Ohio History Journal

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106 Ohio Arch

106       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

historical library building at Pittsburgh, though delivered for the

promotion of a purely local enterprise, are so replete with in-

formation and suggestion pertinent to historical libraries in

general, that we take pleasure in producing them in full.

 

 

 

 

WHAT AN HISTORICAL LIBRARY BUILDING SHOULD DO

FOR PITTSBURGH.

 

BY REUBEN GOLD THWAITES, LL. D.

Superintendent of the Wisconsin Historical Society, and Lecturer in

American History in the University of Wisconsin.

 

The immigrant from Europe, no matter how unlettered he may be,

quite generally brings to our shores a fairly accurate knowledge of

the most striking facts in the history of his native land. Its heroes

are his heroes, and the ideals they stood for are, in a measure, quite

apt to be his also. Especially do we find, if we have occasion to ques-

tion him, that the newcomer is conversant with at least the outlines of

the story of his native city or province. He is proud to claim as fellow

citizens those men of past generations whose heads have stood above

the throng. He knows something of the partisan struggles that in

various generations have in his community set neighborhood against

neighborhood, family against family, men against their kin; something

of the long-enduring and often devastating commercial and political con-

tests with other cities; something of the fierce battles that through

successive generations have been waged beneath the crumbling walls

that girt his town.

Sometimes on holidays I have watched groups of these people

wandering through a European art gallery or museum-peasants and

journeymen, with undoubted evidence of their vocations still clinging

to them, yet pausing with awesome although voluble admiration be-

fore some great historical canvas that eloquently sets forth a chapter

in the story of their country's past; or commenting intelligently upon a

skillful grouping of museum articles illustrative of the life, manners,

methods in vogue among men and women who trod this municipal

stage long generations ago.

When schools are in session, one cannot tarry long at any historic

shrine in Europe without encountering a schoolmaster or a school-

mistress having in charge an enthusiastic bevy of boys and girls who,

either resident or from a neighboring town, have come to see the house

connected with the career of some notable citizen, or to study in much