlers of Massachusetts; her maternal, a German family who settled in Baltimore over a century and a half ago.

As years went by, and the unobtrusive, energetic man came to middle life, he was sought to fill various positions of honor and trust in Baltimore. He was made director and president of a bank, which position he has held for over twoscore years, director and vice-president of railroads and steamboat lines, president of the House of Reformation at Cheltenham (for colored children), and of the Maryland School for the Deaf and Dumb at Frederick. He has also taken active interest in the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, and is treasurer of the Peabody Institute.

For years he has been one of the finance commissioners elected by the city council, without regard to his political belief, but on account of his ability as a financier, and his wisdom. He is an active member of the Unitarian Church.

For several years Mr. Pratt had thought about giving a free public library to the people of Baltimore. In 1882, when he was seventy-four, Mr. Pratt gave to the city $1,058,000 for the establishing of his library, the building to cost about $225,000, and the remainder, a little over $833,000, to be invested by the city, which obligated itself to pay $50,000 yearly forever for the maintenance of the free library. Mr. Pratt also provided for four branch libraries, which cost $50,000, located wisely in different parts of the city.

The main library was opened Jan. 4, 1886, with appropriate ceremonies. The Romanesque building of Baltimore County white marble is 82 feet frontage, with a depth of 140 feet. A tower 98 feet high rises in the centre of the front. The floor of the vestibule is in black and white marble, and the wainscoting of Tennessee and Vermont marbles, principally of a dove color. The reading-room in the second story is 75 feet long, 37 feet wide, and 25 feet high. The walls are frescoed in buff and pale green tints, the wainscoting is of marble, and the floor is inlaid with cherry, pine, and oak. The main building will hold 250,000 volumes.

The Romanesque branch libraries are 40 by 70 feet, one story in height, built of pressed brick laid with red mortar, with buff stone trimmings. The large reading-room in each is light and cheerful, and the book-room has shelving for 15,000 volumes.

The librarian's report shows that in nine years, ending with Jan. 1, 1895, over 4,000,000 books have been circulated among the people of Baltimore. Over a half-million books are circulated each year. The library possesses about 150,000 volumes. "The usefulness of the branch libraries cannot be stated in too strong terms," says the librarian, Mr. Bernard C. Steiner. Fifty-seven persons are employed in the library,--fourteen men and forty-three women.

Mr. Pratt is now eighty-eight years old, and has not ceased to do good works. In 1865 he founded the Pratt Free School at Middleborough, Mass., where he was born. Ex-Mayor James Hodges tells this incident of Mr. Pratt: "Some years ago he sold a farm in Virginia to a worthy but poor young man for $20,000. The purchaser had paid from time to time one-half the purchase money, when a series of bad seasons and failure of crops made it impossible to meet the subsequent payments. Mr. Pratt sent for him, and learned the facts.

"After expressing sympathy for the young man's misfortunes, and encouraging him to persevere and hope, he cancelled his note for the balance due,--$10,000,--and handed him a valid deed for the property. Astonished and overwhelmed by this princely liberality, the recipient uttered a few words, and retired from his benefactor's presence. Not until he had reached his Virginia home was he able to find words to express his gratitude."

The great gift of Enoch Pratt in his free library has stimulated like gifts all over the country; and in his lifetime he is enjoying the fruits of his generosity.

JAMES LENOX.

The founder of Lenox Library on Seventy-second Street, overlooking Central Park, was born in New York City, Aug. 19, 1800, and died there Feb. 17, 1880. His father, Robert, was a wealthy Scotch merchant of New York, who left to his only son and seven daughters several million dollars.

Robert purchased from the corporation of New York a farm of thirty acres of land in Fourth and Fifth Avenues, near Seventy-second Street. For twelve acres on one side he gave $500, and for the rest on the other side, $10,700. He thought the land might "at no distant day be the site of a village," and left it to his son on condition that it be kept from sale for several years.

The son was educated at Princeton and Columbia Colleges, studied law, but, being devoted to literary matters, spent much time abroad in collecting valuable books and works of art. The only lady to whom he was ever attached, it is stated, refused him, and both remained single.

He was a quiet, retiring man, a member of the Presbyterian Church, and a most generous giver, though his benefactions were kept from publicity as much as possible. He once sent $7,000 to a lady for a deserving charity, and refused her second application because she had told of his former gift.

He built Lenox Library of Lockport limestone, and gave to it $735,000 in cash, and ten city lots of great value, on which the building stands. The collection of books, marbles, pictures, etc., which he gave is valued at a million dollars.

He gave probably a million in money and land to the Presbyterian Hospital, of which he was for many years the president. He was also president of the American Bible Society, to which he gave liberally. To the Presbyterian Home for Aged Women he gave land assessed at $64,000. He gave to Princeton College and Theological Seminary, to his own church, and to needy men of letters.

