I | » am m ■ffENSY R , HEDGED iMiM SUNDAY. MAY 2D 1911 THE NEW YORK TI - 2 2_~ Some Grand Old Men Whose Memories of Com mencement Forty or Seventy Years Ago Are Stirred by the Approach of June—The Big Things They’ve Done and the Things They Remember. Rear Admiral John H. Upshur, Class 1848, U. S. Naval Academy. « T this season when the prospective^ college graduate so fills the public /"m eye that the overworked organ nas little space for anything else, how about those who have survived a like ex- perience until they have become the oldest living alumni of their respective Alma Maters—or should it be Almae Matres? Henry B. Elliot, D. D., Presbyterian minister, aged 88, now living in West Ninth Street, New York City, is one of these. Seventy-one years ago this com- mencement season, then a youth of 17, he received his diploma in arts from the hands of Theodore Frelinghuysen, Chan- cellor of the University of New York, who had been United States Senator and was to be Henry Clay’s running mate on the Whig ticket in 1844. “ Good boy! ” said the Chancellor sotto voce, as he delivered the precious sheepskin. According to all the scientific authori- ties, the first photograph was taken by Prof. John William Draper in 1839 in the old building of New York University. Dr. Elliot has something to say on that sub- ject, and this is how he puts it: “Early in 1839 the Frenchman Daguerre discov- ered his process and shortly afterward Prof. Draper described it in detail to his chemistry class, of which I was a mem- ber. I was so interested in it that I re- solved to try it myself. “ My father regarded my determina- tion as a boyish whim and declined to go to any expense, so I procured the neces- sary lenses from an old magic lantern and proceeded to construct a camera, us- ing a cigar box and anything else that came handy. By the time I had com- pleted my apparatus I was so overwrought with apprehension that my experiment would be a failure, that I could scarcely get up the courage to make the test. “ At last I roused myself and posed my sister before a window, with my device adjusted at what I regarded as a proper focus. I was prepared for failure at the start, and I leave you to picture my de- light, when I discovered that ifi j Rev. Dr. rlenry B. Elliot, Class 1840, New York University. “Let me see,’ he said, assuming an air of the most intense mental calcula- tion. ” Now what would I do with my half?’’ he went on abstractedly. “ Ah, I have it!’’ he said finally, as If with a sudden inspiration. “ If ray share of the Anneke Jans estate amounted to enough— mind, I am putting it conditionally—I should hunt up your restaurant and or- der a dozen on the half shell.’ Two of these college veterans were born so long ago as 1817—Judge David Cross of Dartmouth, in July, and John Bigelow of Union, in November. The latter was graduated at the age of sev- enteen and the former, Mr. Bigelow’s senior by three months, did not acquire his bachelor’s diploma until he had reached the maturer age of twenty- four. Now, within a few weeks of his ninety- fourth birthday, still active!', interested in the various enterprises \* : ;h have had his earnest attention tor more than sev- enty years and ha 'c made him one of the most successful jurists, bankers, and general business men In the Granite State, Judge Cross s as ready as ever to “ talk college.” “You may understand how the old col- lege influence has dominated me,” he said recently, “ when 1 tell you that I have had a personal acquaintance with members of every class . graduated from Dartmouth, Judge David Cross, Class 1841, Dartmouth. Richard H. Clarke. Class 1848, Georgetown Uni= versity. some of our leading Institutions. Only recently the head of the department of Romance languages In a leading American school told me that for the future he should accept no candidate for a position under him who was not an excellent Greek and Latin scholar; that he had tried the experiment of employing men who had attained to the doctorate in philosophy under the elective system and was satisfied that It had been a waste of time.” The man who has been a bachelor of I his college. arts for the longest period is William Rankin, LL. D. Rankin was grad- uated from Will's* in 1831. That was five years before Mark Hopkins became President of the college and only thirty- eight years after s bounding of the in- stitution or, rather. U development into a college from the free school established by the will of Cob Ephraim Williams. Like Judge Cross of Dartmouth, Dr. Rankin might have been acquainted with members of every Class graduated from A year later James C. Hepburn, M. D., LL. D., was graduated from Princeton, and he is the only surviving member of the class of 1832. Dr. Hepburn is the oldest living college alumnus In America, having been born at Milton, Pa., March 13, 1815. When he entered Princeton, Ashbel Green was at the head of the school, having just succeeded Samuel Stanhope Smith, who had done great things for the college in the way of broadening its curriculum. For one thing, he made provision for regular instruc- tion in chemistry, the first action of the kind e er ta'-ken by an American school. “ From thej first I was deeply inter- ested in this new and comparatively