For the library’s founders, the grand classical design reflected Knight Memorial’s place as a sanctuary of learning, a haven of reading and study that also promoted moral behavior and good citizenship. The lofty ceilings of the former reading room (now the children’s library area) and the reference room (now the adult library area) provide food for thought in the form of decorative borders with inspiring quotations from famous writers and poets:
Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, but to weigh and consider - Francis Bacon
Promote self-development by reading in an atmosphere of freedom and morality. Sir John Denham
Books are the most enduring monuments of man's achievement. Through them civilizations become cumulative. - Cass Gilbert
The great consulting room of a wise man is a library.- George Dawson
The neoclassical interior is conceived as the columned space of a Roman atrium, with a skylight and a coffered ceiling, a pattern of indentations or recesses in an overhead surface that became popular with Renaissance architects as they imitated Classical Roman techniques.
The skylight is currently covered from above, following a roof repair. The Pompeiian-style light fixtures originally had alabaster bulbs.
The architect Edward Tilton wrote in 1927:
The delivery room should be well lighted, and its location may necessitate skylighting, in which case “actinic” glass in the ceiling will exclude the heat without interfering with the light rays. In cool climates diffusing glass of various kinds may be used. Ample artificial illumination, well distributed, is essential.