After his death, his last surviving sister, Henrietta Lenox, in 1887 gave to the library ten valuable adjoining lots, and $100,000 for the purchase of books.

The nephew of Mr. Lenox, Robert Lenox Kennedy, who succeeded his uncle as president of the Board of Trustees of the library, presented to the institution, in 1879, Munkacsy's great picture of "Blind Milton dictating 'Paradise Lost' to his Daughter." He died at sea, Sept. 14, 1887.

The Lenox Library has a remarkable collection of works, which will always be an honor to America. Its early American newspapers bear dates from 1716 to 1800, and include examples of nearly every important gazette of the Colonial and Revolutionary times. The library received in 1894 over 45,000 papers. The _Boston News Letter_, the first regular newspaper printed in America, is an object of interest. Several of the newspapers appeared in mourning on account of the Stamp Act in October, 1765.

The library has large collections in American history, Bibles, early educational books, and old English literature. "The Souldier's Pocket Bible" is one of two known copies--the other being in the British Museum--of the famous pocket Bible used by Cromwell's soldiers. Many of the Bibles are extremely rare, and of great value. There are five copies of Eliot's Indian Bible. There are 2,200 English Bibles from 1493, and 1,200 Bibles in other languages.

One of the oldest American publications in the library is "Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes in Either England," by John Cotton, B.D., in 1656. An old English work has this title: "The Boke of Magna Carta, with divers other statutes, etc., 1534 (Colophon:) Thus endyth the boke called Magna Carta, translated out of Latyn and Frenshe into Englyshe by George Ferrers."

There are several interesting books concerning witchcraft. The original book of testimony taken in the trial of Hugh Parsons for witchcraft at Springfield, in 1651, is mostly in the handwriting of William Pynchon, but with some entries by Secretary Edward Rawson. The library possesses the manuscript of Henry Harrisse's work on the "Discovery of America," forming ten folio volumes. The library of the Hon. George Bancroft was purchased by the Lenox Library in 1893.

The Milton collection in the library contains about 250 volumes, nearly every variety of the early editions. Several volumes have Milton's autograph and annotations. There are about 500 volumes of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and books relating to the writer, containing nearly 350 editions in many languages. There are also about 200 volumes of Spanish manuscripts relating to America. The set of "Jesuit Relations," the journals of the early Jesuit missionaries in this country, is the most complete in existence.

Many thousands of persons come each year to see the books and pictures, as well as to read, and all are aided by the courteous librarian, Mr. Wilberforce Eames, who loves his work, and has the scholarship necessary for it.

MARY MACRAE STUART.

At her death in New York City, Dec. 30, 1891, gave the Robert L. Stuart fine-art collections valued at $500,000, her shells, minerals, and library, to the Lenox Library, on condition that they should never be exhibited on Sunday. To nine charitable institutions in New York she gave $5,000 each; to Cooper Union, $10,000; to the Cancer Hospital, $25,000; and about $5,000,000 to home and foreign missions of the Presbyterian Church, hospitals, disabled ministers, freedmen, Church Extension Society, aged women, etc., of the same church, and also the Young Men's Christian Association, Woman's Hospital, Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Society for Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children, City Mission and Tract Society, Bible Society, Colored Orphans, Juvenile Asylum, and other institutions in New York.

Mrs. Stuart was the daughter of a wealthy New York merchant, Robert Macrae, and married Robert L. Stuart, the head of the firm of sugar-refiners, R. L. & A. Stuart. Both brothers were rich, and gave away before Alexander's death a million and a half. Robert left an estate valued at $6,000,000 to his wife, as they had no children; and she, in his behalf, gave away his fortune and also her own. She would have given largely to the Museum of Natural History and Museum of Art in New York, but from a fear that they would be opened to the public on Sundays.

WALTER L. NEWBERRY.

Chicago has been recently enriched by two great gifts, the Newberry and Crerar Libraries. Walter Loomis Newberry was born at East Windsor, Conn., Sept. 18, 1804. He was educated at Clinton, N.Y., and fitted for the United States Military Academy, but could not pass the physical examination. After a time spent with his brother in commercial life in Buffalo, N.Y., he removed to Detroit in 1828, and engaged in the dry-goods business. He went to Chicago in 1834, when that city had but three thousand inhabitants, and became first a commission merchant, and later a banker. He invested some money which he brought with him in forty acres on the "North Side," which is now among the best residence property in the city, and of course very valuable.

Mr. Newberry helped to found the Merchants' Loan & Trust Companies' Bank, and was one of its directors. He was also the president of a railroad.

He was always deeply interested in education; was for many years on the school-board, and twice its chairman. He was president of the Chicago Historical Society, and was the first president of the Young Men's Library Association, which he helped to found.

Mr. Newberry died at sea, Nov. 6, 1868, at the age of sixty-four, leaving about $5,000,000 to his wife and two daughters.

