A Short History of Pittsburgh Part 4

and Colonies; Dr. John Rhys, Princ.i.p.al of Jesus College, University of Oxford; Dr. Ernest S. Roberts, Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University; Mr. William Robertson, Member Dunfermline Trust; Dr. John Ross, Chairman Dunfermline Trust, and Dr. William T. Stead, editor "Review of Reviews"; and from Holland, Jonkheer R. de Marees van Swinderen, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States, and Dr. Joost Marius Willem van der Poorten-Schwartz ("Maarten Maartens"), author.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Entrance to Highland Park]

Mr. Andrew Carnegie has founded this splendid Inst.i.tute, with its school system, at a cost already approximating twenty million dollars, and he must enjoy the satisfaction of knowing it to be the rallying ground for the cultured and artistic life of the community. The progress made each year goes by leaps and bounds; so much so that we might well employ the phrase used by Macaulay to describe Lord Bacon's philosophy: "The point which was yesterday invisible is to-day its starting-point, and to-morrow will be its goal." The Inst.i.tute has truly a splendid mission.

III

The University of Pittsburgh was opened about 1770 and incorporated by the Legislature in 1787 under the name Pittsburgh Academy. In 1819 the name was changed to the Western University of Pennsylvania, but, holding to the narrower scope of a college, it did not really become a university until 1892, when it formed the Department of Medicine by taking over the Western Pennsylvania Medical College. In 1895 the Departments of Law and Pharmacy were added and women were for the first time admitted. In 1896 the Department of Dentistry was established. In 1908 (July 11th) the name was changed to the University of Pittsburgh.

The several departments of the University are at present (1908) located in different parts of the city, but a new site of forty-three acres has been acquired near Schenley Park on which it is planned to bring them all together. These new plans have been drawn under the direction of the chancellor, Dr. Samuel Black McCormick, whose faith in the merit of his cause is bound to remove whole mountains of financial difficulties. The University embraces a College and Engineering School, a School of Mines, a Graduate Department, a Summer School, Evening Cla.s.ses, Sat.u.r.day Cla.s.ses, besides Departments of Astronomy, Law, Medicine, Pharmacy, and Dentistry. It now has a corps of one hundred and fifty-one instructors and a body of 1,138 students.

IV

The author ventures to repeat in this little book a suggestion which has been made by him several times, looking to a working cooperation or even a closer bond of union between the Carnegie Inst.i.tute and the University of Pittsburgh. In an address delivered at the Carnegie Inst.i.tute on Founder's Day, 1908, the author made the following remarks on this subject:

The temptation to go a little further into the future first requires the acknowledgment which St. Paul made when he wrote of marriage: "I speak not by authority, but by sufferance." There will soon begin to rise on these adjacent heights the first new buildings of the Western University (now University of Pittsburgh), conceived in the cla.s.sic spirit of Greece and crowning that hill like a modern Acropolis. With its charter dating back one hundred and twenty-five years the University is already venerable in this land. Is it not feasible to hope that through the practical benevolence of our people, some working basis of union can be effected between that inst.i.tution and this? Here we have painting, and sculpture, and architecture, and books, and a wonderfully rich scientific collection, and the abiding spirit of music. We have these fast-growing Technical Schools. And yet the entire scheme seems to be lacking something which marks its unfinished state. The Technical Schools do not and should not teach languages, literature, philosophy, and the fine arts, nor the old learned professions, but these must always rest in the University. Should not one school thus supplement the other? And then, the students on each side of this main building would find available here those great collections which, if properly demonstrated, would give them a larger opportunity for systematic culture than could be offered by any other community in the world. For we should no longer permit these great departments of the fine arts and of the sciences to remain in a pa.s.sive state, but they should all be made the means of active instruction from masterful professors. Music, its theory, composition, and performance on every instrument should be taught where demonstrations could be made with the orchestra and the organ. Successful painters and sculptors, the elected members of the future faculty, should fix their studios near the Inst.i.tute and teach painting and sculpture as well as it could be done in Paris or Munich. Architecture should thrive by the hand of its trained votaries, while science should continue to reveal the secrets of her most attractive mysteries. Then, as the ambitious youths of the ancient world came to Athens to obtain the purest culture of that age, so would our modern youths, who are already in the Carnegie Technical Schools from twenty-six States, continue to come to Pittsburgh to partake of the most comprehensive scheme of education which the world would obtain. Believing firmly in the achieving power of hopeful thought, I pray you think on this.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Carnegie Inst.i.tute]

V

In the East End is the Pennsylvania College for Women (Presbyterian; chartered in 1869), which has one hundred and two students. On the North Side (Allegheny) are the Allegheny Theological Seminary (United Presbyterian; founded in 1825), which has six instructors and sixty-one students; the Western Theological Seminary (Presbyterian; opened in 1827), with sixty-four students and twelve instructors, and a library of 34,000 volumes; and the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary (founded in 1856). There are five high schools and a normal academy and also the following private academies: Pittsburgh Academy, for both boys and girls; East Liberty Academy, for boys; Lady of Mercy Academy, for girls and for boys in the lower grades; the Stuart-Mitch.e.l.l School, for girls; the Gleim School, for girls; the Thurston School, for girls; and the Ursuline Young Ladies' Academy.

