obtaining a degree. Special students, who are not candidates for a degree, are admitted and allowed to pursue such courses as may be approved by the faculty; and elementary instruction is given in those branches which are either not included or inadequately treated in the usual undergraduate courses of American colleges.

A reference to the chapter in this volume on the Department of Philosophy will enable the reader to see what an extensive curriculum of advanced studies is open to the students of this department. The hall for women is an admirable residence, with every homelike feature. It has been comfortably and even handsomely furnished, through the zealous efforts of the women managers. Col. Bennett has supplemented his original generous gift by the further donation of $15,000 for endowment, Provost Pepper has endowed one fellowship to be called the Frances Sergeant Pepper Fellowship, and other generous donors have made it possible to offer eight fellowships, which entitle the holder to all the privileges of tuition and residence. Unremitting efforts are being made to increase the endowment to a sum adequate to the full needs of the department, and it is hoped that in a very few years it will be placed on such a footing as to enable it to meet, in the most liberal way, the increasing demand for the higher education of women. The women's hall was opened with appropriate ceremonies on May 4, 1892. Addresses were made by the venerable William H. Furness, D. D.; by President James MacAlister, LL. D., of the Drexel Institute; by Dean M. Carey Thomas, PH. D., of Bryan Mawr College, and by Provost William Pepper. The large and representative audience which listened to these addresses gave evidence of the deep interest taken by the community in this latest extension of the work of the University, and gave assurance to the trustees and managers that their conservative, and yet broad and progressive, policy would meet with a full measure of public approval and support.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES.'

The beginnings of the University library date back to the beginnings of the University itself, and its growth has steadily followed the unfolding of the institution. At the very first recorded meeting of the trustees of the Philadelphia Academy the subject was introduced, and shortly thereafter a sum of £100 was placed at the disposal of a committee, of which Benjamin Franklin was chairman, to be expended in the purchase of "Latin and Greek authors, maps, drafts, and instruments." At the same time a general appeal was issued for gifts of books, which met with a hearty response. The first gifts recorded are those of Benjamin Franklin and Lewis Evans, in 1750. During the following years several further grants for the library were made by the trustees, and by the year 1774 the library had grown to sufficient dimensions to warrant the faculty in making a request of the trustees for the appointment of a librarian. It does not appear, however, that this was done until 1791. The income of the library during all this time and long afterwards was a very uncertain one. There was no special endowment fund, and outside of the special appropriations made from time to time as the urgent needs of the institution dictated, and gifts, there was only the bachelor's fee of 15s. and the master's fee of £1 (afterwards reduced to 15s.), to depend upon, which by resolution of the trustees, in 1757, was set aside for the benefit of the library. To this in 1768 there was added a tax of $1, levied on medical students for the use of the library. Mention perhaps should also be made of a fine of 1s. imposed upon trustees absent from the meeting, to be used in the purchase of "books and paper" for scholars in the Charity School; but although there is an actual record on May 25, 1754, of such a fine having been paid, and which was duly expended in "paper, quills, and books," the law was presumably more honored in the breach than in the observance. In 1784 the library received a notable gift from "His most Christian Majesty" Louis XVI, who, at the instance of the Compte DeVergennes and the Marquis de Chastelux, forwarded to the University 100 volumes of miscellaneous scientific and literary works, for the

'I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Gregory B. Keen, librarian of the University, who kindly placed at my disposal most of the material for this article, which he had been at pains to gather from the records of the Board of Trustees.

most part in French. By 1786 the library appeared to have grown sufficiently to warrant the preparation of a catalogue, of which two copies were ordered to be furnished, one for the faculty and students, and the other to be kept by the secretary of the board. If we add that in 1788 Francis Gladwin, esq., residing in the East Indies, presented to the library its first volumes on Oriental literature and philology, we shall have exhausted the account of the very humble beginnings of the University's collections.

The second period in the history of the library begins with the year 1791 when the amalgamation of the College with the University (organized in 1779) took place. The new institution soon took advantage of the State patronage under which it was placed to petition the legis lature for an appropriation to enlarge the "library and the philosophical apparatus." In 1792 an address to that effect was presented to the house of representatives who referred it to a "grand committee” with which action the measure is lost sight of, so far as the University is concerned, and judging from the fact that in 1809 the trustees made an appropriation of $600 for the library, it would seem that the hope of receiving State aid was abandoned.

In 1811, under the new rules and statutes, which are an indication of the University's steady growth, provision was made among the standing committees for a library committee of two, to whom was intrusted also the philosophical apparatus of the institution. The number was subsequently (in 1818) increased to three, but there is an almost constant vacillation between three and four members until in 1855, it was, by resolution, fixed at five. A few years later the University received by bequest the books of Dr. McDowell (provost from 1807 to 1810), and an important step in advance was taken in 1822 when, in addition to the further appropriations for the purchase of books and apparatus, it was decided hereafter to grant such annual amounts as the funds of the University may warrant for enlarging the library. The library committee was also instructed to adopt such measures as they deemed expedient to invite and encourage donations of books, and at the same time initiatory action was taken looking to the publication of a catalogue. Several years, however, passed before the project was carried out, and it was not until 1829 that the catalogue, prepared under the direction of S. Peter Duponceau, a member of the library committee, with the aid of a "foreign gentleman," whose name does not appear on the records, at length appeared. Meanwhile, the number of books had increased steadily through purchases regularly made as well as through donations, though judging from the statement, which was apparently regarded as somewhat extraordinary, that in 1824 105 volumes had been added to the shelves, the growth would be regarded as almost painfully slow at the present time. Notable among the donations at this period was a complete set of Waite's State Papers from the Department of State.