If these children died unmarried, half the property was to go to his brothers and sisters, or their descendants, after the death of his wife, and half to the founding of a library.

Both daughters died unmarried,--Mary Louisa on Feb. 18, 1874, at Pau, France; and Julia Rosa on April 4, 1876, at Rome, Italy. Mrs. Julia Butler Newberry, the wife, died at Paris, France, Dec. 9, 1885.

The Newberry Library building, 300 feet by 60, of granite, is on the north side of Chicago, facing the little park known as Washington Square. It is Spanish-Romanesque in style, and has room for 1,000,000 books. There will be space for 4,000,000 volumes when the other portions of the library are added. A most necessary part of the work of the trustees was the choosing of a librarian with ability and experience to form a useful reference library, which it was decided that the Newberry Library should be, the Public Library, with its annual income of over $70,000, seeming to meet the needs of the people at large. Dr. William Frederick Poole, for fourteen years the efficient librarian of the Chicago Public Library, was chosen librarian of the Newberry Library.

Dictionaries, bibliographies, cyclopædias, and the like, were at once purchased. The first gift made to the library was the Caxton Memorial Bible, presented Sept. 29, 1877, by the Oxford University Press, through the late Henry Stevens, Esq., of London. The edition was limited to one hundred copies, and the copy presented to the Newberry Library is the ninety-eighth. Mr. George P. A. Healey, the distinguished artist, also gave about fifty of his valuable paintings to the library. Several thousand volumes on early American and local history, collected by Mr. Charles H. Guild of Somerville, Mass., were purchased by Dr. Poole for the library. A collection of 415 volumes of bound American newspapers, covering the period of the Civil War, 1861-1865, were procured. An extremely useful medical library has been given by Dr. Nicholas Senn, Professor of Surgery in Rush Medical College. A valuable collection on fish, fish culture, and angling, made during forty years by the publisher, Robert Clarke of Cincinnati, has been bought for the library. A very interesting collection of early books and manuscripts was purchased from Mr. Henry Probasco of Cincinnati. The collection of Bibles is very rich; also of Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Horace, and Petrarch. There were in 1895 over 125,600 volumes in the library, and over 30,000 pamphlets.

To the great regret of scholars everywhere, Dr. Poole died March 1, 1894. Born in Salem, Mass., Dec. 24, 1821, descended from an old English family, young Poole attended the common school in Danvers till he was twelve, helped his father on the farm, and learned the tanner's trade. He loved his books, and his good mother determined that he should have an opportunity to go back to his studies.

In 1842 he entered Yale College, at the close of the Freshman year, spent three years in teaching, and was graduated in 1849. While in college, he was appointed assistant librarian of his college society, the "Brothers in Unity," which had 10,000 volumes. He soon saw the necessity of an index for the bound sets of periodicals in the library, if they were to be of practical use, and began to make such an index. The little volume of one hundred and fifty-four pages appeared in 1848, and the edition was soon exhausted. A volume of five hundred and thirty-one pages appeared in 1853; and "Poole's Index" at once secured fame for its author, both at home and abroad.

Dr. Poole was the librarian of the Boston Athenæum for thirteen years, and accepted a position in Chicago, October, 1873, to form the public library. In 1882 Dr. Poole issued the third edition of his famous "Index to Periodical Literature," having 1,469 pages. In this work he had the co-operation of the American Library Association, the Library Association of Great Britain and Ireland, and the able assistance of Wm. I. Fletcher, M.A., librarian of Amherst College. Since Dr. Poole's death, Mr. Fletcher and Mr. R. R. Bowker have carried forward the Index, aided by many other librarians.

Dr. Poole was president of the American Historical Society, 1887, of the American Library Association 1886-1888, and had written much on historical and literary topics. The Boston _Herald_ says, "Dr. Poole was a bibliographer of world-wide reputation, and one whose extended knowledge of books was simply wonderful." His "Index to Periodical Literature," invaluable to both writers and readers, will perpetuate his name. Dr. Poole was succeeded by the well-known author, Mr. John Vance Cheney, who had been eight years at the head of the San Francisco public library.

JOHN CRERAR.

Was born in New York City, the son of John Crerar, his parents both natives of Scotland.

He was educated in a common school, and at the age of eighteen became a clerk in a mercantile house. In 1862 he went to Chicago, and associated himself with J. McGregor Adams in the iron business. He was also interested in railroads, and was the president of a company. He was an upright member of the Second Presbyterian Church, and his first known gift was $10,000 to that church.

Unmarried, he lived quietly at the Grand Pacific Hotel until his death, Oct. 19, 1889. In his will he said, "I ask that I may be buried by the side of my honored mother, in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, N.Y., in the family lot, and that some of my many friends see that this request is complied with. I desire a plain headstone, similar to that which marks my mother's grave, to be raised over my head." The income of $1,000 was left to care for the family lot. He left various legacies to relatives. To first cousins he gave $20,000 each; to second cousins, $10,000; and to third cousins, $5,000 each. To one second cousin, on account of kindness to his mother, an additional $10,000; to the widow of a cousin, $10,000 for kindness to his only brother, Peter, then dead. To several other friends sums from $50,000 to $5,000 each.

