Monthly Bulletin - Clpdigital.org

LIBRARY NEWS AND NOTICES—DECEMBER 1913 505
which a number of Pittsburgh's future business men acquired their fir
conception of the wide domain of literature. Most of these boys were
sons of poor parents, and with few exceptions employed in the mills
and factories.
Among this ambitious crowd of working boys was Master Andrew
Carnegie, then about 13 years of age, who had forsaken the occupation
of a bobbin boy in a cotton mill and was now "running" messages for
the O'Rielly Telegraph Company. He lived with his mother in "Barefoot
Square," the world for him consisting of his home, the telegraph
office and Col. Anderson's book shelves. He was an omnivorous
reader, persistently asking questions, and always wanting to know
why. With the knowledge thus acquired, and the kindly and judicious
advice of his preceptor, the messenger boy of 1850 laid the foundation
of a practical education. Some years ago, after his name had become
a household word throughout the world, writing to a Pittsburgh friend,
he thus referred to Col. Anderson, the benefactor of his boyhood days:
"The depth of my gratitude to him increases every year I live. He
opened the temple of knowledge to me."
In January, 1864, Mr. Brunot, who had served long and faithfully
as president of the Mercantile Library Association, announced that he
would not again be a candidate. At the annual meeting of the society
held on the evening of January 14, in giving an account of his stewardship,
he made the following remarkable statement which, taken in the
light of future events, reads like a prophecy:
"We want a library of one hundred thousand volumes, rich and
complete in every department of useful knowledge. We want, in connection
with it, a collection of art, curiosities in natural science, autographs,
coins, etc., worthy of the library. We want a building adapted
for their accumulation and preservation, containing halls suitable for
literary entertainments of a community which is capable of creating
such a library and gallery for the elevation of themselves and their
posterity."
The man who made possible the realization of Mr. Brunot's dream,
who subsequently provided Pittsburgh with a library "rich and complete
in every department of useful knowledge," who founded a magnificent
gallery and museum "filled with the curiosities of natural
science," and endowed one of the most renowned technical schools in
the world, was then a resident of Pittsburgh, earning a nominal salary
as assistant superintendent of a railway, with no idea that he was to
live to witness the results of his generosity.