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Show H I i LIBRARIES AND SCHOOLS. M I I J Public libraries are publin blessings. How i" ' much good they do cannot be opimated. In Chicago Chi-cago the John Crearas library is simply a public i reference library of scientific literature. At first i thought one would imagine that such a collection ' would fail to draw. Think of a library with 1 nothing to offer but statistics, scientific disserta- I tions, etc. Not one work of fioHon, not one class- , Ic, but merely cold science. ' Yet there are on an average three hundred r visitors daily. Engineers, electricians, men en- ! gaged in all the fields of science mechanics, the H I'll l j N votaries of all that goes to make up the great H 1 j world's work in all departments. ,1 John Crearas was an American, but he inher- B I ited his nature from Scotch ancestors and he H m was as canny as is Carnegie. He grew very rich H If I t n Chicago, and being without near kin he be- H ' queathed his property in a way which he be- B m i . lieved would do the most good. He was in life H HI a Queer old stick. He belonged to one church H W i. and several clubs. He was a generous giver to all H jfj worthy charities, took especial interest in all edu- H jfj cational and charitable matters, but he always H iff j lived at a hotel and when he went away for a H J week he gave up his rooms to save expense. H Tj To distant relatives and near friends he left H !j more than $600,000, to charitable institutions and B i jfj for public purposes he left $1,000,000, but the bulk B j it of his estate about $2,500,000 which was so M m j i ;l handled that it grew to $3,400,000 he left for such H ill!) a library as above described. The means are set B L J ' I j aside to build a $400,000 structure on the lake front, and the hope is to duplicate this in a very few years. The new building will be constructed to hold 1,000,000 books. The present library has more than 200,000 volumes and some are most rare. Professors of colleges in outside states often spend half their vacations in study in the Crearer library. The purpose is to gather under one roof all of value that has ever been published on scientific scien-tific or mechanical subjects. It will contain books in all published languages, and on all scientific scien-tific themes. Wandering through this library one instinctively instinct-ively thinks how Egyptian kings built the pyramids pyra-mids to bo at once their monuments and their sepulchres. Crearas may have thought of the monument but not of the tomb. The new structure will surely be his monument and its contents will preserve pre-serve his name longer than the Egyptian plan. When the kings died the pyramids were closed, but the light from the windows of the Chicago monument will radiate forever, and reverence for the founder will continue to increase as the centuries ebb and flow. The librarian of the Crearas library is Professor Pro-fessor Clement W. Andrews, brother of Mr. Horace Hor-ace Andrews of this city. He is an enthusiast over his work, and a very lovely gentleman. His mind is straining in anticipation of the time when the new, great structure will be completed and stored with a million volumes with everything rare in science. Still wo believe for this working day world the thought of Peter Cooper, the thought of Mr. Carnegie in founding a great technical school is the very highest form of wisdom and charity. When young minds are started off right and when the education goes to the hands and eyes as well as to the brain; that is all that can be done. When every child is started that way there will be no need of asylums in the land fdr the poor. Of course the old and the sick must be taken care of, but the needs for this will grow less and less as practical educat'on for the young increases. The need of It, too, is more and more urgent. Tho man who can only perform manual labor is merely mere-ly at best competing with machinery. The laboring man who is to rise must mix more and more brain into his work. Modern work becomes more and more an assertion of mind over matter every day. |