effaced from sight such works of painter or carver as had escaped the destructive wrath which broke the statues, demolished the stained glass windows, and despoiled the fair ornaments of the House of God, still bears witness to the intensity of the passion, which could see in these objects, whose exquisite symmetry and fragile beauty must often have mutely pleaded for their preservation,-only the symbols of an abhorred faith.

It was then not alone the poverty of the worshippers that, for so many generations, made the interior of the barn-like structures of the New England "Meeting Houses" so bare and repulsive. Consciously or unconsciously, these bare walls with their staring windows gave utterance to an hereditary protest against anything that savored of the Restoration and of Papacy! Nor did this indiscriminate proscription of the arts of architecture, sculpture and painting, spare the sister art of music; for, though the psalmody of Sternhold and Hopkins was duly droned by the worshipping congregations, the introduction of stringed instruments, the violoncello and the violin, was long strenuously resisted; while, in many instances it was not till within the last quarter of a century that the organ, that noble instrument beloved of Milton, was reluctantly admitted within the sacred precincts; for strange as it seems, not even the honored name of the great protestant poet, the secretary of the Commonwealth, availed to gain it entrance.

It is far otherwise now, and the rising generation may well be pardoned for reading these statements with incredulity; since even throughout New England, many a congregation of undoubted puritan ancestry, soothed by the singing of a paid choir to the accompaniment of a costly organ, serenely worships in a Gothic church, illumined with emblematic windows of colored glass and adorned with painted walls! When, as it sometimes happens, the building, here erected for the uses and simple forms of worship of a protestant congregation, has been too servilely copied from foreign church or cathedral, designed for the stately and imposing ceremonials of the church of Rome, the incongruity between the building and its present uses is so apparent that one queries whether, in fact, the spirit of the art of architecture is not as truly absent from the pretentious modern building, as were the graces of architecture from the plainness of its bare walled prede

cessor.

This protest against the historic customs and events which led to the

emigration of many of the early settlers from their English homes to the American wilderness, lasted for more than two centuries, and the consequent prejudice against the arts became widespread throughout the United States, and is still vaguely shared by many who not suspecting its origin, do not imagine that their instinctive dislikes are only an inherited prejudice, a legacy left by the political and religious conflicts in England nearly three hundred years ago.

So persistent and widespread was this prejudice against the Fine Arts that it has been gravely urged that any proposition before Congress, no matter how excellent in itself, would have little chance of approval if it was openly avowed that it was for the encouragement of art.

While the strange embargo on the importation of works of art into this country, enacted a few years ago by Congress in the imposition of a duty of some 30 per cent. on all such works, would seem to lend a slight color of probability to such a statement, it is by no means conclusive; for this duty was doubtless imposed with a purpose to protect American artists and in the supposed interest of art in this country.

When Congress shall come to realize that this duty, both by its direct and indirect influence, works only injury to all the art interests of the country, and that this is the judgment of the artists themselves in whose pretended interest it was urged, it will doubtless be repealed.

Any one who, at the Centennial, saw the eagerness with which the American people thronged the art building, and observed their evident enjoyment of the paintings and statues there shown, must from that time forth be incredulous as to any long continuance of this prejudice against art.

It will not then be surprising if, at no distant day, the representatives of these American people in Congress assembled manifest as intelligent an interest in all matters relating to the welfare of the arts, as they now do in those affecting the interests of the inventors and the farmers; for the American people will then have realized the vital importance of the subject, by reason of the direct and indirect relations of art to their industries and their prosperity.

It has seemed worth while to thus trace the remote causes that have led to such long continued and widespread indifference to art, so markedly in contrast with the sentiment prevailing among the other civilized nations of the earth, on the part of a people who, in their love for learning, their cultivation of literature and their investigations in

science, have kept pace with the most enlightened nations. The more obvious causes of the delayed development of the arts in the newly settled continent, are recited elsewhere in these papers. It is only sought to show here, that the existent underlying prejudices, which would naturally antagonize the introduction in the various systems and institutions of public education, of the elementary and advanced train-. ing, equally essential to the development of the Industrial Arts and of the Fine Arts, had their origin in causes long since obsolete; and, further, to suggest, that the cultivation and patronage of the arts, is as legitimate for the citizens of a Republic as for the Rulers of a Monarchy.