To his partner he gave $50,000, and the same to his junior partner. To his own church, $100,000, and a like amount to the missions of the church. To the church in New York to which his family formerly belonged, and where he was baptized, $25,000. To the Chicago Orphan Asylum, the Chicago Nursery, the American Sunday-school Union, the Chicago Relief Society, the Illinois Training-School for Nurses, the Chicago Manual Training-School, the Old People's Home, the Home for the Friendless, the Young Men's Christian Association, each $50,000.

To the Chicago Historical Society, the St. Luke's Free Hospital, and the Chicago Bible Society, each $25,000. To St. Andrew's Society of New York and of Chicago, each $10,000. To the Chicago Literary Club, $10,000. For a statue of Abraham Lincoln, $100,000.

All the rest of the property, about three millions, was to be used for a free public library, to be called "The John Crerar Library," located on the South Side, inasmuch as the Newberry was to be on the North Side.

Mr. Crerar said in his will, "I desire the books and periodicals selected with a view to create and sustain a healthy moral and Christian sentiment in the community. I do not mean by this that there shall not be anything but hymn-books and sermons; but I mean that dirty French novels, and all sceptical trash, and works of questionable moral tone, shall never be found in this library. I want its atmosphere that of Christian refinement, and its aim and object the building up of character."

Mr. Crerar was fond of reading the best books. His liberality and love of literature helped to bring Thackeray to this country to lecture.

Some of the cousins of Mr. Crerar tried to break the will on the grounds put forth for breaking Mr. Tilden's will, whereby New York City failed to receive five or six millions for a public library. Fortunately the courts accepted the plain intention of the giver, and the property is now devoted to the public good through a great library largely devoted to science.

JOHN JACOB ASTOR.

From the little village of Waldorf, near Heidelberg, Germany, came the head of the Astor family to America when he was twenty years old. Born July 17, 1763, the fourth son of a butcher, he helped his father until he was sixteen, and then determined to join an elder brother in London, who worked in the piano and flute factory of their uncle.

Having no money, he set out on foot for the Rhine; and resting under a tree, he made this resolution, which he always kept, "to be honest, industrious, and never gamble." Finding employment on a raft of timber, he earned enough money to procure a steerage passage from Holland to London, where he remained till 1783, helping his brother, and learning the English language. Having saved about seventy-five dollars at the end of three or four years, John Jacob invested about twenty-five in seven flutes, purchased a steerage ticket across the water for a like amount, and put about twenty-five in his pocket.

On the journey over he met a furrier, who told him that money could be made in buying furs from the Indians and men on the frontier, and selling them to large dealers. As soon as he reached New York, he entered the employ of a Quaker furrier, and learned all he could about the business, meantime selling his flutes, and using the money to buy furs from the Indians and hunters. He opened a little shop in New York for the sale of furs and musical instruments, walked nearly all over New York State in collecting his furs, and finally went back to London to sell his goods.

He married, probably in 1786, Sarah Todd, who brought as her marriage portion $300, and what was better still, economy, energy, and a willingness to share her husband's constant labors. As fast as a little money was saved he invested it in land, having great faith in the future of New York City. He lived most simply in the same house where he carried on his business, and after fifteen years found himself the owner of $250,000.

In 1809 he organized the American Fur Company, and established trade in furs with France, England, Germany, and Russia, and engaged in trade with China. He used to say in his old age, "The first hundred thousand dollars--that was hard to get; but afterward it was easy to make more."

He died March 29, 1848, leaving a fortune estimated at $20,000,000, much of it the result of increased values of land, on which he had built houses for rent. By will Mr. Astor conveyed the large sum, at that time, of $400,000 to found a public library; his friends, Washington Irving, Dr. Joseph G. Cogswell, and Fitz-Greene Halleck, the poet, who was his secretary for seventeen years, having advised the gift of a library when he expressed a desire to do something helpful for the city of New York. He also left $50,000 for the benefit of the poor in his native town of Waldorf.

John Jacob Astor's eldest son, and third of his seven children, William B. Astor, left and gave during his lifetime $550,000 to Astor Library. His estate of $45,000,000 was divided between his two sons, John Jacob and William. The son of John Jacob, William Waldorf Astor, a graduate of Columbia College, ex-minister to Italy, is a scholarly man, and the author of several books. The son of William Astor, John Jacob Astor, a graduate of Harvard, lives on Fifth Avenue, New York. He has also written one or more books.