un- known study,'" says Dr. Hepburn, “ and I went into jit with all the enthusiasm of the youngster of 14 that I was. I was Intended for ' the Presbyterian ministry and eventuality became a missionary of the denominaltion in China and Japan, but I concluded that the medical profes- sion would g|ve me a better chance to pursue the fa|scinc i.ing new study. “ In those Mays there was a pretty stiff proportion of the classics In the PIKE’S PEAK, MEDICAL OBSERVATORY and the Institution was founded in 1769, my, you know. Why, Lam so certain to make apparatus was an instant success, and j my appearance at Hanover early in com- that I obtained an excellent picture of j mencement week that any failure on my HAT most Yale and Oxford Experts to Stu< Sickness There. [Mountain celebrated of American i on Pike’s Peak of climbing andJ fcther the exertion <§>of mountain sickness has been the ex- treme difficulty of transporting the in- struments needed to the high altitudes where investigations must be conducted. Up to the present time the principal in- vestigations of the sickness have been made In a cabin on Monte Rosa In the Swiss Alps. It is difficult enough for men, lightly laden, to reach It; when they college requirements, and I made up my mind that it would he more agreeable to devote some c|f the time spent on Latin and Greek to the nore agreeable task of chemical e x p cfer i r n' r- a t i o n. I remember that I agitate I the matter a good deal publicly and g; ur quite a reputation as a kicker. For aught ’ know, I may have been the origlr al adv. ate of the elective system. “ In the cour se of time my critical atti- tude was bro ught t< the attention of President Gree* n and ae invited me to visit him in lids study. I shall never forget how coi.j siderate he was. 41 hear that you have th. poor opinion of the Latin and Greek au|thors,’ he said, with a humorous glear:|i in hi: eyes. 4 What have you discovered jfthat if so out of the way with them ? ’ | 441 replied th;jkt the only quarrel I had with them ,.as|the amount of time they demanded. 4 Itl seems to me that you have an abundlance of time,’ he replied afterward that every new student wa* confronted on his arrival with a similar proposition. “ Of course I was only too ready to ac- cept the admonition, all my notions of college life being based on fealty to stu- dent traditions, but I had little oppor- tunity during ray course to show my de- votion to the cause. By that time Presi- dent Day and his associates in the Fac- ulty had obtained such a hold on public cp.nicn and had mastered the trick of college government so well that nothing beyond the usual student fantastics oc- curred during my day. By the time I had struggled through Dr. Day’s work on navigation and surveying and had peeped into one or two of his philosophical trea- tises I was as meek as a lamb.” The oldest graduate of the United State* Military Academy is Gen. Simon B. Buck- ner, Mexican and civil war veteran, who finished at West Point as a student in 1844, but returned as Instructor in ethics and In infantry tactics after the cam- paign with Gen. Scott. Rear Admiral John H. Upshur is the sole survivor of the class of 1848 of the Naval Academy and the oldest alumnus of that institution. “ I was in at the birth of the institu- tion,” says the old sea fighter, “ which was opened at Annapolis in 1843. At that time it was known as the 4 Naval School 4 and the course was -fixed at five years, the first and last of these to be spent at the school. “ I had been a student at William and Mary College, but had tired of the hum- drum of the life and had gone into the navy and had served on various vessels in the Mediterranean, on the coast of South America, and elsewhere. When the new naval school was organized I thought it would be well for me to take advantage of the opportunity to learn the theory of sea fighting and I went in at the opening and remained three years, my previous experience cutting the courso down to that time. “ It was a rather primitive affair in those days, although the teaching was good enough. The year after I left An- nanolis the ronrse was rhantroil fnTHE YEW YOEH TIMES YD AY. MAY 21, M, WHSm mam ■HHI illlll * T* 1 A «■ ferfectly understood. But a few general facts stood out in a most interesting man- |*r. Ask library people about the eleotrio Equipment of the new library and they frill answer that it is wonderful, a thing gnost unusual. Ask one of the firm who gure responsible for its installation, and will tell you that there is nothing fgronderful about it. On investigation, fhis means that there is no new device jkpplied, but all the old knowledge of elec- tricity has been brought together and ♦Deed In such a fashion as to make The frail ding perhaps the most convenient in the world to-day. The New York Public Library stands ♦quite alone among the buildings of its ♦character. Sometimes, when a great new structure is to be made, it is possible to look, over the various buildings' of the sort Ulready existing and choose from each the Inost useful and convenient features. But fwith the public library new ground was ptruck. This is an age of electricity. None Cf the great libraries has been built so recently as to make it possible to utilize all