Always your friend,
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was born at Dunfermline, Scotland, Nov. 25, 1835, into a poor but honest home. His father, William Carnegie, was a weaver, a man of good sense, strongly republican, though living under a monarchy, and well-read upon the questions of the day. The mother was a woman of superior mind and character, to whom Andrew was unusually devoted, till her death in 1886, when he had reached middle life.
When Andrew was twelve years of age and his brother Thomas five, the parents decided to make their home in the New World, coming to New York in a sailing-vessel in 1847. They travelled to Pittsburg, Penn., and lived for some time in Allegheny City.
Andrew had been sent to school in Dunfermline, and, having a fondness for books, was a bright, ambitious boy at twelve, ready to begin the struggle for a living so as to make the family burdens lighter. Work was not easily found; but finally he obtained employment as a bobbin-boy in a cotton factory, at $1.20 a week.
Mr. Carnegie, when grown to manhood, wrote in the Youth's Companion, April 23, 1896:—
"I cannot tell you how proud I was when I received my first week's own earnings. One dollar and twenty cents made by myself, and given to me because I had been of some use in the world! No longer entirely dependent upon my parents, but at last admitted to the family partnership as a contributing member, and able to help them! I think this makes a man out of a boy sooner than almost anything else, and a real man too, if there be any germ of true manhood in him. It is everything to feel that you are useful.
"I have had to deal with great sums. Many millions of dollars have since passed through my hands. But the genuine satisfaction I had from that one dollar and twenty cents outweighs any subsequent pleasure in money-getting. It was the direct reward of honest manual labor; it represented a week of very hard work, so hard that but for the aim and end which sanctified it, slavery might not be much too strong a term to describe it.
"For a lad of twelve to rise and breakfast every morning, except the blessed Sunday morning, and go into the streets and find his way to the factory, and begin work while it was still dark outside, and not be released until after darkness came again in the evening, forty minutes' interval only being allowed at noon, was a terrible task.
"But I was young, and had my dreams; and something within always told me that this would not, could not, should not last—I should some day get into a better position. Besides this, I felt myself no longer a mere boy, but quite 'a little man;' and this made me happy."
Another place soon opened for the lad, where he was set to fire a boiler in a cellar, and to manage the small steam-engine which drove the machinery in a bobbin factory. "The firing of this boiler was all right," says Mr. Carnegie; "for fortunately we did not use coal, but the refuse wooden chips, and I always liked to work in wood. But the responsibility of keeping the water right and of running the engine, and the danger of my making a mistake and blowing the whole factory to pieces, caused too great a strain, and I often awoke and found myself sitting up in bed through the night trying the steam-gauges. But I never told them at home that I was having a 'hard tussle.' No! no! everything must be bright to them.
"This was a point of honor; for every member of the family was working hard except, of course, my little brother, who was then a child, and we were telling each other only all the bright things. Besides this, no man would whine and give up—he would die first.
"There was no servant in our family, and several dollars per week were earned by 'the mother' by binding shoes after her daily work was done! Father was also hard at work in the factory. And could I complain?"
Wages were small, and in every leisure moment Andrew looked for something better to do. He went one day to the office of the Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph Company, and asked for work as a messenger. James Douglas Reid, the manager, was a Scotchman, and liked the lad's manner. "I liked the boy's looks," said Mr. Reid afterwards; "and it was easy to see that though he was little he was full of spirit. His pay was $2.50 a week. He had not been with me a full month when he began to ask whether I would teach him to telegraph. I began to instruct him, and found him an apt pupil. He spent all his spare time in practice, sending and receiving by sound, and not by tape as was largely the custom in those days. Pretty soon he could do as well as I could at the key, and then his ambition carried him away beyond doing the drudgery of messenger work."
The boy liked his new occupation. He once wrote: "My entrance into the telegraph office was the transition from darkness to light; from firing a small engine in a dirty cellar to a clean office where there were books and papers. That was a paradise to me, and I bless my stars that sent me to be a messenger-boy in a Pittsburg telegraph office."
When Andrew was fourteen his father died, leaving him the only support of his mother and brother, seven years old. He believed in work, and never shirked any duty, however hard.
He soon found employment as telegraph operator with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. At fifteen he was train-despatcher, a place of unusual responsibility for a boy; but his energy, carefulness, and industry were equal to the demands on him.
When he was sixteen Andrew had thought out a plan by which trains could be run on single tracks, and the telegraph be used to govern their running. "His scheme was the one now in universal use on the single-tracked roads in the country; namely, to run trains in opposite directions until they approached within comparatively a few miles, and then hold one at a station until the other had passed." This thought about the telegraph brought Andrew into notice among those above him; and he was transferred to Altoona, the headquarters of the general manager.
Young Carnegie had done what he recommends others to do in his "How to win Fortune," in the New York Tribune, April 13, 1890. He says, "George Eliot put the matter very pithily: 'I'll tell you how I got on. I kept my ears and my eyes open, and I made my master's interest my own.'
"The condition precedent for promotion is that the man must first attract notice. He must do something unusual, and especially must this be beyond the strict boundary of his duties. He must suggest, or save, or perform some service for his employer which he could not be censured for not having done. When he has thus attracted the notice of his immediate superior, whether that be only the foreman of a gang, it matters not; the first great step has been taken, for upon his immediate superior promotion depends. How high he climbs is his own affair."
Carnegie "kept his eyes and ears open." In his "Triumphant Democracy" he relates the following incident: "Well do I remember that, when a clerk in the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, a tall, spare, farmer-looking kind of man came to me once when I was sitting on the end seat of the rear car looking over the line. He said he had been told by the conductor that I was connected with the railway company, and he wished me to look at an invention he had made. With that he drew from a green bag (as if it were for lawyers' briefs) a small model of a sleeping-berth for railway cars. He had not spoken a minute before, like a flash, the whole range of the discovery burst upon me. 'Yes,' I said, 'that is something which this continent must have.' I promised to address him upon the subject as soon as I had talked over the matter with my superior, Thomas A. Scott.
"I could not get that blessed sleeping-car out of my head. Upon my return I laid it before Mr. Scott, declaring that it was one of the inventions of the age. He remarked, 'You are enthusiastic, young man; but you may ask the inventor to come and let me see it.' I did so; and arrangements were made to build two trial cars, and run them on the Pennsylvania Railroad. I was offered an interest in the venture, which, of course, I gladly accepted. Payments were to be made ten per cent per month after the cars were delivered, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company guaranteeing to the builders that the cars should be kept upon its line and under its control.
"This was all very satisfactory until the notice came that my share of the first payment was $217.50. How well I remember the exact sum; but two hundred and seventeen dollars and a half were as far beyond my means as if it had been millions. I was earning fifty dollars per month, however, and had prospects, or at least I always felt that I had. What was to be done? I decided to call on the local banker, Mr. Lloyd, state the case, and boldly ask him to advance the sum upon my interest in the affair. He put his hand on my shoulder, and said, 'Why, of course, Andie, you are all right. Go ahead. Here is the money.'
