LAYING OF CORNERSTONE

This morning at 11 o'clock the cornerstone of Harvard's new library, the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial, will be laid by the donor, Mrs. George D. Widener, of Philadelphia. The ceremony will be open to the University, and will be one of the festivities of the Phi Beta Kappa exercises, the society attending it in a body immediately after the business meeting. President Lowell will preside.

The ceremonies will be opened with a few remarks by Profesor A. C. Coolidge '87, of the History Department, Director of the University library. These will be followed by the actual laying of the connerstone by Mrs. Widener. The Hon. Joseph Francis Swayze '76, president of the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Massachusetts, will deliver the address, and the exercises will close with the singing of "Fair Harvard" led by a chorus selected form the College Choir and the Glee Club. This chorus will also sing at other times during the ceremony.

The cornerstone will contain a parchment bearing the inscription copies of the College publications of the day--the Lampoon, Monthly, Illustrated, Advocate, the 1916 Red Book, this morning's CRIMSON, pictures of Gore Hall, the old library, copies of the various official University publications, and a copy of "College Life" by Dean Briggs.

Harry Elkins Widener, in whose memory the library is given, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., Jan. 7, 1885. He en- tered College from the Hill School in 1903 and received his A.B. degree with the class of 1907. It was while in College that he developed a marked literary taste, and began the collection of the rare and beautiful books, which in his will he left to Harvard University. On April 15, 1912, together with his father, Mr. George D. Widener, he was lost at sea when the White Star steamship Titanic foundered.

Widener Collection Contains Many Treasures.

When his will was read, it transpired that he had left his valuable book collection to Harvard. This included four folios of Shakespere, first editions of the "Fairie Queene," of Ben Jonson's works, of "Robinson Crusoe," of Gulliver's Travels," "The Vicar of Wakefield," the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," and many other works almost as famous. There were first editions and presentation copies of Dickens, Thackeray, Browning, Tennyson, and Stevenson, and numerous other manuscripts from the same period of English literature. In the short term of his life, Harry Elkins Widener had in this collection acquired one of the most valuable private libraries in existence. He had the trained intelligence to determine what was really valuable and he had, moreover, the means to gratify his tastes.

The money value of his collection can only be estimated. Authorities say that it would bring at public auction many hundreds of thousands of dollars. In other ways its value is inestimable. It far surpasses in every way other gifts to the Library since 1638 when John Harvard founded it with the modest bequest of 370 books.

Mrs. Widener's Generous Offer Accepted.

This wonderful library was bequeathed to Harvard, however, on the condition that it should be housed in a fire-proof building. With Gore Hall hopelessly inadequate, it seemed for a time as though the acceptance of the gift must be indefinitely postponed. But Mrs. Widener early in the summer notified President Lowell that she would be glad to furnish a building for it; and later, when she realized the crying insufficiency of library accommodations at Cambridge, offered to provide for a building large enough to accommodate the entire University library and allow room for growth.

Her offer was gratefully accepted; Mr. Horace Trumbauer, of Philadelphia, who had done much work for the Widener family, was sent for, and throughout the summer he worked on plans for the new structure. In September after a careful study of the ground, and frequent consultations with the University and library authorities, these were drawn up and accepted.

Plan of New Library.

They provided for a building in brick and marble on the site of Gore Hall 275 feet long and 206 feet wide, the longest dimension to run north and south. The entrance and facade was to face on the Sever quadrangle, but the facade on the Massachusetts avenue side which was to be about on a line with Boylston Hall was also to be handsome and diguified.

The first floor is to contain the Widener collection and other rare books, the offices of the library, and stacks. On the second floor is the great main read-