MuNSEYS Magazine Vol. XXXIV Februarx 190b Number V NEW YORK'S GREAT NEW L1BRAR\^ BY CLIFFORD SMYTH A LIBRARY THAT EXCEEDS ALL OTHERS IN ITS RECORD OF SERVICE TO THE PUBLIC-ITS MAGNMFICENT NEW THREE- M 1 L L I O N - D O L L A R BUILDING. NOW NEARLY COMPLETED ABL'ILDING that will rank among will have fifty arms reaching out inti^ the first ar(^hitectural masterpieces every district of the metropolis and di>- of America, that will contain the largest seminating its treasures — that, in a >eii- bookcase in the world stored with volumes tence, is the New York Public Library, of almost incalculable value, and that now rapidly nearing c.»mpletion. THE NEW BUILDING OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY— REAK VIEW, FROM BRV\" ! M:' . .-W'W THE LONG, NARROW WINDOWS THAT LIGHT THE BOOK-ST^( 2 518 MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE It is well to carry just this mental pic- ture of the real visible thing — a central heart enshrined in a majestic temple of learning, with fifty arteries, or branches, radiating from it — when estimating the position and purpose of the new insti- tution in its relation to the city it is des- tined to serve. By a curious accident the site of the great library, in Bryant Park, was origi- nally occupied by the distributing reser- voir of the city's water supply. The massive pile of P>gyptian architecture was long a familiar landmark of New York. Its vine-clad walls, severely simple in outline, were typical of the city of half a century ago ; and when its architectural style became obsolete, and its dimensions inadequate to the needs of the rapidly growing metropolis, the old New Yorker was not without his regrets that it must be torn down. It had served him well in its day ; every house of the old towm had drawn from it ; but now a new era had come, when the antiquated reservoir of water must give place to the modern reservoir of books. To no other great library would the figure of a distributing reservoir be equally appropriate. It is just this fea- ture that gives to the admirable system recently embodied in the New York Pub- lic Library its distinctive claim to supe- riority as a great educational institution — a claim which is easily verified by com- paring its actual achievements with those of the four chief libraries of Europe and the Congressional Library at ^\'ashington. THE GREAT LIBRARIES OF EUROPE The free public library is practically a development of recent times. Of course, there were famous collections of manu- scripts in the days of Greek and Roman culture, and even earlier than that ; but it was the printing-press that made possi- ble the great popular institutions of o-day. The honor of being the oldest now in existence is claimed by that of the Guildhall, in London, which dates back to 1420, when it was founded by the famous lord mayor, Richard Whittington. But its history is not continuous, for it was destroyed in the great London fire of 1666, and was not revived for more than a hundred years. The magnificent lil>rary of the British Museum is compara- tively modern, having been started in 1753 with a bequest from Sir Hans Sloane, which George II, four years later, supplemented with a gift of books from the royal shelves. The Bodleian, at ()xford, second of the English libraries in point of size, dates from 1602. In Germany there are town libraries which have been in existence since the fifteenth century — the oldest, it is said, being that of Regensburg, founded in 1430. The Imperial Library of Berlin dates from 1650, when the Electoral Library of Brandenburg was formed out of various monastic collections. It owes its later development to the fostering care of Frederick the Great and other Hohenzollern rulers. It was royal patronage, too, that made possible the Bibliotheque Nationale of France, started by Charles V in 1364 with a private collection of manuscripts in one of the halls of the Louvre. This was carried off by the British after the battle of Agincourt, but the loss was made good by Louis XI, who added the first printed books ; and most of the subsequent rulers of France have contributed to its growth. Napoleon took a great interest in it, and was one of its chief benefactors. The Imperial Library of St. Peters- burg, ranking third in size among the public collections of Europe, was the. result of the spoliation of Poland, the splendid Zaluski Library at Warsaw, numbering two hundred and sixty thou- sand volumes, being seized by SuvaroiT in 1795 and carried to the Russian capital. These four great European libraries contain inestimable treasures in their books, manuscripts, and rare prints ; but a survey of their operations shows that they