"It is a proud day for a man when he pays his last note, but not to be named in comparison with the day in which he makes his first one, and gets a banker to take it. I have tried both, and I know. The cars paid the subsequent payments from their earnings. I paid my first note from my savings, so much per month; and thus did I get my foot on fortune's ladder. It is easy to climb after that. A triumphant success was scored. And thus came sleeping-cars into the world. 'Blessed be the man who invented sleep,' says Sancho Panza. Thousands upon thousands will echo the sentiment, 'Blessed be the man who invented sleeping-cars.' Let me record his name, and testify my gratitude to him, my dear, quiet, modest, truthful, farmer-looking friend, T. T. Woodruff, one of the benefactors of the age."
Mr. Pullman later engaged in sleeping-car building, and Carnegie advised his firm "to capture Mr. Pullman." "There was a capture," says Mr. Carnegie, "but it did not quite take that form. They found themselves swallowed by this ogre, and Pullman monopolized everything."
While a very young man, Carnegie was appointed superintendent of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. As superintendent he became the friend of Colonel Scott; and, together with some others, they bought several farms along the line of the road, which proved very valuable oil-lands. Mr. Carnegie says of the Storey Farm, Oil Creek, "We purchased the farm for $40,000; and so small was our faith in the ability of the earth to yield for any considerable time the hundred barrels per day which the property was then producing, that we decided to make a pond capable of holding one hundred thousand barrels of oil, which we estimated would be worth, when the supply ceased, $1,000,000. Unfortunately for us the pond leaked fearfully, evaporation also caused much loss; but we continued to run oil in to make the losses good day after day, until several hundred thousand barrels had gone in this fashion.
"Our experience with the farm may be worth reciting. Its value rose to $5,000,000; that is, the shares of the company sold in the market upon this basis; and one year it paid in cash dividends $1,000,000—rather a good return upon an investment of $40,000. So great was the yield in the district that in two years oil became almost valueless, often selling as low as thirty cents per barrel, and not infrequently it was suffered to run to waste as utterly worthless.
"But as new uses were found for the oil, prices rose again; and to remove the difficulty of high freights, pipes were laid, first for short distances, and then to the seaboard, a distance of about three hundred miles. Through these pipes, of which six thousand two hundred miles have been laid, the oil is now pumped from two thousand one hundred wells. It costs only ten cents to pump a barrel of oil to the Atlantic. The value of petroleum and its products exported up to January, 1884, exceeds in value $625,000,000."
Within ten years from the time when Mr. Carnegie and his friends bought the oil-farms, their investment had returned them four hundred and one per cent, and the young Scotchman could count himself a rich man. Before this, however, he had entered the iron and steel industry, in which his great wealth has been made. With a little money which he had saved, he borrowed $1,250 from a bank, and, with five other persons, established the Keystone Bridge Works of Pittsburg, with the small capital of $6,000. This was a success from the first, and in latter years has had a capital of $1,000,000. It has built bridges all over the country, and structural frames for many public buildings in New York, Chicago, and other cities. From this time forward Mr. Carnegie's career has been a most successful one. He has become chief owner in the Union Iron Works, the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the Homestead Steel Works, formerly a rival company, the Duquesne Works of the Allegheny Bessemer Steel Company, and several other iron and coke companies. The capital of these companies is about $30,000,000, and about twenty-five thousand men are employed.
"In 1890 Carnegie Bros. & Co., Limited," says the Engineering and Mining Journal for July 4, 1891, "had a capacity to produce 600,000 tons of steel rails per annum, or over twenty-five per cent of the total capacity of all the rolling-mills of the United States, while its products of steel girders, plates, nails, and other forms of manufactured iron and steel are greater than at any other works in this country, and exceed the amount turned out at the famous Krupp Works in Germany." The company has supplied the United States Government with a large amount of armor plates for our new ships, and also filled a large order for the Russian Government.
The Edgar Thomson Steel Works have an annual capacity of 1,000,000 gross tons of ingots, 600,000 gross tons of rails and billets, and 50,000 gross tons of castings. The Duquesne Furnaces have a yearly capacity of 700,000 gross tons of pig-iron; the Lucy Furnaces, 200,000 gross tons yearly; the Duquesne Steel Works, an annual capacity of 450,000 gross tons of ingots. The Homestead Steel Works have an annual capacity of 375,000 gross tons of Bessemer steel and ingots, and 400,000 gross tons of open-hearth steel ingots. The Upper Union Mills have an annual output of 140,000 gross tons of steel bars and steel universal mill-plates, etc.; the Lower Union Mills, an annual capacity of 65,000 gross tons of mill-plates, bridge-work, car-forgings, etc.
The industrious, ambitious boy was not satisfied merely to amass wealth. He had always been a great reader and thinker. In 1883 Charles Scribner's Sons published a book by this successful telegraph operator and iron manufacturer, "An American Four-in-Hand in Britain." The trip was suggested by Mr. Black's novel, "The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton," and extended from Brighton to Inverness, a distance of eight hundred and thirty-one miles.
Mr. Carnegie and his party of chosen friends made the journey by coach in seven weeks, from July 17 to Aug. 3, 1881, and had a most enjoyable as well as instructive trip. The Critic gives Mr. Carnegie well-merited praise, saying that "he has produced a book of travel as fresh as though he had been exploring Thibet or navigating the River of Golden Sand." The book is dedicated to "My favorite heroine, my mother," who was the queen dowager of the volume, and whose happiness during the journey seemed to be the chief concern of her devoted son.
This book had so cordial a reception that the following year, 1884, another volume was published, "Round the World," covering a trip made in 1878-1879; Mr. Carnegie having sailed from San Francisco to Japan, and thence through the lands of the East. As he starts, his mother puts in his hand Shakespeare in thirteen small volumes; and these are his company and delight in the long ocean voyage. Through China, India, and other countries, he observes closely, learns much, and tells it in a way that is always interesting. "Life at the East," he says, "lacks two of its most important elements,—the want of intelligent and refined women as the companion of man, and a Sunday. It has been a strange experience to me to be for several months without the society of some of this class of women,—sometimes many weeks without even speaking to one, and often a whole week without even seeing the face of an educated woman. And, bachelor as I am, let me confess what a miserable, dark, dreary, and insipid life this would be without their constant companionship."
Ten years later, in 1886, Mr. Carnegie published a book that had a very wide reading, and at once placed the author prominently before the New World and the Old World as well, "Triumphant Democracy, or Fifty Years' March of the Republic."
The book showed extensive research, a deep love for his adopted country, America, a warm heart, and an able mind. He wrote: "To the beloved Republic, under whose equal laws I am made the peer of any man, although denied political equality by my native land, I dedicate this book, with an intensity of gratitude and admiration which the native-born citizen can neither feel nor understand."
No one can read this book without being amazed at the power and possibilities of the Republic, and without a deeper love for, and pride in the greatness and true worth of, his country. The style is bright and attractive, and the facts stated remarkable. Americans must always be debtors to the Scotchman who has shown them how to prize their native land.
