Evening star., 1932-04-24
FOLGER LIBRARY
PRESENTED NATION
President Attends Shake.
spearean Ceremony in
EIizabethan Setting.
Continued From First Page)

He devoted his life and his fortune to
the study of. and preservation of, the
works of the English dramatist. With
tireleSs enthusiasm and unlimited
means, Mr.. Folger built up the world S
greatest collection of the worlds most
priceless books-first editions, copies
owned by famous men and women,
works of Shakespeare's contemporaries,
pictures, stage costumes, manuscripts,
everything touching upon the life or
activities of the Bard of Avon.
Fitting Shrine His Dream.
Two dreams he had-to secure for
Shakespeare a fitting shrine in the
New World, which to so great an ex-
tent was the product of his thinking,
and TO spend his own placid old age
in uninterrupted communion with the
profound understanding and sympathy
of the worlds greatest poet and
prophet.
So he presented his collection to the
Nation. with S2000,000 marble shrine
to house it and a $10,000,000 endow-
ment to maintain it. He supervised
the plans for that temple of poesy to
be erected under the shadow of the
American Capitol and set aside low
ingly a room for his own study-where
for a few quiet years at the end of his
busy life he and Shakespeare could be
alone together. Two years ago he wit
messed the layinr of the corner stone.
But it was a gray little woman who
yesterday fumbled in her handbag and
handed over the key to George Arthur
Plimpton, president of the Amherst Col
lege trustees. Mr.. Folger never was 10
sit in the study he had planned, ior
two weeks after the laying of the corner
stone he had passed on to the posi-
bility of a more intimate communion
with the supreme intellect of the six
2aenth century. His widow, who
throughout their life together had
shared his interests and his enthusiasms
was left to fill the center of the stage
in the final scene of this American
drama.
In making his Shakespeare collection
q gift to the American people, Mr. Fol-
ger placed it in the permanent GUS
todianship of the trustees of Amherst
College. 1t was the light from this
old seat of learning in the Western
Massachusetts, hills which had shone
ever on the pathways of his quest.
EIizabethan Auditorium.
The ceremony yesterday took place in
the library's EliZabethan auditorium-a
somewhat elaborated representation Of
an inn courtyard of sixteenth century
England wherein it was customary for
the strolling players to stage their per-
formanceS. Many time, it is likely,
Shakespeare himself walked the boards
in just such setting. Arthur Stanley
Pease, president of Amherst presided.
The trustees of the old New England
college, with other distinguished guests,
filled the stage. The invocation ana
kyy Io
Rev. S. Parkes Cadman of New York,
a personal friend of Mr. and Mrs. Fol-
ger, and himself Warwickshire man
from the Shakespeare country. The
musical interludes-quaint and lovely
pavanes, galliards and scores for songs
from the Shakespearean dramaS-were
rendered on instruments taken from the
Folger collection by players of the Am
erican Society of the Ancient Instru-
mentS.
The dedication was appropriately on
the 368th anniversary of the birth of
the Elizabethan dramatist. 1t was a
Shakespeare day the world over,
wherever English speaking people were
to be found. Among the numerous
messages received was cne from George
v. The Prince of Wales was dedi-
eating the Shakespeare Memorial The
ater at the poets birthplace, Stratford-
on-Avon. In Philadelphia the great
FurnesS Shakespeare collection, gath
cred by the greatest of all American
Shakespearean scholars, was being
turned over to the University of Penn
sylvania Hands stretched over the sea
in the ceremonies. This was the broad
theme of the dedicatory address by DR..
Joseph Quincy Adams, former profess
sor of English at Cornell, who is direc-
49, zT -
was essentially the theme also OF the
passage from Emerson's picture which
reputedly first aroused Folger'S enthu-
siasm This was read yesterday after
noon by Edith Wynne Matchison. The
ceremonies were broadcast over
national network.
Significance Stressed.
DR.. Adams stressed the significance
of Shakespeare as an inspiring and
welding element in American life and
culture from the first colonies to the
present.
DR.. Adams said in part: IN its Cap
ital City a nation is accustomed to
rear monuments to those persons who
most have contributed to its we'll
being Amidu ours in washington,
three stand out conspicuous above the
being. Amid ours in Washington,
Lincoln and Shakespeare. They stand
out as symbols of the three great per-
sonal forces that have moulded the
political, the spiritual and the intel
lectucl life of our Nation.
Washington and Lincoln are mdis-
putably Americans; no one could ever
think them otherwise. We produced
them. Nor. 1 venture to assert, is our
claim to Shakespeare, though divided,
less strong. I would like to show the
influence which Shakespeare has exert
ed upon American life, and the impor-
tance of that influence in preserving
English culture among people who
now occupy a domain vaster than the
Elizabethans dreamed Of"
DR.. Adams described briefly the pc
ricds Of hardship in the early Colonial
days which made the spread Of culture
comparatively slow He went on to say,
however, that schools arose by the side
OF churches, colleges and universities
were founded, and before 1750 more
than a score of public subscription IL
braries were opened along the Seacoast
all the way from Georgia to Maine.
That love for the literature of the
imagination, love inherited from the
golden age Of Elizabeth, asserted itself,
and shortly there spread throughout the
colonies a reading of books other than
the Bible, the almanac and treatises on
theology and law The works of Shake
speare, though they did not. with the
Bible. cross on the Mayflower, soon fol-
lowed; that poet. Hospitality received in
the Western home of his countrymen,
was beginning his gentle sway over
purjtanS and cavaliers alike
Era of Superidolatry.
"In England Shakespeare, at the be-
ginning of the nineteenth century, had
entered upon an era of superidolatry, -
he declared. America promptly seized
upon him. If they could not have
many heroes of letters. at least they
could have the best. They made him
the very symbol of culture. AS such
he stood apart, clothed with special
virtue, and the reading Of his plays
was freed from the ban normally set
upon the pleasures Of Vanity Fair. To
stlldv him became a dutV And