although it
really seems a superfluous thesis, for Mr. Carnegie's best exposition of
the gospel of wealth unfolds itself in two thousand noble buildings
erected all over the world for the diffusion of literature; in those
splendid conceptions, the Scottish Education Fund; the Washington
Carnegie Institution 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.

[Illustration: Carnegie Technical Schools (uncompleted)]

But if I continue to group our Pittsburgh authors in this arbitrary
fashion, 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 editorship 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