Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/13



T was a glorious summer day. The sunlight gleamed through the trees, which covered the mountain-top. Checkers of light and shade wove themselves upon the fern-clad soil. Seated upon the trunk of a fallen tree the man whose name to-day is borne by scores of institutions, which his more than princely benevolence has founded, talked to a friend in relation to his plans for the great city, the history of the growth of which is closely linked with the story of his own wonderful career. "The Allegheny Library will before long be nearing completion," he said, "and the time is approaching to execute my designs for Pittsburgh. In my original offer I agreed to give Pittsburgh a quarter of a million of dollars with which to build a library, but I mean to enlarge my gift, and make it a million. I have given Allegheny a library and a music-hall. I wish to do as much for Pittsburgh. The library idea is central. My convictions on that subject are established. But I wish to do something more than to found a library in Pittsburgh. I am thinking of incorporating with the plan for a library that of an art-gallery in which shall be preserved a record of the progress and development of pictorial art in America, and perhaps also of making some provision for advancing knowledge among the people through the addition of accommodations for the various societies which in recent years have struggled into existence among us. These societies deserve to be encouraged. I mean the Art Society, the Botanical Society of Western Pennsylvania, the Microscopical Society of Pittsburgh, and