The Phipps Conservatory (horticulture), the largest in America, and the Hall of Botany are in Schenley Park and were built by Mr. Henry Phipps.

There is an interesting zoological garden in Highland Park which was founded by Mr. Christopher L. Magee.

The Pittsburgh "Gazette," founded July 29, 1786, and consolidated with the Pittsburgh "Times" (1879) in 1906 as the "Gazette Times," is one of the oldest newspapers west of the Alleghany Mountains. Other prominent newspapers of the city are the "Chronicle Telegraph" (1841); "Post"

(1842); "Dispatch" (1846); "Leader" (1870; Sunday, 1864); "Press"

(1883); and the "Sun" (1906). There are also two German dailies, the "Volksblatt und Freiheits-Freund" and the "Pittsburgher Beobachter," one Slavonic daily, one Slavonic weekly, two Italian weeklies, besides journals devoted to society and the iron, building, and gla.s.s trades.

The publis.h.i.+ng house of the United Presbyterian Church is located here, and there are several periodical journals published by the various religious bodies.

The city has some very attractive public buildings and office buildings and an unusual number of beautiful churches. The Allegheny County Court-House, in the Romanesque style, erected in 1884-88 at a cost of $2,500,000, is one of Henry H. Richardson's masterpieces. The Nixon Theater is a notable piece of architecture. The Post-Office and the Customs Office are housed in a large Government building of polished granite.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Court-house]

The city has twenty or more hospitals for the care of its sick, injured, or insane, ten of which have schools for the training of nurses. There is the Western Pennsylvania Inst.i.tute for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb in Pittsburgh, which is in part maintained by the State, where trades are taught as a part of the educational system. The State also helps to maintain the Western Pennsylvania Inst.i.tution for the Blind, the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Women, and the Home for Colored Children. Among other charitable inst.i.tutions maintained by the city are the Home for Orphans, Home for the Aged, Home for Released Convicts, an extensive system of public baths, the Curtis Home for Dest.i.tute Women and Girls, the Pittsburgh Newsboys' Home, the Children's Aid Society of Western Pennsylvania, the Protestant Home for Incurables, the Pittsburgh a.s.sociation for the Improvement of the Poor, and the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Children, and Aged Persons. Under the management of Women's Clubs several playgrounds are open to children during the summer, where competent teachers give instruction to children over ten years of age in music, manual training, sewing, cooking, nature study, and color work.

The water supply of Pittsburgh is taken from the Allegheny River and pumped into reservoirs, the highest of which is Herron Hill, five hundred and thirty feet above the river. A slow sand filtration plant for the filtration of the entire supply is under construction and a part of it is in operation. In this last year the Legislature has pa.s.sed an act prohibiting the deposit of sewage material in the rivers of the State, and this tardy action in the interest of decency and health will stop the ravages of death through epidemic fevers caught from poisoned streams.

VI

Pittsburgh maintains by popular support one of the four symphony orchestras in America. She has given many famous men to science, literature, and art. Her astronomical observatory is known throughout the world. Her rich men are often liberal beyond their own needs, particularly so William Thaw, who spent great sums for education and benevolence; Mrs. Mary Schenley, who has given the city a great park, over four hundred acres in the very heart of its boundaries; and Henry Phipps, who erected the largest conservatory for plants and flowers in our country. There is one other, Andrew Carnegie, whose wise and continuous use of vast wealth for the public good is nearly beyond human precedent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Zoological Garden in Highland Park]

If Pittsburgh people were called upon to name their best known singer, they would, of course, with one accord, say Stephen C. Foster. His songs are verily written in the hearts of millions of his fellow-creatures, for who has not sung "Old Folks at Home," "Nelly Bly," "My Old Kentucky Home," and the others? Ethelbert Nevin is the strongest name among our musical composers, his "Narcissus," "The Rosary," and many others being known throughout the world.

Charles Stanley Reinhart, Mary Ca.s.satt, and John W. Alexander are the best known among our painters. Henry O. Tanner, the only negro painter, was born in Pittsburgh and learned the rudiments of his art here. Albert S. Wall, his son, A. Bryan Wall, George Hetzel, and John W.