Mr. Carnegie wrote the book "as a labor of love," to show the people of the Old World the advantages of a republic over a monarchical form of government, and to Americans, "a juster estimate than prevails in some quarters of the political and social advantages which they so abundantly possess over the people of the older and less advanced lands, that they may be still prouder and even more devoted, if possible, to their institutions than they are."
Mr. Carnegie shows by undisputed facts that America, so recently a colony of Great Britain, has now become "the wealthiest nation in the world," "the greatest agricultural nation," "the greatest manufacturing nation," "the greatest mining nation in the world." "In the ten years from 1870 to 1880," says Mr. Carnegie, "eleven and a half millions were added to the population of America. Yet these only added three persons to each square mile of territory; and should America continue to double her population every thirty years, instead of every twenty-five years as hitherto, seventy years must elapse before she will attain the density of Europe. The population will then reach two hundred and ninety millions."
Mr. Carnegie has said in his "Imperial Federation," published in the Nineteenth Century, September, 1891, "Even if the United States increase is to be much less rapid than it has been hitherto, yet the child is born who will see more than 400,000,000 under her sway. No possible increase of the race can be looked for in all the world combined comparable to this. Green truly says that its 'future home is to be found along the banks of the Hudson and the Mississippi.'"
It will surprise many to know that "the whole United Kingdom (England, Scotland, and Ireland) could be planted in Texas, and leave plenty of room around it."
"The farms of America equal the entire territory of the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Portugal. The corn-fields equal the extent of England, Scotland, and Belgium; while the grain-fields generally would overlap Spain. The cotton-fields cover an area larger than Holland, and twice as large as Belgium."
The growth of manufactures in America is amazing. In thirty years, from 1850 to 1880, Mr. Carnegie says there was an increase of nearly six hundred per cent, while the increase in British manufactures was little more than a hundred per cent. The total in America in 1880 was $5,560,000,000; in the United Kingdom, $4,055,000,000.
"Probably the most rapid development of an industry that the world has ever seen," says Mr. Carnegie, "is that of Bessemer steel in America." In 1870 America made 40,000 tons of Bessemer; in 1885, fifteen years later, she made 1,373,513 tons, which was 74,000 tons more than Great Britain made. "This is advancing not by leaps and bounds, it is one grand rush—a rush without pause, which has made America the greatest manufacturer of Bessemer steel in the world.... One is startled to find that more yards of carpet are manufactured in and around the city of Philadelphia alone than in the whole of Great Britain. It is not twenty years since the American imported his carpets, and now he makes more at one point than the greatest European manufacturing nation does in all its territory."
Of the manufacture of boots and shoes by machinery, Mr. Carnegie says, "A man can make three hundred pairs of boots in a day, and a single factory in Massachusetts turns out as many pairs yearly as thirty-two thousand bootmakers in Paris.... Twenty-five years ago the American conceived the idea of making watches by machinery upon a gigantic scale. The principal establishment made only five watches per day as late as 1854. Now thirteen hundred per day is the daily task, and six thousand watches per month are sent to the London agency."
The progress in mining has been equally remarkable. "To the world's stock of gold," says Mr. Carnegie, "America has contributed, according to Mulhall, more than fifty per cent. In 1880 he estimated the amount of gold in the world at 10,355 tons, worth $7,240,000,000. Of this the New World contributed 5,302 tons, or more than half. One of the most remarkable veins of metal known is the Comstock Lode in Nevada.... In fourteen years this single vein yielded $180,000,000. In one year, 1876, the product of the lode was $18,000,000 in gold, and $20,500,000 in silver,—a total of $38,500,000. Here, again, is something which the world never saw before.
"America also leads the world in copper, the United States and Chili contributing nearly one-half the world's supply.... On the south shore of Lake Superior this metal is found almost pure, in masses of all sizes, up to many tons in weight. It was used by the native Indians, and traces of their rude mining operations are still visible."
Mr. Carnegie says the anthracite coal-fields of Pennsylvania will produce 30,000,000 tons per year for four hundred and thirty-nine years; and he thinks by that time "men will probably be burning the hydrogen of water, or be fully utilizing the solar rays or the tidal energy." The coal area of the United States comprises 300,000 square miles; and Mr. Carnegie "is almost ashamed to confess it, she has three-quarters of all the coal area of the earth."
While Mr. Carnegie admires and loves the Republic, he is devoted to the mother country, and is a most earnest advocate of peace between us. He writes: "Of all the desirable political changes which it seems to me possible for this generation to effect, I consider it by far the most important for the welfare of the race, that every civilized nation should be pledged, as the Republic is, to offer peaceful arbitration to its opponent before the senseless, inhuman work of human slaughter begins."
In his "Imperial Federation" he writes: "War between members of our race may be said to be already banished; for English-speaking men will never again be called upon to destroy each other.... Both parties in America, and each successive government, are pledged to offer peaceful arbitration for the adjustment of all international difficulties,—a position which it is to be hoped will soon be reached by Britain, at least in regard to all the differences with members of the same race.
"Is it too much to hope that, after this stage has been reached, and occupied successfully for a period, another step forward will be taken, and that, having jointly banished war between themselves, a general council should be evolved by the English-speaking nations, to which may at first only be referred all questions of dispute between them?...
"The Supreme Court of the United States is extolled by the statesmen of all parties in Britain, and has just received the compliment of being copied in the plan for the Australian Commonwealth. Building upon it, may we not expect that a still higher Supreme Court is one day to come, which shall judge between the nations of the entire English-speaking race, as the Supreme Court at Washington already judges between States which contain the majority of the race?"
Mr. Carnegie believes that the powers of the council would increase till the commanding position of the English-speaking race would make other races listen to its demands for peace, and so war be forever done away with. Mr. Carnegie rightly calls war "international murder," and, like Tennyson, looks forward to that blessed time when—
Mr. Carnegie has also written, in the North American Review for June, 1891, "The A. B. C. of Money," urging the Republic to keep "its standard in the future, as in the past, not fluctuating silver, but unchanging gold."
In his articles in the newspapers, and in his public addresses, he has given good advice to young men, in whom he takes the deepest interest. He believes there never were so many opportunities to succeed as now for the sober, frugal, energetic young man. "Real ability, the capacity for doing things, never was so eagerly searched for as now, and never commanded such rewards.... The great dry-goods houses that interest their most capable men in the profits of each department succeed, when those fail that endeavor to work with salaried men only. Even in the management of our great hotels it is found wise to take into partnership the principal men. In every branch of business this law is at work; and concerns are prosperous, generally speaking, just in proportion as they succeed in interesting in the profits a larger and larger proportion of their ablest workers. Co-operation in this form is fast coming in all great establishments." To young men he says, "Never enter a barroom.... It is low and common to enter a barroom, unworthy of any self-respecting man, and sure to fasten upon you a taint which will operate to your disadvantage in life, whether you ever become a drunkard or not."
