SECTION E THE LIBRARY 



(Hall 12, September 22, 3 p. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: MR. FREDERICK M. CRUNDEN, Librarian, St. Louis Public Library. 

 SPEAKERS: MR. WILLIAM E. A. AXON, Manchester, England. 



PROFESSOR GUIDO BIAGI, Royal Librarian, Florence. 

 SECRETARY: MR. C. P. PETTUS, Washington University. 



IN opening the Section of The Library, Mr. Frederick M. Crunden, 

 Librarian of the St. Louis Public Library, and Chairman of the 

 Section, spoke as follows: 



" The Louisiana Purchase Exposition is an epitome of the life 

 and the activity of the world - - from the naked Negrito to the 

 grande dame with her elaborate Paris costume; from the rude wigwam 

 of the red Indian to the World's Fair palace filled with the finest 

 furniture, rugs, and tapestries, sculpture and painting and decora- 

 tions that the highest taste and finest technique can produce; from 

 the monotonous din of the savage tom-tom to the uplifting and 

 enthralling strains of a great symphony orchestra; from fire by fric- 

 tion, the first step of man beyond the beast, to the grand electric 

 illumination that makes of these grounds and buildings the most 

 beautiful art-created spectacle that ever met the human eye. And 

 to all this magnificent appeal to the senses are superadded the 

 marvels of modern science and its applications; the wonders of 

 the telescope, the microscope, and the spectroscope; the telegraph in 

 its latest wireless extension; the electric motor and electric light; 

 the telephone and the phonograph; the Roentgen ray, and the new- 

 found radium. 



'' And now after this vision of wondrous beauty, this triumph of the 

 grand arts of architecture and sculpture and landscape -- of all the 

 arts, fine and useful - - has for six months enraptured the senses of 

 people from all quarters of the globe, the learned men of the world 

 have gathered here to set forth and discuss the fundamental princi- 

 ples that underlie the sciences, "their correlations, and the methods 

 of their application to the arts of life, - - to summarize the progress 

 of the past, to discuss the condition of the present, and attempt, 

 perhaps, a forecast of the future. 



' In the scheme of classification, so comprehensive and well- 

 ordered as to be in itself an achievement, our subject appears in the 

 last department that concerns itself with man's purely mundane 

 affairs, and is the last section in that department. It thus appears 

 properly as a climax and summary of the arts and sciences intellig- 

 ible to man in his present stage of existence; and if the problem of 