Beatty have painted good pictures, as have another group which includes William A. Coffin, Martin B. Leisser, Jaspar Lawman, Eugene A. Poole, Joseph R. Woodwell, William H. Singer, Clarence M. Johns, and Johanna Woodwell Hailman. Thomas S. Clarke is a Pittsburgh painter and sculptor.

Philander C. Knox, United States Senator, and John Dalzell, member of the House of Representatives, are prominent among those who have served Pittsburgh ably in the National Government.

VII

And how about letters? Has Pittsburgh a literature? Those rolling clouds of smoke, those mighty industries, those men of brawn, those men of energy, that ceaseless calculation of wages and dividends--can these produce an atmosphere for letters? It seems unthinkable. Yet hold! Only the other day on the train a man who has been a resident of New York for thirty-five years remarked in this author's presence that "Pittsburgh is the most intellectual city in America." He had never visited Pittsburgh and the author did not and does not know his name. "How about Boston?"

asked another traveler. "Boston used to be, but is not now," he answered. Then I, in my timid and artless way, ventured to ask him why he spoke thus of Pittsburgh. "Because," said he, "distant as I am from Pittsburgh, more inspiration in artistic and intellectual things has come to me from that city than from any other place in America." But that may have been his dinner or the cigar.

Literature I once attempted to define as the written record of thought and action. If this be an adequate definition, then Pittsburgh writers have substantially enriched the field of literature in every department, and given our city permanent fame as a place of letters. As we begin our survey of the local field, the wonder grows that the literary production is so large, and that the character of much of it is so very high. Let Pegasus champ his golden bit as he may, and beat his hoof upon the empty air, Pittsburgh men and Pittsburgh women have ridden the cla.s.sic steed with grace and skill through all the flowered deviations of his bridal paths. This is scarcely the place to attempt a critical estimate, and it would be an ungracious and a presumptuous task for me to appraise the literary value of that work with any great degree of detail. The occasion will hardly permit more than a list of names and t.i.tles; and while pains have been taken to make this list complete, it is possible that some books may have been overlooked, but truly by inadvertence only.

VIII

Perhaps the most important piece of literature from a local pen is Professor William M. Sloane's "Life of Napoleon." This is a painstaking and authoritative record of the great Frenchman who conquered everybody but himself. Dr. William J. Holland, once chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, now director of the Carnegie Museum, has given to the field of popular science "The b.u.t.terfly Book"--an author who knows every b.u.t.terfly by its Christian name. Then Andrew Carnegie's "Triumphant Democracy" presents ma.s.ses of statistics with such lightness of touch as to make them seem a stirring narrative. His other books, "An American Four-in-Hand in Britain" and "Round the World" present the vivid impressions of a keen traveler. His "Life of James Watt" conveys a sympathetic portraiture of the inventor of the steam engine. His "Gospel of Wealth" is a piece of deep-thinking discursiveness, although it really seems a superfluous thesis, for Mr. Carnegie's best exposition of the gospel of wealth unfolds itself in two thousand n.o.ble buildings erected all over the world for the diffusion of literature; in those splendid conceptions, the Scottish Education Fund; the Was.h.i.+ngton Carnegie Inst.i.tution for Scientific Research; the Pension for College Professors, which has so much advanced the dignity and security of teaching; the Pension for Aged and Disabled Workmen; the Hero Fund, with its provision of aid to the injured and to the worthy poor; the many college endowments; and, greater than all, the Peace Palace at The Hague, through which he will make his appeal to the conscience of civilization during all time to organize and extend among the nations of the earth that system of arbitrated justice which has been already established within the borders of each State.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Carnegie Technical Schools (uncompleted)]

But if I continue to group our Pittsburgh authors in this arbitrary fas.h.i.+on, those who come at the end will think I mean the last to be least. Therefore, let me pursue the theme indiscriminately, as I meant to do all along had not that same Pegasus, in spite of my defiance, run away at the very start.

IX

The first Pittsburgh book that I can find in my hurried review of the field is "Modern Chivalry," by Hugh Henry Brackenridge. The third volume of this book was printed in Pittsburgh in 1796, the first two having been published in Philadelphia. This writer's son, Henry M.

Brackenridge, was also an author, having written "History of the Late War between the United States and Great Britain," "History of the Western Insurrection called the Whisky Insurrection, 1794," "Journal of a Voyage up the River Missouri, Performed in 1811," "Recollections of Persons and Places in the West," and several other books. Neville B.