"Don't smoke.... The use of tobacco requires young men to withdraw themselves from the society of women to indulge the habit. I think the absence of women from any assembly tends to lower the tone of that assembly. The habit of smoking tends to carry young men into the society of men whom it is not desirable that they should choose as their intimate associates. The practice of chewing tobacco was once common. Now it is considered offensive. I believe the race is soon to take another step forward, and that the coming man is to consider smoking as offensive as chewing was formerly considered."
"Never speculate. Never buy or sell grain or stocks upon a margin.... The man who gambles upon the exchanges is in the condition of the man who gambles at the gaming-table. He rarely, if ever, makes a permanent success."
"Don't indorse.... There are emergencies, no doubt, in which men should help their friends; but there is a rule that will keep one safe. No man should place his name upon the obligation of another if he has not sufficient to pay it without detriment to his own business. It is dishonest to do so."
Mr. Carnegie has not only written books and made money, he has distinguished himself as a giver of millions, and that while he is alive. He has seen too many wills broken, and fortunes misapplied, when the money was not given away till death. He says of Mr. Tilden's bequest of over $5,000,000 for a free library in the city of New York: "How much better if Mr. Tilden had devoted the last years of his own life to the proper administration of this immense sum; in which case neither legal contest nor any other cause of delay could have interfered with his aims."
Of course money is sometimes so tied up in business that it cannot be given during a man's life; "yet," says Mr. Carnegie, "the day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was free for him to administer during life, will pass away 'unwept, unhonored, and unsung,' no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be, 'The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.'"
He believes large estates left at death should be taxed by the State, as is the case in Pennsylvania and some other States. Mr. Carnegie does not favor large gifts left to families. "Why should men leave great fortunes to their children?" he asks. "If this is done from affection, is it not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, it is not well for the children that they should be so burdened. Neither is it well for the State. Beyond providing for the wife and daughters moderate sources of income, and very moderate allowances indeed, if any, for the sons, men may well hesitate; for it is no longer questionable that great sums bequeathed often work more for the injury than for the good of the recipients. There are instances of millionnaires' sons unspoiled by wealth, who, being rich, still perform great services to the community. Such are the very salt of the earth, as valuable as unfortunately they are rare." Again Mr. Carnegie says of wealth left to the young, "It deadens their energies, destroys their ambition, tempts them to destruction, and renders it almost impossible that they should lead lives creditable to themselves or valuable to the State. Such as are not deadened by wealth deserve double credit, for they have double temptation."
In the North American Review for December, 1889, Mr. Carnegie suggests what he considers seven of the best uses for surplus wealth: The founding of great universities; free libraries; hospitals or any means to alleviate human suffering; public parks and flower-gardens for the people, conservatories such as Mr. Phipps has given to the park at Allegheny City, which are visited by thousands; suitable halls for lectures, elevating music, and other gatherings, free, or rented for a small sum; free swimming-baths for the people; attractive places of worship, especially in poor localities. Mr. Carnegie's own great gifts have been largely along the line which he believes the "best gift to a community,"—a free public library. He thinks with John Bright that "it is impossible for any man to bestow a greater benefit upon a young man than to give him access to books in a free library."
"It is, no doubt," he says, "possible that my own personal experience may have led me to value a free library beyond all other forms of beneficence. When I was a working-boy in Pittsburg, Colonel Anderson of Allegheny—a name I can never speak without feelings of devotional gratitude—opened his little library of four hundred books to boys. Every Saturday afternoon he was in attendance at his house to exchange books. No one but he who has felt it can ever know the intense longing with which the arrival of Saturday was awaited that a new book might be had. My brother and Mr. Phipps, who have been my principal business partners through life, shared with me Colonel Anderson's precious generosity; and it was when revelling in the treasures which he opened to us that I resolved, if ever wealth came to me, that it should be used to establish free libraries, that other poor boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to that noble man."
Again Mr. Carnegie says, "I also come by heredity to my preference for free libraries. The newspaper of my native town recently published a history of the free library in Dunfermline, and it is there recorded that the first books gathered together and opened to the public were the small collections of three weavers. Imagine the feelings with which I read that one of these three men was my honored father. He founded the first library in Dunfermline, his native town; and his son was privileged to found the last.... I have never heard of a lineage for which I would exchange that of the library-founding weaver."
Mr. Carnegie has given for the Edinburgh Free Library, Scotland, $250,000; for one in his native town of Dunfermline, $90,000; and several thousand dollars each to libraries in Aberdeen, Peterhead, Inverness, Ayr, Elgin, Wick and Kirkwall, besides contributions towards public halls and reading-rooms at Newburgh, Aberdour, and many other places abroad. Mr. Carnegie's mother laid the corner-stone for the free library in Dunfermline. He writes in his "American Four-in-Hand in Britain," "There was something of the fairy-tale in the fact that she had left her native town, poor, thirty odd years before, with her loved ones, to found a new home in the great Republic, and was to-day returning in her coach, to be allowed the privilege of linking her name with the annals of her beloved native town in one of the most enduring forms possible."
When the corner-stone of the Peterhead Free Library in Scotland was laid, Aug. 8, 1891, the wife of Mr. Carnegie was asked to lay the stone with square and trowel, and endeared herself to the people by her hearty interest and attractive womanhood. She was presented with the silver trowel with ivory handle which she had used, and with a vase of Peterhead granite from the employees of the Great North of Scotland Granite Works.
Mr. Carnegie did not marry till he was fifty-two years of age, in 1887, the year following the death of his mother and only brother Thomas. The latter died Oct. 19, 1886. Mr. Carnegie's wife, who is thoroughly in sympathy with her husband's constant giving, was Miss Louise Whitfield, the daughter of the late Mr. John Whitfield of New York, of the large importing firm of Whitfield, Powers, & Co. Mr. Carnegie had been an intimate friend of the family for many years, and knew well the admirable qualities and cultivation of the lady he married. He once wrote: "There is no improving companionship for man in an ignorant or frivolous woman." Miss Whitfield acted upon the advice which Mr. Carnegie has given in some of his addresses: "To the young ladies I say, 'Marry the man who loves most his mother.'" Mr. Carnegie now has two homes, one in New York City, the other at Cluny Castle, Kingussie, Scotland. He gives little personal attention to business, having delegated those matters to others. "I throw the responsibility upon others," he once said, "and allow them full swing." Mr. Carnegie is a man of great energy, with cheerful temperament, sound judgment, earnestness, and force of character. He has a large, well-shaped head, high forehead, brown hair and beard, and expressive face.
Mr. Carnegie's gifts in his adopted country have been many and large. To the Johnstown Free Library, Pennsylvania, he has given $40,000. To the Jefferson County Library at Fairfield, Iowa, he has given $40,000, which provides an attractive building for books, museum, and lecture-hall. The late Senator James F. Wilson gave the ground for the fire-proof building. The library owes much of its success to its librarian, Mr. A. T. Wells, who has given his life to the work, having held the position for thirty-two years. For many years he labored without salary, giving both time and money.