do not possess the same efficiency, the same power of service to the public, that the New York institution will have. Originating, as they all did, under the active influence of royalty, it may perhaps be that a tendency to exclusiveness is bound to adhere to them, leaving it for democratic America to develop an insti- tution whose wealth shall be of easv ac- cess even for the humblest. Their col- lections, priceless from the antiquarian point of view, are not so arranged and so managed as to meet to the fullest possible extent the needs of the average reader. None of them maintains circulating 520 MUNSKV'S MAGAZINE THE NEV»- BUILDING bv THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY — CONSTRUCTING THE MAIN BOOK-STACK, A GREAT STEEL FRAME THAT WILL HOLD THREE AND A HALF MILLION VOLUMES branches, and only one. the British Museum, keeps a printed catalogue of all its books. Two — those of Berlin and St. Petersburg — permit the withdrawal of volumes under certain conditions and restrictions ; the other two are purely reference libraries. In the sphere of general utility a vast difference will be shown to exist between the European and the American foundations. xi:\v York's earlier lif.raries The oldest liljrary in the United States is that of Harvard University, dating from 1638, but the first public institution was that established in New York by the Rev. John Sharp. This worthy, who was chaplain to the Earl of Bellamont, gover- nor of the province, bequeathed his books to his fellow citizens in 1700. Tliirty years later the collection, numbering six- teen hundred and forty-two volumes, w^as ])laced in the City Hall, where it was known as the New York Public Library. Just before the outbreak of the Revo- lution, however, it was rechristened as the Society Library of New York, under which title it still exists, witli something like a hundred thousand volumes on its shelves, for the benefit of private sub- scribers, in its own building on Universitv Place. The present New York Public Library is only ten years old. It was in 1895 that the Astor Library, founded in 1849, the Lenox Library, founded in 1870, and the Tilden Trust, incorporated in 1887, were consolidated under one board of trustees and took the new and comprehensive title. At that time the Astor contained two hun- dred and sixty-seven thousand volumes, with an endowment of nine hundred and forty thousand dollars ; the Lenox had eighty-six thousand volumes, with an en- dowment of a little more than half a million dollars ; and the Tilden Trust owned twenty thousand books and a fund of two million dollars. In the year following this first con- solidation, the trustees appealed to the city authorities for a library building to be erected on tlie site of the old reservoir in Bryant Park, in which all their collections could be brought to- gether for the use of the public. Up to that time the Astor and Lenox had NEW YORK'S (;ri:ai' m:\\" i.ihrar\ 521 been exclusively reference libraries. In their proposition to the city, however, a plan for o[)ening a free circulation de- partment in the new building was broached. The appeal met with imme- diate approval. The authorities asked several leading architects to compete for plans for the proposed building, with a total to-day of thirty-one such branches. This remarkable extension of the under- taking was made possible by an offer from Andrew Carnegie, in March, 1901, of the sum of five million, two hundred thou- sand dollars, for the construction and equipment of free circulating libraries, on condition that the city should provide THE NEW BUILDING OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY — THE ENTR.\NCE HALL AND STAIRWAY LEADING TO THE READING-ROOM FLOOR tlie result that the designs of Messrs. Carrere and Hastings were accepted, and in 1899 the work of removing the reser- voir was commenced. Five years ago ( February 25, 1901 ) the library took the next important step in the work of consolidation by absorb- ing into its system the New York Free Circulating Library, with eleven branches and about a hundred and sixty thousand volumes. Since that time twenty other circulating libraries in different parts of the city have united with the rest, making the land and bear the cost of maintenance. The completion of the entire Carnegie plan will add nineteen more brandies to the New York Public Library, which will thus, by the time it opens its new- quarters in Bryant Park, own and con- trol fifty of these working stations. FOR THE SERVICE OK rilE IH HLIC It is this elaboration of its system along the lines of practical utility that makes the New York Public Library uni(]ue among the great libraries of the world. 