of the scientific knowledge we have now. It was a brand new problem to be worked out in a brand new way. Archi- tecturally, the library is original, too, but here comparison may be made with other buildings. The main reading room is cer- tainly one of the most beautiful rooms in the world, but there are others in Europe and even In this country which suggest it. There is no library existing, how- ever, with which the mechanical perfec- tion of our new building can be com- pared. The general electrical plan was laid iflown and the work begun in 1897, but there is nothing out of date about the building. Nobody wilj deny that there has been plenty of time for the contractors to *eek with a magnifying glass for every known device. To get the money for some ©f the absolutely necessary work certain pf the contractors had to wait seven {years. However, the result is pretty fine. If (you want to know in a few well-chosen Scientific words what the electric plant Iconsists of it might be stated at the out- feet that it is a 240-volt two-wire direct- fcurrent system, with storage battery float (t»n a line, supplying both lamps and mo- tors from the same bus. In case you do Electrical Plant There Is as Largess That Used to Li£ht the City of Stockholm—Special Appliances in Every De- partment of the Building. not happen to be of a technical turn of* mind and shy at this sort off language It may he well to use words fless learned and beautiful. The building Is run by electricity to greater extent, perhaps, tharfi any build- ing hitherto constructed. Inhere are as yet no currents run through! the reading room to inspire the minds off the seekers after knowledge, but short * of that you find the mysterious power atfevery turn. The building has its owr| electric in- stallation, of course, and besides running the books up and down an-cjl making the pneumatic tubes workable amd doing vac- uum cleaning and such odd Jobs the plant runs 20,000 lights and 7,000 hjjorse power in motors. Electricity shovells coal and weighs it, does the printing ijfor the estab- lishment, and pretty nearly® all the bind- ing. It lets you know wher|i your book is ready at the delivery desk,* and it keeps a sharp watch on the stacltroom boys to see that, they play no tricks! In sending up the desired volumes. Telephone switch jooand TTiene <3 re £&m°fhees cu-v comrnu. nccat cn§ the minute. Now, from below these lifts, the which are operated by push buttons, can Qn be sent only to the delivery desk, so no- rath body can stop a lift en route and delay fron the arrival of the volume. . On the other } ere(j /farAle svsifc/i&odrd vrAicA, control 7fie o'"** OA Venn d s eg reader's an en The fashion in which the signed has already been feature, however, has not as strongly as should be might well be emphasized are considered. The sta< is behind that long space the library where there aspe no windows, own fou: no connect with stands on Its means It has construction goes, building. Should there be a fire, If modern science can pre library is de- escribed. One been dwelt on le case, and it before details jkroom, which ■at the back of idation. That ion, so far as t he rest of the there won’t be, vent It; but not even in these days of enlightenment have we absolute control over the elements,) the stackroom would continue to stand. Its supports go down into the ground, and the building might fall about it with- out disturbing it in any way. It will readily be seen how much this fact does away with the danger of fire. Tightly pressed paper does not burn readily, so that books stacked on the shelves protect one another pretty thor- oughly from any blaze. The danger comes when the stackrooms are broken down and the paper is scattered. It will be remembered that many of the valu- able books in Albany were found still readable, though injured, in spite of the fire and water through which they had passed. It is calculated, therefore, that if all the safety devices applied to the publio library should fail, the stackroom might still escape in case of a blaze. Nothing Is built oyer It but the long reading room, and it is as far as possible Isolated from the other rooms of the building. To return to the subject of the electrical equipment, In this stackroom there are various remarkable devices. Orders for books are presented at the delivery desk at the centre of the main reading room. These are shot through pneumatio tubes worked by electricity and are received on the floor of the stackroom where the books belong. The attendant who receives an order gives It to one of the hoys, who sees at a glance which section the book belongs in, and before he goes to the sec- tion he presses a button to turn on the light there. After that he has nothing to do but go and find the volume and put it on one of the lifts. These lifts are somewhat peculiarly de- vised. There are seven stackroom floors. There are six big lifts capable of carrying 250 pounds at the rate of 150 feet per hand, from the delivery desk they can be sent down and stopped anywhere that may he necessary. The four centre lifts are arranged so that they may be operated from the switchboard independent of other control. Five other big lifts of the same capacity are placed in different parts