To the Braddock Free Library, Mr. Carnegie has given $200,000. Braddock, ten miles east of Pittsburg, has a population of 16,000, mainly the employees of the Edgar Thomson Steel Works; and the village of Homestead lies just opposite. The handsome library building has a very attractive reading-room, which is filled in the evening and much used during the day by the families of the employees. There is also a large reading-room exclusively for boys and girls, where are found juvenile books and periodicals. The librarian, Miss Helen Sperry, writes: "There is a great deal of local pride in the library, and it grows constantly in the affection of the people."
The building was much enlarged in 1894 to accommodate the Carnegie Club of six hundred men and boys. The new portion contains a hall capable of seating eleven hundred persons, a large gymnasium, bathrooms, swimming-pool, bowling-alleys, etc.
"In order to encourage public spirit in Braddock," says the Review of Reviews for October, 1895, "a selection of books on municipal improvement, streets and roads, public health, and other subjects in which the community should be interested, was placed on the library shelves; and it is said that these books have been consulted by the municipal officers, and results are already apparent." This is a good example for other librarians. Much work is being done in local history and in co-operation with the public schools.
To the Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny City, Mr. Carnegie has given $300,000, the city making an annual appropriation of $15,000 to carry on its work. The building is of gray granite, Romanesque in style, with a shelving capacity of about 75,000 volumes. The library has a delivery-room, a general reading-room, women's reading-room, reference-room, besides trustees' and librarians' rooms. The building also contains, on the first floor, a music-hall, with a seating-capacity of eleven hundred, where free concerts are given every Saturday afternoon on a ten-thousand-dollar organ; there is an art-gallery on the second floor, and a lecture-room. The latter seats about three hundred persons, and is used for University Extension lectures, meetings of the Historical Society, etc. A room adjoining is for the accommodation of scientific societies. The city appropriates about $8,000 yearly for the music-hall, fuel, repairs, etc.
The Allegheny Free Library was formally opened by President Harrison on Feb. 13, 1890. Mr. Carnegie said, in presenting the gift of the library, "My wife,—for her spirit and influence are here to-night,—my wife and I realize to-night how infinitely more blessed it is to give than to receive.... I wish that the masses of working men and women, the wage-earners of all Allegheny, will remember and act upon the fact that this is their library, their gallery, and their hall. The poorest citizen, the poorest man, the poorest woman, that toils from morn till night for a livelihood, as, thank Heaven, I had that toil to do in my early days, as he walks this hall, as he reads the books from these alcoves, as he listens to the organ, and admires the works of art in this gallery, equally with the millionnaire and the foremost citizen, I want him to exclaim in his own heart, 'Behold, all this is mine. I support it, and I am proud to support it. I am joint proprietor here.'" "Since the library opened four years ago," says Mr. William M. Stevenson, the librarian, "over 1,000,000 books and periodicals have been put into the hands of readers.... The concerts have been exceedingly popular, and incidentally have helped the library by drawing people to the library who might otherwise have remained in ignorance of the popularity and usefulness of the institution."
Mr. Carnegie's greatest gift has been the Pittsburg Library. It is a magnificent building of gray Ohio sandstone, in the Italian Renaissance style of architecture, with roof of red tile. The architects were Longfellow, Alden, and Harlow, their plan being chosen from the one hundred and two sets of plans offered. The library building is 393 feet long and 150 feet wide, with two graceful towers, each 162 feet high, and has capacity for 300,000 volumes. The entire "stack" or set of shelves for books is made of iron in six stories, and is as nearly fireproof as possible. The lower stories are for the circulating-books; the upper stories for reference-books.
The library proper is in the centre of the building, reached by a broad flight of stone steps. Above, cut in stone, are the words, "Carnegie Library; Free to the People." The vestibule, finished in marble with mosaic floors, is handsomely decorated. On the first floor are the circulating-library, "its blue-ceiling panels bordered with an interlace in orange and white," a periodical room on either side, one for scientific and technical, the other for popular and literary magazines, with rooms for cataloguing and for the library officials.
"The reference reading-room on the second floor, large, beautiful, and well-lighted," says the efficient librarian, Mr. Edwin H. Anderson, "is for quiet study. Here reference-books, such as encyclopædias, dictionaries, atlases, etc., are at hand, on the shelves along the walls, to be freely consulted." This room is of a greenish tone, with ivory-colored pilasters and arches, and a fleur-de-lis pattern painted in the wall-panels, from the "mark" of a famous Florentine printer and engraver four centuries ago.
Across the corridor from the reference reading-room are five smaller rooms for special collections of books. One is occupied by a musical library of two thousand volumes, of the late Karl Merz, which was bought and presented to the library by several citizens of Pittsburg. Another will contain the collection to be purchased from the fund left by Mr. J. D. Bernd, and will bear his name. Another will be used for art-books, and another for science.
The children are to have a reading-room, made attractive by juvenile books, magazines, and copies of good pictures. A large and well-lighted room in the basement is used for the leading newspapers of the country.
The library has a wing on either side, one containing the art-gallery, and the other the science museum. The former has three large picture-rooms on the second floor, painted in dull red, with a wall-space of 8,300 feet for the exhibition of paintings and prints. A corridor 148 feet long, in which statuary will be placed, is decorated with copies of the frieze of the Parthenon. The basement of this wing will be devoted to the various departments of the art-schools of Pittsburg.
In the science museum three large, well-lighted rooms on the second floor will be used for collections in zoölogy, botany, and mineralogy. "The closely allied branches of geology, the study of the earth's crust; paleontology, the study of life in former ages; anthropology, the natural history of the human species; archæology, the science of antiquity; and ethnology and ethnography, treating of the origin, relation, characteristic costumes and habits of the human races, will, no doubt, receive as much attention as space and funds will permit."
It is also expected that works of skill and invention will be gathered into an industrial museum for the benefit especially of the many artisans of Pittsburg. Courses of free lectures will be given to teachers, to pupils, and to the public, as in the American Museum of Natural History of New York. Below the three rooms in the museum are three lecture-rooms, which can be used separately or as one room.
In one end of the large library building, and separated from it by a thick wall so as to deaden sound, is the music-hall, semi-circular in plan, with seats for two thousand one hundred persons, and a stage for sixty musicians and a chorus of two hundred. Much Sienna marble is used, the floor is mosaic, the walls are painted a deep rose-color, and the architecture proper in a soft ivory tone, with gilded ornamentation. Two free concerts, or organ recitals, are given each week through the year, on the large modern concert organ, built expressly for this hall. Musical lectures are also given, free from technicalities, illustrated by choir, organ, and piano. This is certainly taking music, art, and science to the people as a free gift. To this noble work Mr. Carnegie has given $2,100,000. Of this amount, $800,000 was for the main building, $300,000 for the seven branch libraries or distributing stations, and $1,000,000 as an endowment fund for the art-gallery. From the annual income of this art-fund, which will be about $50,000, at least three of the pictures purchased are to be the work of American artists exhibited that year, preferably in the Pittsburg gallery.
