Los Angeles herald., 1909-12-27
.CHIIDCH CHEITEDC
.GifUKGff OIILLTLNO
NATIONS LIBRARY.
MEXICAN COLLECTION NUM-
BERS 100000 VOLUMES
BUILDING FOUNDED BY MONKS
$50 YEARS AGO
San Augustn Is interesting Architee-
turally, Containing French
and Spanish Liter
ature

CITY OF MEXICO, Dec. 26.-The
National library, which is so royalty
housed in the old church of San Aug
ustin and that of the Tercer Orden,
is one of the greatest achievements of
modern Mexico. The idea of such an
institution was held by the leading
statesmen of this country for some fifty
years before, in the course of human
events, it could be realized, for pre-
vious to and contemporaneous with the
French empire here, it had to be held
in allegiance, as did many other noble
conceptions, for a country in the throes
of revolutions cannot execute great
public works.
During the presidency of the Illus
trious hero, Benito Juarez, says the
Mexican Herald, the minister of JUS
tice, Don Antonio Martinez de Castro,
submitted to the president a petition
for the establishment of a national
library, in which to properly care for the
numerous and valuable volumes which
were being collected from the then re-
Gently suppressed monasteries The
president sanctioned the proposition,
and congress set apart the splendid
church Of San Augustin for that pIr-
pose. During the fifteen years in which
new service, under the direction of
Don Vicente Heredia the books were
stored in the one time beautiful church
of the Terre Orden, which only this
year, to relieve the main library, has
been renovated without and furnished
within and opened as the Depart
mento Nocturno' of the library. and is
doing its full duty in caring for many
of the 100000 volumes which belong To
this institution.
Church Founded by Monks
The church of San Augustin was
founded in New Spain by seven monks
of the Augustinian order who came
over in 1888. In 1541 hey finished the
primitive church which was located on
the same spot of the present ediflce. 1t
was destroyed by fire in 1876 and the
first stone of the new and more pre-
tentious church was laid the next year,
but it was not completed until 1892. It's
proportions are magnificent, and beau
tiful columns and carvings, especially
the "basso-rilievo" of San Augustin in
the facade, all proclaim the high artis-
tic taste of the founders and the skill
of the builders.
In the remodeling of the edifice there
was little to be done to the exterior,
aside from emblazoning its new name,
fine iron gate was placed at the en-
trance and this has recently been re-
inforced by interior wooden doors
which restrict the Vestibule to a very
small portion of the large corridor un-
der the original choir loft. This cor
ridor is ornamented by the ten stately
columns which supported the choir. A
partition now separates the entrance
hall from the reading-room. The lat
ter is OF very splendid proportions, be-
ing 100 feet long, forty feet wide and
100 feet high.
The great columns which support
the main reading room under the CEN
tral dome, and under whose arches
th" worshipers were accustomed to
psss to the side chapels, have been
filled in with substantial bookcases,
and the chapels are entirely lined with
shelves, on which repose thousands
and thousands of books both old and
new, all we'll classified and waiting to
instruct the people of all nations and
creeds who will approach them rev.
erently. At the rear of this great
room, where the baldachin of the
church was located, there is an i'm
mense stained glass window which
displays the coat of arms of Mexico
and at the same time furnishes light
for the hundreds of readers who daily
surround the handsome new oak ta-
bles to study musty old books or to
divert themselves by the perusal of
fiction-for there are all classes of
books in half a dozen languages,
though the majority of the works are
in ancient or modern Spanish or in
French.