In 1879 John Jacob, the grandson of the first Astor in this country, a graduate of Columbia College, a student of the University of Göttingen, and a graduate of the Harvard Law School, erected a third structure for the library similar to those built by his father and grandfather, and gave in all $850,000 to Astor Library. The entire building now has a frontage of two hundred feet, with a depth of one hundred feet. It is of brown-stone and brick, and is Byzantine in style of architecture. In 1893 its total number of volumes was 245,349.

Astor Library possesses some very rare and valuable books. "Here is one of the very few extant copies of Wyckliffe's translation of the New Testament in manuscript," writes Frederick K. Saunders, the librarian, in the _New England Magazine_ for April, 1890, "so closely resembling black-letter type as almost to deceive even a practised eye. It is enriched with illuminated capitals, and its supposed date is 1390. It is said to have been once the property of Duke Humphrey. There is an Ethiopic manuscript on vellum, the service book of an Abyssinian convent at Jerusalem. There are two richly illuminated Persian manuscripts on vellum which once belonged to the library of the Mogul Emperors of Delhi; also two exquisitely illuminated missals or books of Hours, the gift of the late Mr. J. J. Astor. One of the glories of the collection is the splendid Salisbury Missal, written with wonderful skill, and profusely emblazoned with burnished gold. Here also may be found the second printed Bible, on vellum, folio, 1462, which cost $9,000."

Mrs. Astor gave a valuable collection of autographs of eminent persons; and the family also gave "a magnificent manuscript written with liquid gold, on purple vellum, entitled 'Evangelistarium,' of almost unrivalled beauty, but no less remarkable for its great age, the date being A.D. 870. This is probably the oldest book in America." Ptolemy's Geography is represented by fifteen editions, the earliest printed in 1478.

John Jacob Astor, the grandson of the first John Jacob, died in New York, Feb. 22, 1890. He presented to Trinity Church the reredos and altar, costing $80,000, as a memorial of his father, William B. Astor. Through his wife, who was a Miss Gibbs of South Carolina, he virtually built the New York Cancer Hospital, and gave largely to the Woman's Hospital. He gave $100,000 to St. Luke's Hospital, $50,000 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with his wife's superb collection of laces after her death in 1887. The paintings of John Jacob Astor costing $75,000 were presented to Astor Library by his son, William Waldorf Astor, after his father's death.

MORTIMER FABRICIUS REYNOLDS.

"On the 2d of December, 1814, there was born, in the narrow clearing that skirted the ford of the Genesee River, the first child of white parents to see the light upon that 'Hundred-Acre Tract' which was the primitive site of the present city of Rochester. Mortimer Fabricius Reynolds was the name given, for family reasons, to the first-born of this backwoods settlement." Thus states the "Semi-Centennial History of the City of Rochester, N.Y.," published in 1888.

This boy, grown to manhood and engaged in commerce, was the sole survivor of the six children of his father, Abelard Reynolds. He was proud of the family name; but "his childlessness, and the consciousness that with him the name was to be extinct, had come to weigh with a painful gravity." Abelard Reynolds had made a fortune from the increase in land values, and both he and his son William had interested themselves deeply in the intellectual and moral advance of the community in which they lived.

Mortimer F. Reynolds desired to leave a memorial of his father, of his brother, William Abelard Reynolds, and of himself. He wisely chose to found a library, that the name might be forever remembered. He died June 13, 1892, leaving nearly one million to found and endow the Reynolds Library of Rochester, N.Y., Alfred S. Collins, librarian.

It is stated in the press that President Seth Low of Columbia College has given over a million dollars for the new library in connection with that college.

In "Public Libraries of America," page 144, a most useful book by William I. Fletcher, librarian of Amherst College, may be found a suggestive list of the principal gifts to libraries in the United States. Among the larger bequests are Dr. James Rush, Philadelphia, $1,500,000; Henry Hall, St. Paul, Minn., $500,000; Charles E. Forbes, Northampton, Mass., $220,000; Mr. and Mrs. Converse, Malden, Mass., $125,000; Hiram Kelley, Chicago, to public library, $200,000; Silas Bronson, Waterbury, Conn., $200,000; Dr. Kirby Spencer, Minneapolis, Minn., $200,000; Mrs. Maria C. Robbins of Brooklyn, N.Y., to her former home, Arlington, Mass., for public library building and furnishing, $150,000.

FREDERICK H. RINDGE

AND HIS GIFTS.

Mr. Rindge, born in Cambridge, Mass., in 1857, but at present residing in California, has given his native city a public library, a city hall, a manual training-school, and a valuable site for a high school.

The handsome library, Romanesque in style, of gray stone with brown stone trimmings, was opened to the public in 1889. One room of especial interest on the first floor contains war relics, manuscripts, autographs and pictures of distinguished persons, and literary and historical matter connected with the history of Cambridge. The European note-book of Margaret Fuller is seen here, the lock, key, and hinges of the old Holmes mansion, removed to make way for the Law School, etc.