The city of Pittsburg agrees to appropriate $40,000 annually for the maintenance of the library system. Mr. Carnegie has always felt that the people should bear a part of the burden. He said at the opening of the library, Nov. 5, 1895, "Every citizen of Pittsburg, even the very humblest, now walks into this, his own library; for the poorest laborer contributes his mite indirectly to its support. The man who enters a library is in the best society this world affords; the good and the great welcome him, surround him, and humbly ask to be allowed to become his servants; and if he himself, from his own earnings, contributes to its support, he is more of a man than before.... If library, hall, gallery, or museum be not popular, and attract the manual toilers and benefit them, it will have failed in its mission; for it was chiefly for the wage-earners that it was built, by one who was himself a wage-earner, and who has the good of that class at heart."
Mr. Carnegie has said elsewhere, "Every free library in these days should contain upon its shelves all contributions bearing upon the relations of labor and capital from every point of view,—socialistic, communistic, co-operative, and individualist; and librarians should encourage visitors to read them all."
The library stands near the entrance of the valuable park of about 439 acres given to the city by Mrs. Schenley in 1889. "This lady," says Mr. Carnegie, "although born in Pittsburg, married an English gentleman while yet in her teens. It is forty years and more since she took up her residence in London among the titled and wealthy of the world's metropolis; but still she turns to the home of her childhood, and by means of Schenley Park links her name with it forever. A noble use this of great wealth by one who thus becomes her own administrator."
Near the library are the $125,000 conservatories given to the people by Mr. Phipps, and a source of most elevating pleasure. Mr. Carnegie's gifts in and about Pittsburg amount already to $5,000,000; yet he is soon to build a library for Homestead, and one each for Duquesne and the town of Carnegie. "Such other districts as may need branch libraries," says Mr. Carnegie, "we ardently hope we may be able to supply; for to provide free libraries for all the people of Pittsburg is a field which we would fain make our own, as chief part of our life-work. I have dropped into the plural, for there is one always with me to prompt, encourage, suggest, discuss, and advise, and fortunately, sometimes, when necessary, gently to criticise; whose heart is as keenly in this work as my own, preferring it to any other as the best possible use of surplus wealth, and without whose wise and zealous co-operation I often feel little useful work could be done."
Mr. Carnegie has given $50,000 to Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York, for a histological laboratory. He is also the founder of the magnificent Music Hall on the corner of Fifty-second Street and Seventh Avenue, New York City. The press says his investment in the Music Hall Company Limited equals nine-tenths of the full cost of the hall. "It was the dearest wish of the elder Damrosch that a grand concert-hall suitable for oratorio, choral, and symphony performances might be built in New York. The questions of cost, endowment, etc., have been discussed many times by his associates and successors, without definite result. It was the liberality and public spirit of Andrew Carnegie which finally made possible the establishment of a completely equipped home for music."
The main hall, exquisite in its decorations of ivory white, gold, and old rose, will seat about three thousand persons, with standing-room for a thousand more. In the decorations 1,217 lamps are placed. Of these, 189 are in the ceiling and the walls of the stage, 339 around the boxes and balconies, and 689 in the main ceiling. When the electric current is turned on at night the effect is magical. The electric-light plant consists of four dynamos, each weighing 20,000 pounds. Besides the main hall, there are several smaller rooms for recitals, lectures, readings, receptions, and studios.
Mr. Carnegie will need no other monument than his great libraries, the influence of which will increase in the coming centuries.
Thomas Holloway, one of England's most munificent givers, was born in Devonport, England, Sept. 22, 1800. His father, who had been a warrant officer in a militia regiment, had become a baker in Devonport.
Finding that he could support his several children better by managing an inn, he removed to Penzance, and took charge of Turk's Head Inn on Chapel Street. His son Thomas went to school at Camborne and Penzance until he was sixteen.
He was a saving lad, for the family were obliged to be economical. He must also have been energetic, for this quality he displayed remarkably through life. After his father died, he and his mother and his brother Henry opened a grocery and bakery shop in the marketplace at Penzance. Mrs. Holloway, the mother, was the daughter of a farmer at Trelyon, Lelant Parish, Cornwall, and knew how to help her sons make a living in the Penzance shop.
When Thomas was twenty-eight he seems to have tired of this kind of work or of the town, for he went to London to struggle with its millions in making a fortune. It seemed extremely improbable that he would make money; but if he did not make, he was too poor to lose much.
For twelve years he worked in various situations, some of the time being "secretary to a gentleman," showing that he had improved his time while in school to be able to hold such a position. In 1836 he had established himself as "a merchant and foreign commercial agent" at 13 Broad Street Buildings.
One of the men for whom Mr. Holloway, then thirty-six years old, did business, was Felix Albinolo, an Italian from Turin, who sold leeches and the "St. Come et St. Damien Ointment." Mr. Holloway introduced the Italian to the doctors at St. Thomas's Hospital, who liked the ointment, and gave testimonials in its favor.
Mr. Holloway, hoping that he could make some money out of it, prepared an ointment somewhat similar, and announced it for sale, Oct. 15, 1837. He stated in his advertisement in the paper that "Holloway's Family Ointment" had received the commendation of Herbert Mayo, senior surgeon at Middlesex Hospital, Aug. 19, 1837.
Albinolo warned the people in the same paper that the surgeon's letter was given in connection with his ointment, the composition of which was a secret. Whether this was true or not, the surgeon made no denial of Mr. Holloway's statement. A year later, as Albinolo could not sell his wares, and was in debt, he was committed to the debtors' prison, and nothing more is known of him or his ointment.
There were various reports about the Holloway ointment, and the pills which he soon after added to his stock. It was said that for the making of one or both of these preparations an old German woman had confided her knowledge to Mr. Holloway's mother, and she in turn had told her son. Mr. Holloway as long as he lived had great faith in his medicines, and believed they would sell if they could be brought to the notice of the people.
Every day he took his pills and his ointment to the docks to try to interest the captains and passengers sailing to all parts of the world. People, as usual, were indifferent to an unknown man and unknown medicines, and Mr. Holloway went back to his rooms day after day with little money or success. He advertised in the press as much as he was able, indeed, more than he was able; for he got into debt, and, like Albinolo, was thrust into a debtors' prison on White Cross Street. He effected a release by arranging with his creditors, whom he afterwards paid in full, with ten per cent interest, it is said, to such as willingly granted his release.
Mr. Holloway had married an unassuming girl, Miss Jane Driver, soon after he came to London; and she was assisting in his daily work. Mr. Holloway used to labor from four o'clock in the morning till ten at night, living, with his wife, over his patent-medicine warehouse at 244 Strand. He told a friend years afterwards that the only recreation he and his wife had during the week was to take a walk in that crowded thoroughfare. Speaking of the great labor and anxiety in building up a business, he said, "If I had then offered the business to any one as a gift they would not have accepted it."
The constant advertising created a demand for the medicines. In 1842, five years after he began to make his pills and ointment, Mr. Holloway spent £5,000 in advertising; in 1845 he spent £10,000; in 1851, £20,000; in 1855, £30,000; in 1864, £40,000; in 1882, £45,000, and later £50,000, or $250,000, each year.
