Remember Monday’s awful bonus picture?
A commenter took the trouble to look at it closely and then asked a really good question: what does it say on the mantle? Those are clearly letters but they’re so stylized it’s very hard to decipher them. You can see them more clearly in this image taken just as the building was being finished in 1912 but it’s still difficult to make any sense of it:
Luckily we’ve always had librarians who were on the ball. Here’s the back of the photo:
Bonus: I was quite interested in the last note here. I hadn’t realized that this room had ever housed the chancellor (the only one we’ve ever had was Carey Croneis) and it took another moment to understand that this was originally the library. Here’s a lovely drawing from the 1920 Campanile that lets us see the original lighting scheme and clarifies how devastatingly bad the current set-up is:
Extra Bonus: New exterior lights on the front side of Lovett Hall. I think they just finished installing them yesterday.
My vision is pretty well shot, and I can;t read what is on the back of the photo. May I assume that the inscription is what you used for the title of this post? If so, to whom is it attributed?
The writing on the back says:
Now Treasurer’s office (there is writing above this line but it’s cut off)
Glass neg #42
G- Indiv. Bldg Interior Sculpured Details
(Administration Bldg) Lovett Hall
The Rice Institute
n.d. but probably early 1912
Latin inscription =
Scientia Non Habet
Inimicum Quam
Ignorantiam
“Knowledge hath no enemie but ignorance”
Quotation may be found in the Oxoford
English Dictionary under “Knowledge,” by
William Cunningham: Cosmographical
Glass 1559. p.46
Mantle and fireplace in what later became the Chancellor’s Office, Lovett Hall
I loved seeing the drawing by Margaret Brisbine Preble (’23) from the 1920 Campanile. I know she did several paintings of Rice. She was lifelong friends with my grandmother Margaret Blackwell Davis (’22); I have an oil portrait that she did of my grandmother from sometime in the early 20s.
That fireplace looks so much better when you can see the top. Get rid of that drop ceiling and put the room back to its original dimensions!
Don’t get me started.