of the build- ing and controlled by push buttons. There is a horizontal book conveyer, which shoots a book 18 inches by 14 inches by 5 Inches, weighing 50 pounds, at a speed of 150 to 250 feet per minutes. This connects one of the document rooms with the sixth floor of the stackroom. A sim- ilar conveyer connects the same room with one of the special reading rooms. The .electricians made the pithy remark that the library was the home for books, and that everything was done to make it a comfortable home for hooks. There are only three passenger elevators in the whole building. People, they say, can walk. Books can’t. People will have to walk in one respect a little more than was the case in the old Astor Library. Books will not be brought by boys and delivered at your desk in the main reading room except perhaps in the case of heavy books, and feeble persons. But this is offset by another consideration. There will not be many heavy books sent to the main reading rbom for the reason that admission to the stacks themselves is very easy to obtain, and students will have the privilege,.long since discontinued In the old Astor Library, of going among the books and choosing their material as they see fit. The public library numbers Its readers. You are not John Smith for the time be- ing, but No. 217. This is noban affront, but a convenience. You give the name of the book you want, *md are told your number. Then, w'th a care-free mind, you sit in the reading room and meditate or read some of the reference books around the shelves until such time as, looking up, you see your number blazing in electric light on the enunciator at the desk. Then you rise and get your book. “ With all this electricity,” the anxious taxpayer mhy ask at this juncture, " what has been done to prevent fire? How about defective wires and other foes or the insurance companies? Slower than a forest has the library risen to its present grandeur, and to have the building burned down in a year or two would certainly be the last straw upon our patience.” After the Albany fire a good many people began to get nervous about this matter, and the question was widely de- bated whether we might not have such a tragedy right here at home. The wooden ceilings of the building were given a special amount of advertising. As a matter of fact, there are exactly four wooden ceilings in the whole build- ing, and as to the wires setting the thing afire, that is not a very likely thing to happen, considering that absolutely every wire is sheathed in an iron conduit. This is true not only of the wiring of the build- ing itself, but of every piece of furniture as well, so the library would seem to b& about as safe as modern science can make it. The engine room has been rather neg- lected because of the more artistic and romantic features of horizontal book con- veyers and . push-button lifts, but it is here, of course, that really remarkable work has been done. A great deal of money has been saved through that 240- volt plant that works so hard. In addi- tion to its 20,000 lights and 7,000 horse power in motors and other things that have been told about, It runs a crane down In the engine room that has a span of thirty-one feet and lifts fifteen^ tons. Again it hoists the coal, for which there is a total storage capacity of one thousand tons. The same bucket that takes the coal up may be used for clear- ing the ash hopper of each boiler, sending the ashes either to the storage bin or to the street. One little detail of the engine room Is rather picturesque. The oil is carried 1 from the central oil tank, is used, filt- and used again and again as long as there is any life in it. The central wonder of the whole thing is the white marble switch board. It con- tains all the usual switches; one hundred and twenty feeders for light and power and a section for separate feeders con- taining one hundred and forty-one cells, with capacity for one hundred and twenty amperes for eight hours. There is a pump room, too, which pumps the waste matter up to the level of the street sewers, which are above the drain- age wells of the building, and a dozen other devices, which are very curious to see, but too technical to be described. The telephone equipment of the library consists of a 2-position switchboard (that is operated by 2 girls) the contract with the public library allowing for ten lines to the Central Office and eighty-eight tel- ephones throughout the library. Twelve telephone booths will take care of the public use of the telephones in the library. These are all arranged in one bank, being located in a small room off the hall-way. All departments are connected by telephones and the management of the library expects to depend upon the tele- phone considerably in locating and deliv- ering books. They will all be running soon, these de- vices. For, like the sound of a woodpecker In Summer forest, there came the noise of a gentle, insistent tapping in one of the rooms. Glancing within what should be seen but a shoe maker happily plying his trade in a corner. It was an unex- pected vision. The visitor plunged in thought, then gave it up and asked for enlightment “ Why,” said the attendant, “ he’s put- ting on rubber heels for the whole lot of us.”