Mr. Holloway published directions for the use of his medicines in nearly every known language,—Chinese, Turkish, Armenian, Arabic, and most of the vernaculars of India. He said he "believed he had advertised in every respectable newspaper in existence." The business had begun to pay well evidently in 1850, about twelve years after he started it; for in that year Mr. Holloway obtained an injunction against his brother, who had commenced selling "Holloway's Pills and Ointment at 210 Strand." Probably the brother thought a partnership in the bakery in their boyish days had fitted him for a partnership in the sale of the patent medicines.
In 1860 Mr. Holloway sent a physician to France to introduce his preparations; but the laws not being favorable to secret remedies, not much was accomplished. When the new Law Courts were built in London, Mr. Holloway moved his business to 533 New Oxford Street, since renumbered 78, where he employed one hundred persons, besides the scores in his branch offices.
"Of late years," says the Manchester Guardian, "his business became a vast banking-concern, to which the selling of patent medicines was allied; and he was understood to say some few years ago that his profits as a dealer in money approached the enormous sum of £100,000 a year.... The ground-floor of his large establishment in Oxford Street was occupied with clerks engaged in bookkeeping. On the first and second floors one might gain a notion of the profits of pill-making by seeing young women filling boxes from small hillocks of pills containing a sufficient dose for a whole city. On the topmost floor were Mr. Holloway's private apartments."
Later in life Mr. Holloway moved to a country home, Tittenhurst, Sunninghill, which is about six miles from Windsor, and on the borders of the great park of eighteen hundred acres, where he lived without any display, and where his wife died, Sept. 25, 1871, at the age of seventy-one.
He never had any desire for title or public prominence, and when, after his gifts had made him known and honored, a baronetcy was suggested to him, he would not consent to it. Mr. Holloway had worked untiringly; he had not spent his money in extravagant living; and now, how should he use it for the best good of his country?
The noble Earl of Shaftesbury had been giving much of his early life to the amelioration of the insane. He had visited asylums in England, and seen lunatics chained to their beds, living on bread and water, or shut up in dark, filthy cells, neglected, and often abused. He ascertained that over seventy-five per cent may be cured if treatment is given in the first twelve months; only five per cent if given later. He was astonished to find that no one seemed to care about these unfortunates.
He longed to see an asylum built for the insane of the middle classes. He addressed public meetings in their behalf; and Mr. Holloway was in one of these meetings, and listened to Lord Shaftesbury's fervent appeal. His heart was greatly moved; and he visited Shaftesbury, and together they conferred about the great gift which was consummated later. It is said also that at Mr. Gladstone's breakfast-table, Mrs. Gladstone advised with Mr. Holloway about the need of convalescent homes.
In the year 1873 Mr. Holloway put aside nearly £300,000 ($1,500,000) for an institution for the insane of the middle classes, such as professional men, clerks, teachers, and governesses, as the lower classes were quite well provided for in public asylums.
A picturesque spot was chosen for the Holloway Sanatorium,—forty acres of ground near Virginia Water, which is six miles from Windsor, though within the royal domains. Virginia Water is a beautiful artificial lake, about seven miles in circumference, a mile and a half long, and one-third of a mile wide. The lake was formed in 1746, in order to drain the moorland, by William, Duke of Cumberland, uncle of George III. Near by is an obelisk with this inscription: "This obelisk was raised by the command of George II., after the battle of Culloden, in commemoration of the services of his son William, Duke of Cumberland, the success of his arms, and the gratitude of his father." This lake, with its adjacent gardens, pavilions, and cascades, was the favorite summer retreat of George IV., who built there a fishing-temple richly decorated. A royal barge, thirty-two feet long, for the use of royalty, is stationed on the lake.
In the midst of this attractive scenery Mr. Holloway caused his forty acres to be laid out with tasteful flower-beds, walks, and thousands of trees and shrubs. Occupied with his immense business, he yet had time to watch the growth of his great benevolent project.
Mr. W. H. Crossland, who had built the fine Town Hall at Rochdale, was chosen as the architect, and began at Virginia Water the stately and handsome Sanatorium in the English Renaissance style of architecture, of red brick with stone trimmings. There is a massive and lofty tower in the centre. The interior is finished in gray marble, which is enriched with cheerful colors and plentiful gilding. The great lecture or concert hall, adorned with portraits of distinguished persons by Mr. Girardot and other artists, has a very richly gilded roof. The refectory is decorated by a series of beautiful fancy groups after Watteau, forming a frieze.
The six hundred rooms of the building, great and small, on the four floors, are exquisitely finished and furnished, all made as attractive as possible, that those of both sexes who are weary and broken in mind may have much to interest them in their long days of absence from home and friends. Students of the National Art Training School, under Mr. Poynter, did much of the art work. There are no blank walls.
The Holloway Sanatorium, which is five hundred feet by two hundred feet in extent, has a model laundry in a separate building, pretty red brick houses for the staff and those who are not obliged to sleep in the building, a pleasure-house for rest and recreation for the inmates, and a handsome chapel.
Four hundred or more patients can be accommodated. A moderate charge is made for those who can afford to pay, and only those persons thought to be curable are received. As much freedom is allowed as possible, that the inmates may not unnecessarily feel the surveillance under which they are obliged to live.
The Sanatorium was opened June 15, 1885, by the Prince of Wales, accompanied by the Princess, their three daughters, and the Duke of Cambridge. Mr. Martin Holloway, the brother-in-law of Mr. Thomas Holloway, spoke of the uses of the Sanatorium, and the Prince of Wales replied in a happy manner.
Many inmates were received at once, and the institution has proved a great blessing.
To what other uses should Mr. Holloway put his large fortune? He and Mrs. Holloway had long thought of a college for women, and after her death he determined to build one as a memorial to her who had helped him through all those days of poverty and self-sacrifice.
In 1875 Mr. Holloway held a conference with the blind Professor Henry Fawcett, Member of Parliament, and his able wife, Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett, Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P., Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, Bart., Mr. David Chadwick, M.P., Dr. Hague of New York, and others interested in the higher education of women. Mr. Holloway foresaw, with these educators, that in the future women would seek a university education like their brothers. "For many years," says Mr. Martin Holloway, "his mind was dominated by the idea that if a higher form of education would ennoble women, the sons of such mothers would be nobler men."
On May 8, 1876, Mr. Holloway purchased, and conveyed in trust to Mr. Henry Driver Holloway and Mr. George Martin Holloway, his brother-in-law, and Mr. David Chadwick, M.P., ninety-five acres on the southern slope of Egham Hill, Surrey, for his college for women. It is in the midst of most picturesque and beautiful scenery, rich in historical associations. Egham is five miles from Windsor, near the Thames, and on the borders of Runnymede, so called from the Saxon Runemede, or Council Meadow, where the barons, June 15, 1215, compelled King John to sign the Magna Charta. A building was erected to commemorate this important event, and the table on which the charter was signed is still preserved.