The library has six local stations where books may be ordered by filling out a slip; and these orders are gathered up three times a day, and books are sent to these stations the same day.

The City Hall, a large building also of gray stone with brown stone trimmings, is similar to the old town halls of Brussels, Bruges, and others of mediæval times. Its high tower can be seen at a great distance.

The other important gift to Cambridge from Mr. Rindge is a manual training-school for boys. Ground was broken for this school in the middle of July, 1888, and pupils were received in September. The boys work in wood, iron, blacksmithing, drawing, etc. The system is similar to that adopted by Professor Woodward at St. Louis. The boys, to protect their clothes, wear outer suits of dark brown and black duck, and round paper caps.

The fire-drill is especially interesting to strangers. Hose-carriages and ladders are kept in the building, and the boys can put streams of water to the top in a very brief time. Mr. Rindge supports the school. _The instruction is free_, and is a part of the public-school work. The pupils may take in the English High School a course of pure head-work, or part head-work and part hand-work. If they elect the latter, they drop one study, and in its place take three hours a day in manual training. The course covers three years.

Mr. Rindge inherited his wealth largely from his father. He made these gifts when he was twenty-nine years of age. Being an earnest Christian, he made it a condition of his gifts that verses of Scripture and maxims of conduct should be inscribed upon the walls of the various buildings. These are found on the library building; and the inscription on the City Hall reads as follows: "God has given commandments unto men. From these commandments men have framed laws by which to be governed. It is honorable and praiseworthy to faithfully serve the people by helping to administer these laws. If the laws are not enforced, the people are not well governed."

ANTHONY J. DREXEL

AND HIS INSTITUTE.

The Drexel family, like a majority of the successful and useful families in this country, began poor. Anthony J. Drexel's father, Francis Martin Drexel, was born at Dornbirn, in the Austrian Tyrol, April 7, 1792. When he was eleven years old, his father, a merchant, sent him to a school near Milan. Later, when there was a war with France, he was obliged to go to Switzerland to avoid conscription.

He earned a scanty living at whatever he could find to do, but his chief work and pleasure was in portrait painting. When he was twenty-five, in 1817, he determined to try his fortune in the New World, and reached the United States after a voyage of seventy-two days.

He settled in Philadelphia as an artist, with probably little expectation of any future wealth. After nine years of work he went to Peru, Chili, and Mexico, and seems to have had good success in painting the portraits of noted people, General Simon Bolivar among them.

Returning to Philadelphia, he surprised his acquaintances by starting a bank in 1837. There were fears of failure from what seemed an inadequate capital and lack of knowledge of business; but Mr. Drexel was economical, strictly honest, energetic, and devoted to his work.

He opened a little office in Third Street, and placed his son Anthony, born Sept. 13, 1826, in the small bank. "While waiting on customers," says _Harper's Weekly_, "the boy was in the habit of eating his cold dinner from a basket under the counter." He was but a lad of thirteen, yet he soon showed a special fitness for the place by his quickness and good sense.

The bank grew in patrons, in reputation, and in wealth; and when Francis Drexel died, June 5, 1863, he had long been a millionnaire, had retired from business, and left the bank to the management of his sons.

Besides the bank in Philadelphia, branch houses were formed in New York, Paris, and London. "As a man of affairs," wrote his very intimate friend, George W. Childs, "no one has ever spoken ill of Anthony J. Drexel; and he spoke ill of no one. He did not drive sharp bargains; he did not profit by the hard necessities of others; he did not exact from those in his employ excessive tasks and give them inadequate pay. He was a lenient, patient, liberal creditor, a generous employer, considerate of and sympathetic with every one who worked for him....

"He was a devoted husband, a loving parent, a true friend, a generous host, and in all his domestic relations considerate, just, and kind. His manners were finely courteous, manly, gentle, and refined. His mind was as pure as a child's; and during all the years of our close companionship I never knew him to speak a word that he might not have freely spoken in the presence of his own children. His religion was as deep as his nature, and rested upon the enduring foundations of faith, hope, and charity.

"He observed always a strict simplicity of living; he walked daily to and from his place of business, which was nearly three miles distant from his home. I was his companion for the greater part of the way every morning in these long walks; and as he passed up and down Chestnut Street, he was wont to salute in his cordial, pleasant, friendly manner, large numbers of all sorts and conditions of people. His smile was especially bright and attractive, and his voice low and sweet."

Mr. Drexel inherited his father's artistic tastes, and in his home at West Philadelphia, and at his country place, "Runnymede," near Lansdowne, he had many beautiful works of art, statuary, books, paintings, bronzes, and the like. He was also especially fond of music.

He was a great friend of General Grant, and Dec. 19, 1879, gave him and Mrs. Grant a notable reception with about seven hundred prominent guests. He was one of the pall-bearers at Grant's funeral in 1885.

