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neath it the simple words: "Henry Irving, Actor: Born February 8, 1837; Died October 13, 1905." As I watched the crowd pass this monument, I have seen men of all nationalities stop, look at it, and raise their hats. That monument has done more to impress the people with the dignity of our profession than a library of praise concerning the power of the theatre. Henry Irving was the man in England who raised the social position of the actor, and he rightly deserves the monument of dignified respect which the public and his profession gave to him. A man said to me not long ago, speaking of a certain actor in England: "Yes, he is great. He is too excellent an actor to be knighted." Of course, we appreciate the humor of that. Let it pass. But, after all, the knighting of players is done to give a dignified recognition of the work that the actor has accomplished.

The money for this monument to Sir Henry Irving was raised by subscription from members of every branch of the dramatic profession. Now, what I want to see done in this country is something very similar. America has produced a man in our profession who was as great a man as Irving, perhaps a greater natural actor, who really did more for our profession than anybody who has ever worked in it in this country. That man was Edwin Booth. I have just told you the amount of money which he spent in doing beautiful work in the theatre, bringing into his work the finest artists and musicians and the finest company of actors that the country could produce. Now, why shouldn't you have a statue of Edwin Booth out here on the Pacific Coast? He was appreciated and understood here in California, and some of his early struggles and some of his greatest efforts were made in the city of San Francisco. Don't you think that, if such a statue stood in one of your public places, every time the man on the street passed it, and stopped to think, he would give it the dignified thought and consideration that it would deserve! Don't you think

it would make him appreciate the work and the attainments of the people in our profession? And don't you think between us such a movement can be started? A committee of the Players' Club is getting a subscription to put such a statue in one of the public squares in New York City and we are all enthusiastic about it.

Just vaguely in my mind I have an idea how such a thing could be brought about. I want to see a committee formed of representative men and women. I want them to choose the best American sculptor to do this statue. I want them to obtain the very best actors that are visiting this part of the country during a certain season of the year, selecting, well ahead of their coming, three or four of the best classical plays, alloting the actors to their parts, not taking into consideration whether they are "stars" or whether they are not "stars," but casting them to play the parts that the committee considers them most fitted for. Find out from the booking-offices what companies will be here, and arrange well ahead of time for rehearsals. You would surely be able to choose from the very best actors in America, and, if you have them, you will not be ashamed to exhibit their work before any community in the world. There should be four or five performances. They should not come on consecutive days. They should come, let us say, one every month. Tickets should be sold for one or for the series. And I think if your public out here were properly informed about the movement, it could be carried out just as well as it was carried out in England. There is not an actor, there is not an artist, there is not a costumer, or anybody in connection with our profession, I am sure, who would not give his services to this without any consideration of monetary return.

Now, I am hoping there is somebody in California who will project this enterprise. I have many ideas on the subject, and I should like to talk further to those who would be interested in it. Quite the most wonderful thing that could happen would be to interest the authorities of your

university, and receive the help of a committee formed of its professors in art and literature. I believe that if these gentlemen would agree to this plan and would call together the dramatic critics of California (a body of people who have done so much to help our profession and bring to it a dignified consideration), that a generous response would be given by all the newspapers, that through them the public would be reached, and that the project would be assured of success.

And now a final word in regard to the theatre in general. It seems to me that a good deal of the future of the theatre is in your hands-the public's hands-backed up by your splendid newspapers and magazines which follow it so closely and are willing to write so extensively about it. You can demand from us almost exactly what you want; you have the power to force us to give you the best; and it is so easy for you to ignore us, to pass us by, if we don't give you the best. It is also very easy for you to encourage us and help us to climb artistically and educationally, and bring the theatre to the heights we want to see it stand upon. Condemn all things that are brought into the theatre by people who have not the real interest of the theatre at heart but merely a desire to gain notoriety or solely the wish to make money.

And so that you shall not misunderstand anything that I have said in this paper, I want to say, my text, whenever I am preaching about the theatre, is "Entertain; tag on all the art you can while you are entertaining, and eventually the best art will be accepted as entertainment."

The theatre has its mission, and the theatre has its place, and with your assistance, it ought to attain a very high

one.

THE LIBRARY

JOHN GALEN HOWARD

To begin with I wish to say a few words on the general subject of libraries as the problem presents itself to the architect. I shall then outline the solution of the problem offered by the University Library at Berkeley.

Libraries, speaking largely, are of two types, the single room structure in which books and readers are assembled in the same apartment; and the complex scheme, in which readers and books are separately administered. The former is the ancient, the primitive type; the latter is the up-to-date, the developed type. The first lends itself to intimacy, charm, freedom; the second, to formality, economy of administration, discipline.

The single-room plan is suitable for the comparatively small library only. In proportion as the establishment increases in size, either as to number of books or as to number of users, this plan tends to cut off the head of its own usableness. It becomes unwieldly and out of human scale. It loses its specific qualities of intimacy and charm, and, for the freedom which is really possible, or at any rate enjoyable, only within narrow compass, substitutes an imprisonment of grandeur. To sit comfortably at a secluded desk with all the books one needs close serried by one, best of all within easy reach on the shelves as one sits, without a call to rise, yet with ample elbow-room flat around for disposing open volumes which are actually in hand, to be encysted within a tiny chamber walled with books, in diameter two hand-reaches, in height a sitting and a reach,-this is ye

ideal library of ye perfect book-worm. And truth to say the closer a library building approximates such conditions for each and all of its users, the nearer it comes to fulfilling its essential purpose, which is and was and ever shall be not merely to house books, but to house books for use. Merely to house them is to make a warehouse or a museum.

Of course the second type, the complex plan, of books and users separate, is the result of ages of evolution from the prototype. The single cell expands till the circulation of its blood (its books) becomes unviably sluggish, when the mother cell breaks up into a series of more or less vitally connected segments (or alcoves) each capable of sustaining individual life if cast adrift. Indeed the tendency is toward segmentary detachment, isolation and utter divorce of constituent parts which should be interdependent. Most old libraries have gone through the process of dry segmental accretion; and many are still in the segmentary or alcove stage.

It is on reaching this point of its development that a library is ripe for a thorough-going reorganization, the purpose of which is to make, out of a congeries of many small semi-detached elements, an orderly and organic whole,with a place for everything and everything in its place. The large library, which has grown from a small one, is obliged to revolutionize its system and achieve organic unity if it hopes to realize its full measure of usefulness; for it can accomplish this only by placing itself unmistakably in the category of higher organisms.

So far as can be made out one living cell is much like another; but of the genus homo erectus the individuals are nothing if not variant. So with libraries. An alcove is an alcove whether it be in the Bodleian or at Cornell; but the modern family of bibliotheca erecta organica comprises members as widely different as the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the British Museum in London, the Astor, Tilden, and Lenox Foundations in New York, the Public Library in Boston, the Library of Congress in Washington, and

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