522 MUNSEV'S The great institutions of Paris, London, and St. Petersburg have a larger number of volumes on their shelves; all the national libraries, with the exception of the French, have a greater annual income for the purchase of new books and period- icals ; but the readers enjoying the privi- leges of the New York foundation are at })resent nearly three times as many as those shown by the most widely used of the P^uropean libraries, as may be seen from the following table compiled from the last annual reports of the six libraries that have been considered. Number of volumes — Bibliotheque Na- tionals 2,600,000; British Museum, 2,- 500,000 ; Imperial Library of St. Peters- burg, 1,445,000; New York Public Library, 1,390,000; Congressional Li- brary, Washington, 1,275,667 ; Imperial Library of Berlin, 1,228,000. Number of volumes taken by readers — New York Public Library, 4,306,954; British Museum, 1,590,000; Imperial Li- brary of St. Petersburg, 622,243; Im- perial Library of Berlin, 483,821 ; Con- gressional Library, 323,861 ; Bibliotheque Nationale, no report. Expeiiditure for books and periodicals —British Museum, $110,000; Congres- sional Library, $99,226; Imperial Li- brary of St. Petersburg, $41,580; Im- perial Library of Berlin, $35,136; New York Public Library, exclusive of its cir- culating branches, $25,000; Bibliotheque Nationale, $20,000. The number of readers using the pres- ent branches of the New York institu- tion is a remarkable development, prob- ably unprecedented in the history of libraries. When the new central building is opened, and the full quota of stations in working order, the figure w'ill no doubt l)e greatly increased. There will also be a large addition to the annual income, de- rived from the sale of the Astor and Lenox buildings, the value of which is estimated at four million dollars. Even then, however, the fund available for ])urchases will fall short of that en- joyed by either the l^ritish Museum or the Congressional Library, and it must be left to the munificence of some future patron to add to tlie present endowment a sum that will adetjuately meet the needs of a great working library. It should be remembered that while the govern- MAGAZINE mental libraries receive large numbers of books under the copyright laws, the New York institution has no such re- source. Had the full amount contemplated by Tilden in his bequest — between six and eight million dollars — been given to the purpose originally intended, the New York Public I>ibrary would be the best endowed in the w^orld, as it undoubtedly is the most efficient in creating and sup- plying a public demand for literature. For its present marvelous degree of suc- cess, praise is due to the masterly manner in which the consolidation of its various collections and interests has been planned and carried out — a w^ork in which the venerable president of the board of trus- tees, John Bigelow, formerly United States minister to France, and the direc- tor. Dr. John S. Billings, are conspicuous. THE GREAT NEW LIBRARY BUILDING The exterior of the stately edifice that is to be the keystone, the visible symbol, of this gigantic system is now practically completed, work on the interior being still in progress. Architecturally, the building may be characterized as belong- ing to the classical renaissance, more or less in the special style of the Louis XVI period, with such modifications as the con- ditions and needs of the age have sug- gested, it being the expressed purpose of the architects to make it representative, as far as possible, of modern New Y»rk. The important features of the interior are to be the lending department on the basement floor, entered from the center of the building on Forty-Second Street ; special reading-rooms on the second floor for students and scholars, to which access will be by ticket ; general reading-rooms, open to the public, including a children's department, and periodical and news- paper rooms, on the first floor ; and the main reading-room on the third floor, im- mediately over the great stack for the storing of books. This book-stack is to be one of the unique features of the library, embracing in its construction the latest appliances for the shelving of books. It is to be made of steel, filling' a floor space of seventy-eight by two hundred and ninety- seven feet, and rising in seven tiers, each ninety inches high. It is by far the largest m:\\' \()RK"s (;ri:ai' nkw lihrar\' 528 THE NEW BUILDING OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY — THE MAIN ENTRANCE ON FIFTH AVENUE THE NEW BUILDING OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY— THE INTERIOR COURT Ixxjkcase ever constructed. According to the comj)Utations of the architects, its ninety-seven thousand shelves, if laid to- <;cther end to end, would measure four liundred and thirty-five thousand feet in lengtli, or more than eighty miles, and it will hold tliree and a half millions of vol- umes — an ample provision for the future growth of the library. Its actual weight, empty, is eight million pounds. Filled with books to its full capacity, it would weigh more than twelve million ])ounds — approximating the tonnage of a battle- ship like the Texas. 