Craig wrote a "History of Pittsburgh," published in 1851, which is still a work of standard reference. Another "History of Pittsburgh" was brought out some ten years ago under the editors.h.i.+p of Erasmus Wilson, who has also published a volume of "Quiet Observations," selected from his newspaper essays. But the most important, painstaking, and accurate "History of Pittsburgh" which has yet been published is the one by Miss Sarah H. Killikelly, published in 1906. Another book of hers, "Curious Questions," is an entertaining collection of many queer things that have occurred in the world's history. Robert P. Nevin wrote "Black Robes" and "Three Kings." Professor Samuel P. Langley was for many years in charge of the Allegheny Observatory and won fame while here as a writer on scientific subjects. Also the first models of his flying machine were made while he was a resident in Pittsburgh. W. M. Darlington wrote "Fort Pitt" and edited the journals of Christopher Gist, who was Was.h.i.+ngton's scout when the Father of his Country first came to Pittsburgh. "Two Men in the West" is the t.i.tle of a little book on travel by W. R. Halpin.

Arthur G. Burgoyne, a newspaper writer, has published "All Sorts of Pittsburghers." George Seibel has written three beautiful plays which have not yet been produced because the modern stage managers seem to prefer to produce unbeautiful plays. One of these is "Omar Khayyam,"

which was accepted and paid for by Richard Mansfield, who died before he could arrange for its production. Another is "Christopher Columbus," and he has just finished an important tragedy ent.i.tled "OEdipus," dealing artistically with a horrifying story, which has been accepted for early production by Mr. Robert Mantel. Mr. Seibel has published a monograph on "The Mormon Problem." Charles P. s.h.i.+ras wrote the "Redemption of Labor,"

and a drama, "The Invisible Prince," which was played in the old Pittsburgh Theater. Bartley Campbell was the most prolific writer of plays that Pittsburgh has yet produced, and his melodramas have been played in nearly every theater in America. H. G. Donnelly, well known as a playwright, was also a Pittsburgher. Mrs. Mary Roberts Rinehart is a young author who is coming to the front as a writer of successful dramas, stories, and books. Her plays, "The Double Life" and "By Order of the Court" have been produced, and a novel, "The Circular Staircase,"

has just appeared from the press. My own little play, "The Brayton Episode," was played by Miss Sarah Truax at the Alvin Theater, Pittsburgh, June 24, 1903, and by Miss Eleanor Moretti at the Fifth Avenue Theater, New York, January 15, 1905.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Margaret Morrison Carnegie School for Women]

Rev. W. G. Mackay wrote tales of history under the t.i.tle of "The Skein of Life." Father Morgan M. Sheedy and Rev. Dr. George Hodges, who used to strive together in Pittsburgh to surpa.s.s each other in tearing down the walls of religious prejudice that keep people out of the Kingdom of Heaven, have each given us several books on social and religious topics composed on the broad and generous lines of thought which only such sensible teachers know how to employ. Among Dr. Hodges' books are "Christianity between Sundays," the "Heresy of Cain," and "Faith and Social Service"; while Father Sheedy has published "Social Topics."

That devoted student of nature, Dr. Benjamin Cutler Jillson, wrote a book called "Home Geology," and another, "River Terraces In and Near Pittsburgh," which carry the fancy into far-off antiquity. Professor Daniel Carhart, of the University of Pittsburgh, has given us "Field Work for Civil Engineers" and "Treatise on Plane Surveying." From J.

Heron Foster we have "A Full Account of the Great Fire at Pittsburgh in 1845." Adelaide M. Nevin published "Social Mirror," and Robert P. Nevin "Poems," a book with mood and feeling. Dr. Stephen A. Hunter, a clergyman, is the author of an erudite work ent.i.tled "Manual of Therapeutics and Pharmacy in the Chinese Language."

Walter Scott, who, after taking a course at the University of Edinburgh, came to Pittsburgh in 1826, was a very distinguished preacher and author. His greatest reputation was gained in his work in a.s.sociation with Alexander Campbell in establis.h.i.+ng the principles of the now mighty congregation known as the Christian, or Disciples, Church. His books are: "The Gospel Restored," "The Great Demonstration," and "The Union of Christians."

A memoir of Professor John L. Lincoln, by his son, W. L. Lincoln, gives a record of a life so spent that many men were truly made better thereby. Father Andrew A. Lambing, President of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, has written useful monographs on the early history of this region, and he is one of the first authorities in that field. He has also composed books on religious subjects. E. W. Duckwell wrote "Bacteriology Applied to the Canning and Preserving of Food Products."

Richard Realf was a poet "whose songs gushed from his heart," and some of them hold a place in literature. His "Monarch of the Forges" breathes the deep spirit of industrial life as he found it in Pittsburgh.

Mr. Lee S. Smith, now (1908) president of the Chamber of Commerce, has published an interesting book ent.i.tled "Through Egypt to Palestine,"

describing his travels in the Orient.

Our men who have written most knowingly on industrial topics are James M. Sw.a.n.k and Joseph D. Weeks. A young writer, Francis Hill, has published a very readable boys' story, "Outlaws of Horseshoe Hole," and Arthur Sanwood Pier has published "The Pedagogues," a novel satirizing the Harvard Summer School.