Between the two, and lying almost at the base of the Washington Monument, is the Peabody Institute, with its magnificent library. Farther downtown is that of the Maryland Historical Society, and these, with the Congressional Library in Washington, only forty miles away, afford every advantage for study and research; while the more popular demands of Baltimore's readers are met by the great Free Circulating Library endowed by the late Enoch Pratt.
In the solution of the problems that arise from the organization of modern society Baltimore has done pioneer work. It was a Baltimore lawyer, Hon. John V. L. McMahon, who drew up for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad the charter which "formed a model for the organization of all future railroad corporations." It was in Baltimore that a municipality first "secured a valuable revenue from street railway corporations, and applied it to the purposes of public parks."
The ploughman and the fisherman that, upon the Great Seal of Maryland, support the shield of the Lords Proprietary may be considered as typical of the influences which have combined to further the growth of the city of