'Jlie main reading-room, directly above the book-stack, is to be quite or nearly the largest in any public library, having a seating capacity for about eight hun- dred people, almost double the space al- lotted to the public in the famous circu- lar reading-room of the British Museum, built fifty years ago. THE TREASUKES OF THE LIBRARY When the Astor, I>enox, and Tilden collections are finally brought together in the new building, their value will be decidedly enhanced for the student of special subjects. All three libraries are extremely rich in literature relating to America. James Lenox, founder of the in- stitution bearing his name, was a million- aire with a passion for collecting Amer- icana, and started his library by l)uying up everything that had been printed prior to 1700 bearing on the new world. To NEW YORK'S (iRKAT \K\V LIHRARV 525 his collection, greatly enlarged since pass- ing out of his hands, there have been added the historical library of George Bancroft and the Emmet papers relating to the Revolution. All this, combined with similar material in the Astor Library, forms a priceless mass of Americana, comprising thirty- four thousand volumes, fifty thousand manuscripts, and sixty thousand public documents. For the student in American history of the Revolutionary period and after, the nev.-spaper files on the shelves of the library are probably of more practical use than even these rare volumes and manuscripts. The first newspaper to ap- pear in the United States was the Boston Ncivs Letter, in 1706. The library files start with 1710, and the first twenty-three years are rather fragmentary in places ; but the catalogue shows a thousand vol- umes of American newspapers published before the year 1800, with an almost complete series of New York papers from 1 733 to the present day. A huge newspaper-room in the new building, with a separate income of three thousand dollars a year, making possible the purchase and preservation of about two hundred of the important journals of the world, is one of the director's plans. It is a curious fact, however, that none of the present-day newspapers is capable of preservation for more than a brief period, the wood pulp of which they are composed being perishable. Thus there will be handed down to coming genera- tions the newspapers of a century or more ago, but none of to-day. In view of this inevitable break in future historical rec- ords. Dr. Billings recently made the in- teresting suggestion to the publishers of two New York dailies that they should print fifty copies of each edition on linen rag paper and file them in the leading li- braries of the country. Papers thus printed will remain sound and legible when the myriads that make up the list of modern newspaperdom have crumbled into dust — a consideration that may possibly appeal to some abnormally far-seeing advertis- ing manager. Besides its rare possessions in the field of American history, the New York Pub- lic Library has a number of valuable special collections which are waiting to be placed in the reserved rooms of the Bryant Park building. 'Hiese collections incUide three tliousand volumes of Shakes- })eriana, containing four copies of the Lirst Folio, nine copies of the Second Folio, with a whole shelf of the original Quartos ; ten thousand volumes of music ; eight thousand volumes of a Bible collec- tion ; twenty-one thousand volumes of a geographical collection, containing al- most all that there is in geographical lit- erature before 1500, with four thousand maps from the earliest times to the end of the seventeenth century. The most valuable single work in the library is a manuscript gospel lectionary, by Julio Clovio, of the early sixteenth century. This book was at one time in the Vatican, and cost more than eleven thousand dollars. There is also the first edition of Columbus' Letter, the most valuable among the library's printed books, costing seventy-five hundred dol- lars. A collection of prints, unsurpassed in its field, numbering nineteen thousand engravings and about five hundred vol- umes, is another of the most important possessions of the institution. The