The
handsome new public library building, which will formally dedicated on Monday
afternoon, will be a perpetual monument to Andrew Carnegie, whose beneficent
gift of $100,000 made it possible for Hamilton to erect such a building. Its
location could not be better selected, for it is removed from the noise and
bustle of business, while at the same time, it is convenient to residents from
every quarter of the city. In its construction, it has had the careful
oversight of the architect as well as the members of the library board, many of
whom are practical men so that we may infer that it was built to last for ages.
The building is compact and solid, and in its interior arrangements is planned
after the most modern library buildings. One of its attractions will be the art
gallery, the foundation of which are the paintings of William Bruce, a native
of Hamilton, who won fame as an artist in foreign counties during his brief
life. He was the son of William Bruce, now retired and living on the mountain
top, and who is spending the closing years of his life in the study of
astronomy and adding his mite to scientific research. The young artist began
his studies in this city under capable teachers, and with the assistance of his
father, who has natural artistic talents, he became noted abroad. Among his
pictures is one of valuable historic interest, The Bathers of Capri and Snow
Blind. In the art gallery at Ottawa is one of his pictures. These paintings the
young artist wished to become a part of a civic art gallery in Hamilton
whenever such a department was founded on a permanent basis, and the city came
near losing them on account of the dilatoriness on the part of controllers and
library board to decide upon founding an art hall in the new public library
building. There are other valuable paintings from the brush of the young
artist, as well as many of the works of Mr. Bruce. These are the
foundation of what Hamilton hopes may
become an art collection that will grow and be of great value to future
students of our local art school. However, the writer of these musings will not
follow up this subject, but will leave it to the reporters upon whom will
devolve the task of not only describing the architecture of the new library,
but also its interior and its art room. Monday will be a red letter day in the
history of Hamilton.
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Let us go back sixty years when
Hamilton (in 1853) celebrated the opening of the Mechanics’ Institute building
on James street. That even was a long stride ahead of the old-time library that
had its home on King street west, in a black, dingy room. Mechanics’ Institutes
were an ancient institution, and we read of them in Dickens’ novels. They were
workingmen’s library and social recreation rooms, where the men and apprentice
boys could meet in the evening to read newspapers and books belonging to the
library. It was a free and easy resort, but it was conducted with due decorum
so that visitors could spend a quiet evening in the enjoyment of a pipe of
tobacco and some favorite book or newspaper. Probably if there were such
reading rooms nowadays where young men who live lonely lives in boarding houses
could spend their evenings, they might act as a drawing card against the attractions
of the saloon and its sociability and pleasant surroundings. Libraries of the
present day are certainly bright and attractive, but the incense of tobacco is
debarred from their sacred walls. The old reading room on West King street has
passed from the memory of even the oldest inhabitant, but the new institute on
James street is yet remembered by a few ancient Hamiltonians. It was completed
and opened to the public about the time that the Great Western railway ran its
first trains from the Niagara river to this city, and the reading rooms and
library were largely controlled and patronized by men employed in the Great
Western shops. One of the most active of the railroad employees was David
McCulloch, who was gifted with speech, and was a leader among his shopmates.
Mr. McCulloch was employed in the upholstering department at the Great Western
shops, and as a matter of history we might state that he helped to trim the
first sleeping coach made in this country. The training that Mr. McCullough
received in his lyceum days afterward stood him in hand when he entered the
field of politics as a party speaker and editor of the Spectator. The old
Mechanics’ Institute was a great educator in its day, to the boys and men who
availed themselves of the advantages presented. There was hardly a town of 500
or 1000 population in Canada and the United States that did not have its
mechanics’ institute, and connected with the library was the lyceum with its
course of lectures during the winter season. The lecturers were among the
ablest scholars of the day, and the lectures were on all the interesting
topics, the admission price being so low that it did not require one to have a
bank account to be able to buy a season ticket. There were giants in those days
in the lecture field. Old Hamiltonians can recall the names of many of the
finest scholars who lectured in the hall of the mechanics’ institute. One
rarely ever hears of one these days.
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It was an unfortunate day for Hamilton
from an educational viewpoint when the old Mechanics’ Institute got into deep
water, and there were not public spirits enough among the people to save it
from the hands of the sheriff. When the building was opened in 1853, there was
but a small indebtedness on it. The men who were interested in erecting the
building gave liberally of their means in the hope that the library and reading
room would be a benefit to the workingmen and boys who could not afford to own
libraries of their own. Bad management in its later life substantially swamped
the institute, till finally Joseph Kneeshaw took hold of it in the hope of
saving something from the wreck. Mr. Kneeshaw had been engaged in the book
trade and had a practical knowledge of the management of a library. It was
uphill work all along the line till finally the time came when the sheriff sold
the building to Isaac McQuesten to satisfy the mortgage held by him. The debt
had been increasing steadily and no effort was made by the directors to stem
the flood. Before the library was closed forever, A.T. Wood, who was one of the
directors, and Joseph Kneeshaw offered to turn over the ten thousand or more
volumes to the city providing the council would make provision to continue the
library. Those gentlemen offered to pay off whatever floating indebtedness there
was on the library, and thus save the books to the city. Thomas Burrows saw the
beginning and the ending of the old Mechanics’ Institute, for he was one of the
members at the start and was the auctioneer when the books were sold. They told
a good story on the genial old auctioneer. He was selling a copy of Bunyan’s
Pilgrim’s Progress when some man in the audience called out, “Who is the
author? I really can’t remember just now the name of the gentleman who wrote it
but the book is by one of the most noted literary men of the day.” “Going,
going, gone” was the cry of the witty Irish auctioneer, and when the last book
and the last bit of furniture were sold, the Mechanics’ Institute passed into
history. The only thing by which to remember it is the official seal, on which
is inscribed “Hamilton and Gore Mechanics’ Institute. Established 1839.”
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The new library building will soon
absorb the one that has been in existence in these later years. A few words
about Mr. Andrew Carnegie, the donor that made the new library possible. He is
a native of Scotland, and came with his parents to the United States when he
was but a lad. As a boy he worked in a cotton mill, but being ambitious and an
apt scholar, he did not long remain at the bottom of the ladder. As a messenger
boy in a telegraph office, he learned to manipulate the key, and soon became an
expert telegrapher. He got a position in a railroad office, and when the civil
war broke out in the United States, he entered the service as a telegrapher. In
whatever position he was called to fill, Andrew Carnegie always made good.
After the war, he returned to railroad work, lived economically, and saved his
money. He began speculating in a small but sure way, and in the course of time
connected with the iron business. In less than fifty years, beginning at a very
small wage, he became one of the multi-millionaires of the world. He became
alarmed lest he should die rich, so he began to endow library buildings as a
means of perpetuating his name, and at the same time, helping to educated the young
man to a knowledge of books that they might never have had, had it not been for
his liberal giving.
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