THE
VALLEY OF HEART's DELIGHT
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GEORGE THOMAS CLARK
Bio-Sawyers
SURNAMES: CARYL, DOUGLAS,
Naturally prominent among the distinguished librarians of the country,
both on account of his own scholarly and literary attainments, and also
on account of the famous insti-tution he helped to create and which he
now directs with such mastery, George Thomas Clark, librarian of
Stanford University Library, enjoys a most envia-ble position
throughout California, wielding as he does a powerful influence here in
the cause of higher learning. A native son, he was born at San
Francisco in 1862, fIrst seeing the light on December 7, the son of the
Hon. Robert Clark, a prominent business man of the Bay City, who so
ably represented his district for a term in the California State
Legislature. He was a native of Vermont, and while still a resident of
the East, was married to Miss Augusta Caryl, a native of New Hampshire,
both parents representing fine old American stock. George Thomas Clark,
growing up in an environment certain to de-velop in him to the greatest
extent his natural powers and special talents, was graduated from the
Univer-sity of California in 1886, with the degree of Bachelor of
Science, and six years later, on June 8, at San Francisco, he married
Miss Annie Douglas, a native of Ohio, then residing at that city, a
lady of talent and exceptional charm, who is now deceased. One son,
Douglas Clark, blessed this happy union, and in time he was graduated
from Stanford University, as a metallurgist and mining engineer.
During the year of his graduation from the State University, Mr. Clark
was made assistant librarian of the University of California Library,
and from 1887 to 1890, he was deputy state librarian. For the next four
years, he was classifier at the California State Library, and from 1894
to 1907, he was librarian of the San Francisco Public Library. Since
1907, Mr. Clark has been at the helm of the great center of research
and repository of literature which, more than ever since the appalling
earthquake and fIre, has moved forward to take front rank with the
renowned and most serviceable libraries of the world; and only those
who have used that library extensively, or have watched with expert
knowledge and regular review the development and growth of the
establishment, can fully appreciate what Mr. Clark has done, in
co-operation with others and on the foundations already laid, to make
the library what it is. In 1913 Mr. Clark was sent East by the trustees
of Stanford University to look over the important libraries and to get
suggestions from them. When he was the head of the San Francisco Public
Library in 1904 he had made a tour of the country to gather ideas for a
new building which was to be erected in that city. On this first
trip he visited practically all of the well equipped libraries of that
time, so that his later tour was a rounding out of the forerm
instpection and he looked over only the buildings which had been put up
in tghe meanwhile. During the year 1920, Mr. Clark, during a leave of
absence from the University, made a journey around the world on which,
as a side issue, he visited famous librariesa nd purchased books.
He went first to Japan, where he was entertained by the Stanford Club,
which is composed for the most part of Japanese graduates from
Stanford. From Japan he proceeded to the Malay settlements and
India, where he had planned to meet Dr. Brainerd Spooner, '99, the
deputy director-general of the Indian Archaeological Survey; but did
not do this owing to the fact that he did not reach Delhi, the capital,
unitl April, and the government had already moved to teh summer capital
in the hills at Simla. Mr. Clark, following this course of
travel, finally came to Europe. On this trip he purchased over
10,000 volumes for the university library. Most of them were out
of the books which had been ordered for several years and which had not
been found in that time. While a student at Stanford, Mr. Clark was an
editor of the "Blue and Gold" and in his senior years was the joing
editor of the "Occident," then one of the leading student
publications. He is a member of the A. L. A., and also the
Library Association of Califonria; and he has to his credit the immense
work of a joint compiler of an indet to the laws of California covering
the period from 1850 to 1893.