Mr. Drexel was always a generous giver. He was a large contributor to the University of Pennsylvania, to hospitals, to churches of all denominations, and to asylums. With Mr. Childs and others he built an Episcopal church at Elberon, Long Branch, where he usually went in the summer.

His largest and best gift, for which he will be remembered, is that of about three million dollars to found and endow Drexel Institute, erected in his lifetime. He wished to fit young men and women to earn their living; and after making a careful examination of Cooper Institute, New York, and Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, and sending abroad to learn the best methods and plan of buildings for such industrial education, he began his own admirable Drexel Institute of Art, Science, and Industry in West Philadelphia. He erected the handsome building of light buff brick with terra-cotta trimmings, at the corner of Thirty-second and Chestnut Streets, at a cost of $550,000, and then gave an endowment of $1,000,000. At various times he gave to the library, museum, etc., over $600,000.

The Institute was dedicated on the afternoon of Dec. 17, 1891, Chauncey M. Depew making the dedication address, and was opened to students Jan. 4, 1892. James MacAlister, LL.D., superintendent of the public schools of Philadelphia, a man of fine scholarship, great energy, and enthusiastic love for the work of education, was chosen as the president.

From the first the school has been filled with eager students in the various departments. The art department gives instruction in painting, modelling, architecture, design and decoration, wood-carving, etc.; the department of science and technology, courses in mathematics, chemistry, physics, machine construction, and electrical engineering; the department of mechanic arts, shopwork in wood and iron with essential English branches; the business department, commercial law, stenography, and typewriting, etc.; the department of domestic science and arts gives courses in cooking, dressmaking, and millinery. There are also courses in physical training, in music, library work, and evening classes open five nights in the week from October to April.

The Institute was attended by more than 2,700 students in 1893-1894; and 35,000 persons attended the free public lectures in art, science, technology, etc., and free concerts, chiefly organ recitals, weekly, during the winter months.

The Institute has been fortunate in its gifts from friends. Mr. George W. Childs gave to it his rare and valuable collection of manuscripts and autographs, fine engravings, ivories, books on art, etc.; Mrs. John R. Fell, a daughter of Mr. Drexel, a collection of ancient jewellery and rare old clocks; Mrs. James W. Paul, another daughter of Mr. Drexel, $10,000 as a memorial of her mother, to be used in the purchase of articles for the museum; while other members of the family have given bronzes, metal-work, and unique and useful gifts.

Mr. Drexel lived to see his Institute doing its noble work. So interested was he that he stopped daily as he went to the bank to see the young people at their duties. He was greatly interested in the evening classes. "This part of the work," says Dr. MacAlister, "he watched with great eagerness, and he was specially desirous that young people who were compelled to work through the day should have opportunities in the evening equal to those who took the regular daily work of the Institution."

Mr. Drexel died suddenly, June 30, 1893, about two years after the building of the Institute, from apoplexy, at Carlsbad, Germany. He had gone to Europe for his health, as was his custom yearly, and seemed about as well as usual until the stroke came. Two weeks before he had had a mild attack of pleurisy, but would not permit his family to be told of it, thinking that he would fully recover.

Mr. Drexel left behind him the memory of a modest, unassuming man; so able a financier that he was asked to accept the position of Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, but declined; so generous a giver, that he built his monument before his death in his elegant and helpful Institute, an honor to his native city, Philadelphia, and an honor to his family.

PHILIP D. ARMOUR

AND HIS INSTITUTE.

Philip D. Armour was born in Stockbridge, Madison County, N.Y., and spent his early life on a farm. In 1852, when he was twenty years of age, he went to California, and finally settled in Chicago, where he has become very wealthy by dealing in packed meat, which is sent to almost every corner of the earth.

"He pays six or seven millions of dollars yearly in wages," writes Arthur Warren in an interesting article in _McClure's Magazine_, February, 1894, "owns four thousand railway cars, which are used in transporting his goods, and has seven or eight hundred horses to haul his wagons. Fifty or sixty thousand persons receive direct support from the wages paid in his meatpacking business alone, if we estimate families on the census basis. He is a larger owner of grain-elevators than any other individual in either hemisphere; he is the proprietor of a glue factory, which turns out a product of seven millions of tons a year; and he is actively interested in an important railway enterprise."

He manages his business with great system, and knows from his heads of departments, some of whom he pays a salary of $25,000 yearly, what takes place from day to day in his various works. He is a quiet, self-centred man, a good listener, has excellent judgment, and possesses untiring energy.

"All my life," he says, "I have been up with the sun. The habit is as easy at sixty-one as it was at sixteen; perhaps easier, because I am hardened to it. I have my breakfast at half-past five or six; I walk down town to my office, and am there by seven, and I know what is going on in the world without having to wait for others to come and tell me. At noon I have a simple luncheon of bread and milk, and after that, usually, a short nap, which freshens me again for the afternoon's work. I am in bed again at nine o'clock every night."

