LOUVAIN’S NEW LIBRARY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 720, 20 July 1929, Page 9

LOUVAIN’S NEW LIBRARY

NOBLE BUILDING REPLACES WAR RUIN GERMANY GIVES MANY BOOKS Time: Gable BRUSSELS. Friday. The library at Louvain University, Which was destroyed in the war, has been reopened. The new books include 650.000 volumes contributed by Various nations. Germany has contributed 300,000 Volumes. Britain 55,000, and France 33.000 of the total. The new library of the University 0! Louvajn was designed by Mr. VVhitney Warren, a New York architect. The cost of the building. £400,000, including a sum for endowment. was l’lised in the United States. A carillon that cost £16,000 was given by the engineers of America. TROUBLE OVER INSCRIPTION A crowd of more than 1,000 workmen and students on June 27 last year stormed the library and destroyed 5 new memorial balustrade. The unifol'fiity authorities had refused to

Allow the inscription: “Destroyed by 0011:1an fury, restored by American memsity.” to be placed on the Industrade. The demonstrators stoned the men who were working in the building and put them to flight. The architect said Cardinal Mercier desired the inscription quoted to appear on the balustrade. 0n the other hand. Monsignor La. Denze, rector of the university, declared it would be century to the spirit of Locarno. 0n JBile 30 it was announced that the construction had been commenced of ”IO balcony without the inscription Which the demonstrators had deMded should be placed on the balustrade. The police protected the Vorkers. After the annual procession on July 17 or the widows and orphans of the Louvain men who were shot by the Germans in 1914. Felix Morten. fore—man in charge of the reconstruction of Lhe university library. ascended to the root with a sledge-hammer and demolished the new balcony. which had been erected without the antiGfifman inscription at first designed (or it. When Morren was arrested he told the Public Prosecutor he considered he Was wrong in helping to rebuild the ”CODY. He added: “The Germans 1“] us a pretty dance, and that bal°°ny meant forgetting it all."