For such alliance between the arts and the people, high precedent is not wanting, since, though from the beginnings of modern history the monopoly of the works of art by the ruling classes was long continued, it should never be forgotten that it was not always thus. There was an Age, and a Republic, in which the arts flourished as never elsewhere; and in which art had no entangling alliance with aristocracy. In the home of Phidias, art was literally the art of the people. Then in Athens was seen the true "Democracy of Art," when all the citizens took each a personal, lively and intelligent interest in the works of their artists. When such is the case it can be the more easily understood how great artists arise; since the artist but emphasizes, as it were, the common thought, he only embodies in his own person a little more than do others, of the universal instinct. The sympathy of a whole people sustains and inspires him. If with such surroundings there were not great artists it would be more marvellous than is the fact that in the unsympathic soil of America there appeared, from time to time, both before and just after the independence of the colonies, here and there, for the most part in the midst of uncongenial surroundings, individuals with artistic natures vigorous enough to break through the obstacles of their environment and to secure their own development. In some notable instances, however, the result was the voluntary expatriation of the adventurous artists; whose art lives were mostly passed in England, or in Italy, where were to be found the congenial surroundings and the art atmosphere, then almost wholly lacking in America.

In further witness of the truth that where Liberty loves to dwell

*See Part 1, Appendix A, Paper VI, for an account of the condition of Art Patronage in England, in the early part of the Nineteenth Century.

there will the arts delight to come, that a Democracy, a Republic, is not only as favorable to the development of literature and the arts, as is a Monarchy, but must, from the very nature of man, be, in the end, more propitious to the putting forth of all his powers; a few words, spoken, some sixty or more years ago, on a memorable occasion, to a company of scholars, in the presence of the revered Lafayette, by Edward Everett are quoted below.

The name of Everett is a synonym for all that is most winning in eloquence, most admirable in scholarship, most attractive in culture. As scholar, diplomatist, statesman, orator, philosopher, patriot, he filled out the full measure of an honored and honorable life, and contributed no ordinary share to the encouragement of the finer forms of civilization in America; as well as to the growth, among his fellow countrymen, of a sound, intelligent, patriotic devotion to the country he so loved and adorned.

Rarely gifted by nature, fortunate in the surroundings, and in the era in which his life was cast; firm in his faith in the Republic, and in the truth and persistence of the ideas he was early called to champion, he lived to witness the triumphant vindication of those principles, and to know that the faith of his youth was based on enduring foundations. It was his happy fortune, not only, to have welcomed Lafayette to Cambridge in 1824, and to Have forever associated his own name with the memory of Washington by his successful efforts to secure the preservation of Mount Vernon, but also, as the chosen orator of the day, to stand beside Lincoln, at Gettysburg, on that November day in 1863, made memorable forever by the words then spoken by the Martyr President! Such a life, coeval with the growth, the crisis, and the triumph of the Republic, linking with its golden memories and patriotic efforts the days of the Revolution to those of the restored Union, Lafayette to Lincoln, Washington to Graut, may well be termed fortunate!

The theme of the orator at Cambridge on the occasion referred to, was a recital of "The circumstances favorable to the Progress of Literature in the United States of America." The few sentences that follow, from this comprehensive and philosophic address,-in which the serene wisdom of the scholar, fused by the ardor of the patriot, flows with the resistless eloquence once so welcome and so familiar to the contemporaries of Everett,-are limited to the setting forth of the relations of

free governments both to literature and the arts. It was with Literature chiefly as the special theme of his discourse addressed to professional scholars, that the orator dealt, but, as will appear, art was not ignored; while the arguments adduced as grounds of faith in a glorions development of Literature, are sufficiently broad and comprehensive to include all the arts. I am happy in being able to produce such distinguished authority in support of the fitness of the title chosen for these papers.

"I am aware that it is a common notion, that, under an elective government, of very limited powers, like that of the United States, we lose that powerful spring of action which exists in the patronage of strong hereditary governments, and must proceed from the crown. I believe it is a prevalent opinion, abroad, among those who entertain the most friendly sentiments toward the American system, that we must consent to dispense with something of the favorable influence of princely and royal patronage on letters and the arts, and find our consolation in the political benefits of a republican government. It may be doubted, however, whether this view be not entirely fallacious. For, in the first place, it is by no means true that a popular government will be destitute either of the means or the disposition to exercise a liberal patronage. No government, as a government, ever did more for the Fine Arts than that of Athens.

"It cannot but be, that the permanent operation of a free system of constitutional and representative government should be favorable to the culture of mind, because it is in conformity with that law of Nature by which mind itself is distributed. The mental energy of a people, which you propose to call out, the intellectual capacity, which is to be cultivated and improved, has been equally diffused, throughout the land, by a sterner leveller than ever marched in the van of a revolution,-the impart.al providence of God. He has planted the germs of intellect alike in the city and the country; by the beaten wayside, and in the secluded valley and solitary hamlet. Sterling native character, strength and quickness of mind, the capacity for brillant attainment, are not among the distinctions which Nature has given, exclusively, to the higher circles of life. Too often, in quiet times, and in most countries, they perish in the obscurity to which a false organization of society consigns them. And the reason why, in dangerous, convulsed, and trying times, there