removal and rearrangement of all the collections to the central building might be expected to occupy a consider- able time, and to cause no small inct)n- venience to readers. The whole under- taking, however, according to the present plans, will be completed in the ^:pace of two weeks, and the books will be brought together on their new shelves without ne- cessitating any change in the catalogues. The possibility of accomplishing such an elaborate transfer without a prolonged suspension of its regular activities gives further evidence of the skilful manage- ment and the forethought for the public that have characterized the library during the ten years of the present regime. Owing to the delays that seem to be in- evitable in a work of such magnitude and importance, the Bryant Park building has not been completed within the time originally set. No further obstacle, how- ever, is likely to be encountered, and at an early date the New York Public Li- l)rary may be expected to open the doors of a new era to a world it has served, hitherto, with an efficiency and thorough- ness which their own limitations of pur- pose and equipment have rendered impos- sible to similar institutions elsewhere. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST BY ROGER POCOCK 1WANT a job," said the tramp re- sentfully. You've got to give me * job — d'ye hear? " The clerk was scornful. " You want to go," he answered, " to r.he Society for the Relief of Destitute Englishmen. Clear out of here, now ! " The tramp looked round the wails of the room, the ticket-office of the Cana- dian Pacific at Winnipeg. Then he saw a public notice beside the door : " Fort Osborne — Northwest Mounted Police — Recruits Wanted." He strolled across to read particulars, and through the tail of his eye watched a pretty girl come in with her arms full of parcels. " 1 want a ticket, please," he heard her say. " First class for Calgary. How much?" The clerk politely explained about Pullman berths. " But they're so dear ! " He expounded the inconveniences of r.he day-car at night for single ladies. " Oh," she blushed hotly, " but a gen- tleman is joining me at Troy." Her voice so thrilled the tramp that he missed whole passages of the notice, about " understanding the care and man- agement of horses " and " certificates of good conduct from the clergy." The pretty girl got her ticket, gathered her parcels, and made for the door. The clerk was still chanting details about to- morrow's train, while the tramp muttered phrases from the police advertisement. A crash awakened him from his reverie, for the lady had dropped all her parcels. Of course he jumped to pick them up, and naturally he craved for more to do in lier service; so, kneeling at her feet, he un- lashed the largest parcel and used its string to make them all into a convenient bundle. Then the clerk jumped over the counter and interfered, accusinp: him of theft. As the tramp got up he deftly kicked out backward with one leg, propelling the clerk into a distant corner. This seemed to cause excitement throughout the office^ but the offender was too busy to attend to that, while he held the door and fol- lowed the lady outside. " Oh ! " she protested. " You shouldn't have done that ! " The tramp grinned bashfully as he gave her the parcel, but the clerk, coming out with vengeance in his eye, got a sec- ond kick, more vicious than the first, which put him out of action and inside the building. The pretty girl stood bewildered. She glanced at the tramp's tanned face, which was gaunt with hunger ; his red-gold hair, which flamed uncovered in the sunlight : his hard^ blue eyes, which defied her; his rags, which fluttered in the piercing wind ; his long boots gone over at the heels, the unmistakable signs which branded him a sailor. She felt that he was des- perate with hunger, in danger of arrest — then opened her purse and timidly offered a coin, knowing all the while that she insulted him. Without a word he turned his back on her. The girl stood looking after him, re- sentful at being put in the wrong, and then turned to her own affairs, for she was busy. The man walked rapidly up Main Street, thinking out bitter things that he might have said, until other thoughts began to move in him, and he asked the way to the recruiting depot of the Mounted Police. Would the uniform be blue or gray, he wondered? Would they give him something to eat? So he came to Fort' Osborne, and when he saw the sentry at the gate his memory flashed to Whitehall, to the Life Guards, to the beanpole in boots and a tin hat whom he had once derided and admired. 71iis man was still bigger, a giant wearing the imperial scarlet, with helmet and