Near by is Windsor Great Park, with seven thousand fallow deer in its eighteen hundred acres, and its noted long walk, an avenue of elms three miles in length, extending from the gateway of George IV., the principal entrance to Windsor Castle, to Snow Hill, crowned by a statue of George III., by Westmacott. Not far away from Egham are lovely Virginia Water and Staines, from Stana, the Saxon for stone, where one sees the city boundary stone, on which is inscribed, "God preserve the city of London, A.D. 1280." This marks the limit of jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor of London over the Thames.
After Mr. Holloway had decided to build his college, he visited the chief cities of Europe with Mr. Martin Holloway to ascertain what was possible about the best institutions of learning, and the latter made a personal inspection of colleges in the United States. Mr. Holloway was seventy-six, and too old for a long journey to America.
Plans were prepared by Mr. W. H. Crossland of London, who spent much time in France studying the old French châteaux before he began his work on the college. The first brick was laid Sept. 12, 1879. Mr. Holloway wished this structure to be the best of its kind in England, if not in the world. The Annual Register says in regard to Mr. Holloway's two great gifts, "When their efficiency or adornment was concerned, his customary principle of economy failed to restrain him."
The college is a magnificent building in the style of the French Renaissance, reminding one of the Louvre in Paris, of red brick with Portland stone dressings, with much artistic sculpture.
"It covers," says a report prepared by the college authorities, "more ground than any other college in the world, and forms a double quadrangle, measuring 550 feet by 376 feet. The general design is that of two long, lofty blocks running parallel to each other, and connected in the middle and at either end by lower cross buildings.... The quadrangles each measure about 256 feet by 182 feet. Cloisters run from east to west on two sides of each quadrangle, with roofs whose upper sides are constructed as terraces, the capitals being arranged as triplets."
No pains or expense have been spared to finish and furnish this college with every comfort, even luxury. There are over 1,000 rooms, and accommodations for about 300 students. Each person has two rooms, one for sleeping and one for study; and there is a sitting-room for every six persons. The dining-hall is 100 feet long, 30 wide, and 30 high. The semi-circular ceiling is richly ornamented. The recreation-hall, which is in reality a picture-gallery, is 100 feet long, 30 wide, and 50 high, with beautiful ceiling and floor of polished marquetry. The pictures here were collected by Mr. Martin Holloway, and cost about £100,000, or half a million dollars. Sir Edwin Landseer's famous picture, "Man proposes, God disposes," was purchased for £6,000. It was painted in 1864 by Landseer, who received £2,500 for it. It represents an arctic incident suggested by the finding of the relics of Sir John Franklin.
Here are "The Princes in the Tower" and "Princess Elizabeth in Prison at St. James," by Sir John Millais; "The Babylonian Marriage Market" and "The Suppliants," by Edwin Long; "The Railway Station," by W. P. Frith; and other noted works. The gallery is open to the public every Thursday afternoon, and in the summer months on Saturdays also. There are several thousand visitors each year.
The college has twelve rooms with deadened walls for practising music, a gymnasium, six tennis-courts (three of asphalt and three of grass), a large swimming-bath, a lecture theatre, museum, a library with carved oak bookcases reaching nearly to the ceiling, and an immense kitchen which serves for a school for cookery. Electric lights and steam heat are used throughout the buildings, and there are open fireplaces for the students' rooms.
The chapel, 130 feet long by 30 feet wide, says the London Graphic for July 10, 1886, "is a singularly elaborate building in the Renaissance style.... In its decoration a strong tendency to the Italian school of the latter part of the sixteenth century is apparent. This is especially the case with the roof, which bears a kind of resemblance to that of the Sistine Chapel at Rome, though it cannot in any way be said to be a copy of that magnificent work.... The choir, or nave, is seated with oak benches arranged stall-ways, as is usual in the college chapels of Oxford and Cambridge.... The roof is formed of an elliptic barrel-vault, the lower portions of which are adorned with statues and candelabra in high relief, and the upper portion by painted enrichments. The former are a very remarkable series of works by the Italian sculpture Fucigna, who had learned his art in the studios of Tenerani and Rauch at Rome. These were his last works, and he did not live to complete them. The figures represent the prophets and other personages from the Old Testament on the left side, and apostles, evangelists, and saints from the New Testament on the right. The baldachino is constructed of walnut and oak, richly carved; and the organ front, at the opposite end of the chapel, is a beautiful example of wood-carving."
The building and furnishing of the college cost £600,000, the endowment £300,000, the pictures £100,000, making in all about one million sterling, or five million dollars. The deed of foundation states that "the college is founded by the advice and counsel of the founder's dear wife." When Mrs. Holloway was toiling with her husband over the shop in the Strand, with no recreation during the week except a walk, as he said, in that crowded thoroughfare, how little she could have realized that this beautiful monument would be built to her memory!
Mr. Holloway did not live to see his college completed; as he died, after a brief illness of bronchitis, at Tittenhurst, Wednesday, Dec. 26, 1883, aged eighty-three, and was buried in St. Michael's Churchyard, Sunninghill, Jan. 4, 1884.
Mr. Martin Holloway faithfully carried out his relative's wishes; and when the college was ready for occupancy, it was opened by Queen Victoria in person, on Wednesday, June 30, 1886. The day was fine; and Egham was gayly decorated for the event with flowers, banners, and arches. The Queen, with Princess Beatrice and her husband, the late Prince Henry of Battenberg, the Duke of Connaught, and other members of the royal family, drove over from Windsor through Frogmore, where Prince Albert is buried, and Runnymede to Egham, in open carriages, each carriage drawn by four gray horses ridden by postilions. Outriders in scarlet preceded the procession, which was accompanied by an escort of Life Guards.
Reaching the college at 5.30 P.M., the Queen and Princess Beatrice were each presented with a bouquet by Miss Driver Holloway, and were conducted to the chapel, where a throne had been prepared for her Majesty. Princess Beatrice, Prince Henry of Battenberg, and the Duke of Cambridge stood on her left, with the Duke of Connaught, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and others on her right. The choir sang an ode composed by Mr. Martin Holloway, and the Archbishop of Canterbury offered prayer.
The Queen then admired the decorations of the chapel, and proceeded to the picture gallery, where the architect presented to her an album with illustrations of the college, and the contractor, Mr. J. Thompson, offered her a beautiful key of gold. The top of the stem is encircled by two rows of diamonds; and the bow at the top is an elegant piece of gold, enamel, and diamonds. A laurel wreath of diamonds surrounds the words, "Opened by H. M. the Queen, June 30, 1886."
The Queen was then conducted to the upper quadrangle, where she seated herself in a chair of state on a dais, under a canopy of crimson velvet. A great concourse of people were gathered to witness the formal opening of the college. The lawn was also crowded, six hundred children being among the people. After the band of the Royal Artillery played to the singing of the national anthem, "God save the Queen," Mr. Martin Holloway presented an address to her Majesty in a beautiful casket of gold. "The casket rests on four pediments, on each of which is seated a female figure," says the London Times, "which are emblematical of education, science, music, and painting. On the front panel is a view of Royal Holloway College, on either side of which is a medallion containing the royal and imperial monogram, V.R.I., executed in colored enamel. Underneath the view is the monogram of the founder, Mr. Thomas Holloway, in enamel."