STUDIES ON MUSEUMS AND KINDRED INSTITUTIONS. 451 



friends 90 lectures on art, also on music with musical performances; 

 besides -11 lectures for the art students and 24 for other art associations. 

 I will brietly mention the art school. It is one of the most fre- 

 quented in the United States. In 1900 it had over 1,900 students, 

 740 regular day students, 500 evening students, 794 Saturday students. 

 In the day classes in 1899 there were 25 teachers, including prominent 

 persons from without, whose services were temporarily secured, 10 in 

 the evening classes and 85 students, who received a total compensation 

 of $29,000. The models cost $3,000, heating and lighting $1,750 (see 

 also Circular of Instruction of the School of Drawing, Painting, Mod- 

 eling, Decorative, Designing, and Architecture, 1900-1901, 191 pages, 

 with many illustrations, 1900). 



It is estimated that the collections of paintings, sculptures, antiquities, and other 

 objects ■>( art belonging to the art institute are of the value of al)out ?.S50,000. The 

 cost of the building has been $708,000. The land, 400 feet, estimated on the basis of 

 the property opposite, on Michigan avenue, is worth not less than $1,600,000, a total 

 of $3,158,000. The loan collections constantly exhibited are probably of the value 

 of $300,000. The total amount of cash subscriptions paid into the Art Institute since 

 its organization in 1879 is about $500,000. 



It is, in fact, admirable and worthy of respect, that so important a 

 work as that achieved and presented by the Chicago Art Institute 

 should have been accomplished without great, private benefactions — I 

 mean "great" in the American sense, as they are made to other insti- 

 tutions in America" — and without aid from the State or city; and it is 

 difficult, for us at least, to understand why the city, as such, is not 

 sufficiently ambitious to feel it a duty to support an art society that 

 has already attained so high a rank, in order that it may compete with 

 the first in the world. We can only suppose that the cit}^ fathers do 

 not appreciate the educational worth of art. 



In one of the last annual reports it is said, "The Art Institute has 

 accomplished something; it aspires to accomplish much more." The 

 present beautiful product is regarded only as the beginning of a greater 

 one, and the}' are already thinking of either adding lateral wings or of 

 bridging over the railroad and erecting a second building in the park 

 beyond, nearer the edge of the lake. Who, indeed, who has learned 

 on the spot to know and admire the enterprising spirit of Chicago, can 

 have the least doubt but that the future development will go far beyond 

 such plans? 



13. JOHN CRERAR LIBRARY. 



The history of this library is as simple as it is unusual and brief. In 

 1886 John Crerar, a merchant who had lived in Chicago since 1862,'^ 



« For example, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York recently obtained 

 a legacy of $8,000,000. 



^Of Scotch extraction, born in New York. See Appleton's Cyclopedia of Ameri- 

 can Biography, new edition; also ^I. Kirkland's History of Chicago, 1895, and Will 

 of John Crerar, who died in Chicago, October 19, 1889, 23 pages. 



