the side lighted by windows. The walls of the reading room are finished in brick, relieved by numerous terra-cotta pillars and arched windows. Two archways, supported by columns, separate the front of the reading room from the back, which is set aside more particularly for the students, while the alcoves are devoted to periodicals, seminary purposes, and private work.

A feature of these alcoves is the strong light which is let in through a skylight. The smaller reading room receives its light from the semicircular row of windows at a height of about 20 feet, while in the larger room ample provision for light is made by a row of windows on one side and a large skylight in the center. At the one end, and immediately adjoining the entrance to the reading room, is the receiving desk, from which there is the entrance to the book stacks immediately be hind, while further to the left is situated the librarian's office, a cosy little apartment that again communicates with the cataloguing room; the latter, 16 by 60 feet, is in reality an extension beyond the reading room and, like the alcoves, it receives its light from the top. The separation between the cataloguing room and the reading room is formed by au elaborate series of drawers containing the catalogue cards of the library, one case being devoted to an arrangement of cards according to subjects, the other to a duplicate arrangement according to authors. A feature of the cases is that they may be pulled out in either direction, and can thus be consulted as conveniently by the clerks in the cataloguing room as by the readers in the reading room. The long wall of the cataloguing room has accommodations for 6,000 volumes, while in the basement beneath there is a storeroom with accommodations for 15,000.. A delivery room in the basement with a separate entrance from the street communicates with the cataloguing room by means of an elevator. As rapidly as the books are catalogued they are placed on trucks and rolled into the book stack.

Passing from the receiving room into the latter, the visitor is struck by the novel features for the accommodation of books; you almost fancy yourself in a glass palace, for, wherever one looks, the ceiling, the flooring, and the upper part of the walls, one sees nothing but glass. Running the length of the building are the shelves, conveniently divided into rows, each accommodating about 5,400 volumes, besides shelves along the ends, which give a total capacity of 100,000 volumes for the ground floor. The basement beneath, which is at present set aside for newspaper, pamphlet, and periodical collections, is equally spacious; while everything is in readiness to raise three stories of glass flooring, whenever required, above the ground floor, and without materially affecting the light of the latter and of the basement. The total capacity would thus reach over 350,000 volumes, with a further possibility of extending the stack itself through the exterior wall. The construction, glass and iron, is entirely fireproof; and cut off as the stack is from the rest of the building by low walls of brick with an air space

between, it will be seen that the protection for the books is as ample as can be contrived. A unique feature in the construction of the glass floor consists in the fitting of the glass aisles within rolled star bars of iron supported on iron beams. The stacks resting upon the star bars, the tops are so constructed as to permit the same plan to be carried out in the erection of a second story. Distributed in the stack space are a number of tables for the convenience of those who in special cases require to work in the immediate vicinity of the books; but it may be well to add in this connection that running along the main reading room are shelves on which are placed the reference works and dictionaries constantly needed by readers and students; and so also the alcoves are fitted up with a shelving capacity of 3,000 volumes each, and which are intended to be set aside for special collections that may be presented or loaned to the University.

Over the extensions to the reading room, on either side, are large apartments accessible from the main stairway, which are at present devoted to the museums of the department of archeology, of which an account will be found in a preceding chapter.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE.

The founding of a School of Architecture in Philadelphia was a natural result of the recent remarkable advance in the status of architecture in this country. Within the period of a very few years the standard of good architecture had been placed immeasurably beyond the point it formerly occupied. The evidences of this were everywhere patent in the character of our architecture, in the importance of the architect as a professional man, and in the great and growing interest on the part of the public in all matters architectural. The most striking effect of this advancement, within the confines of the profession, had been upon the education and the training of the architect himself. It had become imperatively necessary that he should be a many-sided and a broadly educated man. The new order of things demonstrated beyond question that the time was past when the promoted draftsman, or the clever builder with a knack for drawing, could enter the profession and secure recognition; it showed that the architect, to be really worthy the name, must base his professional training on a liberal education and a broad-minded culture; that he must add to this a knowledge of the science and the aesthetics of his profession, and must acquire a familiarity with the forms and traditions of architecture to be gained only by travel and study abroad. It was preliminary training of this kind that enabled our best architects to produce their best work and to advance as they have done the standing of architecture as a fine art.

A new set of conditions, very different from that under which, in past generations, we have produced architects of eminence came about in recent years with the vast impetus felt in building throughout the country. Public opinion required that the structures, springing up like a mushroom growth through the length and breadth of the land, should be "architectural." What that term might mean the public did not properly understand, but it certainly meant that something higher than the constructive skill of the carpenter and mason should find expression in building. This demand for "architecture" was at once met by a supply of "architects," partially drawn from the building trades and almost entirely educated at the drafting table of the architect. Thus the profession became filled with an active, capable, and