Mr. Armour thinks there are as great and as many opportunities for men to succeed in life as there ever have been. He said to Mr. Warren: "There was never a better time than the present, and the future will bring even greater opportunities than the past. Wealth, capital, can do nothing without brains to direct it. It will be as true in the future as it is in the present that brains make capital--capital does not make brains. The world does not stand still. Changes come quicker now than they ever did, and they will come quicker and quicker. New ideas, new inventions, new methods of manufacture, of transportation, new ways to do almost everything, will be found as the world grows older; and the men who anticipate them, and who are ready for them, will find advantages as great as any their fathers or grandfathers have had."

Mr. Frank G. Carpenter, the well-known journalist, relates this incident of Mr. Armour:--

"He is a good judge of men, and he usually puts the right man in the right place. I am told that he never discharges a man if he can help it. If the man is not efficient he gives instructions to have him put in some other department, but to keep him if possible. There are certain things, however, which he will not tolerate; and among these are laziness, intemperance, and getting into debt. As to the last, he says he believes in good wages, and that he pays the best. He tells his men that if they are not able to live on the wages he pays them he does not want them to work for him. Not long ago he met a policeman in his office.

"'What are you doing here, sir?' he asked.

"'I am here to serve a paper,' was the reply.

"'What kind of a paper?' asked Mr. Armour.

"'I want to garnishee one of your men's wages for debt,' said the policeman.

"'Indeed,' replied Mr. Armour; 'and who is the man?' He thereupon asked the policeman into his private office, and ordered the debtor to come in. He then asked the clerk how long he had been in debt. The man replied that for twenty years he had been behind, and that he could not catch up.

"'But you get a good salary,' said Mr. Armour, 'don't you?'

"'Yes,' said the clerk; 'but I can't get out of debt. My life is such that somehow or other I can't get out.'

"'But you must get out,' said Mr. Armour, 'or you must leave here. How much do you owe?'

"The clerk then gave the amount. It was less than $1,000. Mr. Armour took his check-book, and wrote out an order for the amount. 'There,' he said, as he handed the clerk the check, 'there is enough to pay all your debts. Now I want you to keep out of debt, and if I hear of your getting into debt again you will have to leave.'

"The man took the check. He did pay his debts, and remodelled his life on a cash basis. About a year after the above incident happened he came to Mr. Armour, and told him that he had had a place offered him at a higher salary, and that he was going to leave. He thanked Mr. Armour, and told him that his last year had been the happiest of his life, and that getting out of debt had made a new man of him."

When Mr. Armour was asked by Mr. Carpenter to what he attributed his great success, he replied:--

"I think that thrift and economy have had much to do with it. I owe much to my mother's training, and to a good line of Scotch ancestors, who have always been thrifty and economical."

Mr. Armour has not been content to spend his life in amassing wealth only. After the late Joseph Armour bequeathed a fund to establish Armour Mission, Philip D. Armour doubled the fund, or more than doubled it; and now the Mission has nearly two thousand children in its Sunday-school, with free kindergarten and free dispensary. Mr. Armour goes to the Mission every Sunday afternoon, and finds great happiness among the children.

To yield a revenue yearly for the Mission, Mr. Armour built "Armour Flats," a great building adjoining the Mission, with a large grass-plot in the centre, where in two hundred and thirteen flats, having each from six to seven rooms, families can find clean and attractive homes, with a rental of from seventeen to thirty-five dollars a month.

"There is an endowed work," says Mr. Armour, "that cannot be altered by death, or by misunderstandings among trustees, or by bickerings of any kind. Besides, a man can do something to carry out his ideas while he lives, but he can't do so after he is in the grave. Build pleasant homes for people of small incomes, and they will leave their ugly surroundings, and lead brighter lives."

Mr. Armour, aside from many private charities, has given over a million and a half dollars to the Armour Institute of Technology. The five-story fire-proof building of red brick trimmed with brown stone was finished Dec. 6, 1892, on the corner of Thirty-third Street and Armour Avenue; and the keys were put in the hands of the able and eloquent preacher, Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus, "to formulate," says the Chicago _Tribune_, Oct. 15, 1893, "more exactly than Mr. Armour had done the lines on which this work was to go forward. Dr. Gunsaulus had long ago reached the conclusion that the best way to prepare men for a home in heaven is to make it decently comfortable for them here."

Dr. Gunsaulus put his heart and energy into this noble work. The academic department prepares students to enter any college in the country; the technical department gives courses in mechanical engineering, electricity, and electrical engineering, mining engineering, and metallurgy. The department of domestic arts offers instruction in cooking, dressmaking, millinery, etc.; the department of commerce fits persons for a business life, wisely combining with its course in shorthand and typewriting such a knowledge of the English language, history, and some modern languages, as will make the students do intelligent work for authors, lawyers, and educated people in general.