Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/508

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BALTIMORE.
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BALTIMORE.

Mount Washington, Roland Park, Walbrook, and Catonsville.

Cemeteries. Greenmount Cemetery, containing the graves of many illustrious men, including those of John McDonogh, Johns Hopkins, and Sidney Lanier; Louden Park, and the National Cemetery, are the most important burial places. Westminster, one of the oldest and smallest church-yards in the city, contains the grave of Edgar Allan Poe.

Educational Institutions. Baltimore ranks as one of the foremost educational influences of the country. A graded system of public schools provides free instruction in kindergarten, primary, secondary, collegiate, and normal studies, and in manual training. The system comprises 109 schools, employing 1750 teachers, and instructing annually 85,000 pupils. Baltimore is the seat of the Johns Hopkins University, opened for instruction in 1876, and distinguished for its graduate courses. The institution owes its foundation to the beneficence of a Baltimore merchant, who left a large fortune, in two nearly equal amounts, for the endowment of a university and a hospital. Other institutions of learning are Saint Mary's Seminary of Saint Sulpice, Loyola College, Woman's College of Baltimore, Morgan College (colored), and Saint Joseph's Seminary (colored). Among the professional schools are the law and medical departments of the University of Maryland, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Baltimore Medical College, Baltimore University, Woman's Medical College, Maryland College of Pharmacy, and Baltimore College of Dental Surgery. The last named, founded in 1839, is the oldest dental college in the world. Other schools and academies are McDonogh School, Bryn Mawr School, Calvert Institute, Academy of the Visitation, Notre Dame of Maryland, and Mount de Sales Academy.

The Peabody Institute, endowed by George Peabody, who laid the foundation of his great fortune in Baltimore and entertained a strong friendship for its people, contains a valuable library of 143,000 volumes, an interesting art gallery, and a well-organized conservatory of music. The art galleries of Mr. Henry Walters contain one of the choicest private collections in the United States, and are opened to the public at certain seasons for the benefit of a local charity. The Maryland Historical Society has a valuable collection of books, pamphlets, and manuscripts, and an art gallery. The Maryland Academy of Sciences possesses interesting natural history collections. The Maryland Institute includes a school of art and design and a library.

The libraries of the city, in addition to those connected with the several institutions enumerated above, are the Enoch Pratt Free Library, containing more than 200,000 volumes, with branch libraries in various parts of the city; the Baltimore Bar Library, the Maryland Diocesan Library, the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty Library, and the New Mercantile Library.

Charitable Instititions. Among the important charitable institutions of the city, supported by endowment, private contribution, or public aid, are the Johns Hopkins Hospital, in construction and equipment one of the finest in the world; Sheppard-Pratt Insane Asylum, Maryland University Hospital, Union Protestant Infirmary, City Hospital, Maryland General Hospital, Saint Joseph's Hospital, Church Home and Infirmary, Hebrew Hospital and Asylum, Baltimore Orphan Asylum, Thomas Wilson Sanitarium, Saint Vincent's Infant Asylum, Nursery and Child's Hospital, Hebrew Orphan Asylum, Bay View Asylum (the city alms house), House of Refuge, Maryland Hospital for Insane, Mount Hope Retreat. Numerous other sectarian and nonsectarian institutions provide for the relief of the sick, needy, and the infirm. A Pasteur Institute, established by the city, is in successful operation.

Churches. The first Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States was founded in Baltimore. The city is also the seat of a Protestant Episcopal bishop and of a Roman Catholic archbishop (Cardinal Gibbons), whose diocese is the first in the United States. Important Roman Catholic Church assemblages have been held here from time to time, one of the most interesting being the Third Plenary Council in 1885.

The city abounds in noteworthy ecclesiastical structures. The Roman Catholic Cathedral, built in the early part of the Nineteenth Century, is remarkable for the chaste simplicity of its design and proportion of its parts. Of more recent construction are Grace Episcopal Church, First Methodist Episcopal Church, First Independent Christ's Church, First Presbyterian Church, First Baptist Church, Associate Reformed Church, Vernon Place Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Eutaw Place, Madison Avenue, and Bolton Street synagogues.

Trade and Industry. Natural geographical situation, favorable trade connections, and unusual harbor facilities constitute Baltimore's chief commercial advantages. At the entrance to the harbor, the Patapsco River divides into the northwest, southwest, and middle branches. The northwest pierces 2½ miles into the very heart of the business portion of the city. The southwest and middle branches envelop the southern and southwestern sections, giving a long expanse of water front in close proximity to the lines of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The main harbor, or that on the northwestern branch, has a water front, measured on the pier head line, of 6½ miles, an area of 630 acres, and while leaving ample fairways for the movement of vessels, furnishes 96 acres of anchorage grounds, on which the least depth of water is 19 feet. The whole of the lower portion of the harbor, covering the elevators and steamship piers, has a depth of 27 feet at mean low water. The harbor along the southwest and middle branches has, within the city limits, and measured on the pier bead line, a water front of 5½ miles, and nearly as much more on the opposite banks in the county. It covers an area of 1300 acres, and has channels of 17 feet depth at mean low water. This favorable geographical situation has been emphasized and developed by the establishment of direct lines of communication. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reaches in one direction to Philadelphia, thence by direct connection to New York, and on the other hand penetrates to the west, southwest, and northwest to the waters of the Mississippi. The Northern Central Railroad serves to connect Baltimore with the great Pennsylvania system, and affords a direct outlet to the north. Two associated branches of the Pennsylvania system are the Baltimore and Potomac to Washington, and the Philadelphia,