570 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1903. 



84. LIBRARY, MUSEUM, AND ART COMMITTEE. 



The collection of buildings of the museums of art and science are 

 maintained by the city at an expense of $200,000 and are administered 

 under the "Library, museum, and art committee." They comprise 

 the following- departments: (1) An art museum (Walker Fine Art Gal- 

 lery), built in 1877, on the ground floor of which are plastic reproduc- 

 tions, on the second floor paintings, excellent!}' lighted and pleasantly set 

 off by tapestries and plants, so that a sojourn there is highly agreeable. 

 (2) A library (Picton Reading Room) of 122,000 volumes exclusive of 

 pamphlets, a reference library, principally contained in a great round 

 building. (3) The main structure, called the "Free Public Library 

 and Museums," a library of 95,000 volumes, with five branches in the 

 city, for lending books, with reading and periodical rooms into which 

 people pour from the streets, " and a museum of natural science, arche- 

 ology, ethnography, industrial arts, and art (independent of those 

 branches of art which the Walker Fine Art Gallery cultivates), known 

 as the "Free Public Museums.'" In the lower stories of this nuiseum 

 building is located the new technical school. 



35. FREE PUBLIC MUSEUMS. 



The Free Public Museums are open on five week days from 10 a. m. 

 to 4 or 6 p. m., and in the winter, on Monday evenings, from 7 to 10 

 p. m. In 1899, on 262 days, there were over 300,000 visitors; in 1898, 

 on 264 days, over 350,000. At 12 public lectures on Mondav even- 



« I did not carefnlh' inspect these libraries, founded in 1852, since their arrange- 

 ments are not modern. Their sphere of action, however, is great. The totals for 

 1900 are as follows: 666,207 books and 728,128 periodicals were read in the library; 

 612,386 persons visited the newspaper rooms, and 58,929 the 116 public lectures; 

 819,317 books were carried home by 22,244 persons ("for the most part they belong 

 to the working classes, and to persons of education but of very limited means"), of 

 which, however, 643,842 were fiction and 132,535 were children's books. Altliough 

 I particularly mention the fiction included in this total, I do not wish to depreciate 

 the value of such books, for after the day's work thereare few recreations so refreshing, 

 delightful, and even instructive to the thoughtful reader as is fiction, while we should 

 not overlook the fact also that the pul)lic liliraries do not purchase any bad novels. 

 In the Picton Reading Room alone, where no fiction is given out, 246,533 books were 

 read, of which there were, for example, 41,863 technical, 49,748 collected writings, 

 essays, etc., and 22,145 historical and biographical. The library possesses 15,913 tech- 

 nical, 29,042 collected writings, essays, etc., 14,595 historical and biographical works. 

 (Forty-eighth Annual Report Public Libraries, etc., Liverjwol, 1901, pp. 5-31; see also 

 J. J. Ogle, The Free Library, 1897, pp. 165-173, and F. J. Burgoyne, Library Construc- 

 tion, 1897, pp. 167-170. ) It is open on week days from 10 a. m. to 10 p. m. (Fridays 

 from 10 a. m. to 2. p. m.). The annual expenditures are $100,000, half of which is 

 expended for books, periodicals, and newspapers. Alxiut 80 persons are employed. 

 The reference department has a catalogue in three volumes in quarto, 2,066 pages. 

 In Germany we are very backward in this respect, though we far excel the English 

 in the busy life at our hedge taverns. 



