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A SUGGESTION.

lots that have beautiful outlooks with those that have not.

It is unnecessary to pursue this portion of the topic farther. What we have said is simply by

way of suggestion, the value of which the reader can test in manifold ways.

HE inquiry now arises by what means, in America, may the knowledge and appreciation of art be best promoted?

One means is the establishment of professorships of art, similar to those for science and literature, in our advanced seminaries and colleges. Design and coloring need not be technically taught so much as the laws and principles which underlie them. But the chief value of this branch of education would be in teaching the relation of art to civilization, and particularly its connection, in all times, with the religious and emotional sentiments, and its close affinity with the imaginative and creative faculties. A course of instruction of this character, with appropriate illustrations, would not only enable the student to classify art according to its origin, genealogy, and the quality of intellect it represents, but would gradually create an intelligent public opinion, calculated to arouse the artistic mind to its fullest capacity, by not only demanding noble motive and superior execution, but by resolutely exposing imbecility and artifice.

The first duty of art, as we have already inti

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MAKE ART FREE TO ALL.

But

mated, is to make our public buildings and places as instructive and enjoyable as possible. They should be pleasurable, full of attractive beauty and eloquent teachings. Picturesque groupings of natural objects, architectural surprises, sermons from the sculptor's chisel and painter's palette, the ravishment of the soul by its superior senses, the refinement of mind and body by the sympathetic power of beauty,—these are a portion of the means which a due estimation of art as an element of civilization inspires the ruling will to provide freely for all. If art be kept a rare and tabooed thing, a specialty for the rich and powerful, it excites in the vulgar mind envy and hate. proffer it freely to the public, and the public soon learns to delight in and protect it as its rightful inheritance. It also tends to develop a brotherhood of thought and feeling. During the civil strifes of Italy art flourished and was respected. Indeed, to some extent it operated as a sort of peace-society, and was held sacred when nothing else was. Even rude soldiers, amid the perils and necessities of sieges, turned aside destruction from the walls that sheltered it. The history of art is full of records of its power to soften and elevate the human heart. As soon would man, were it possible, mar one of God's sunsets, as cease to respect what genius has confided to his care, when once his mind has been awakened to its meaning. First, therefore, educate the people in the principles of art, and then scatter among them, with lavish hand, free as water, its richest treasures.

The desire for art being awakened, museums

GALLERIES OF ART.

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to illustrate its technical and historical progress, and galleries to exhibit its master-works, become indispensable. In the light of education, appropriations for such purposes are as much a duty of the government as for any other purpose connected with the true welfare of the people, for its responsibilities extend over the entire social system.

museums.

The most common means of popularizing art and cultivating a general taste is by galleries or But even in Europe these have been only quite recently established. Before 1780 there were only three, those of Dresden, Florence, and Amsterdam. As early as the fourteenth century associations of painters had been formed, like that of Florence, A. D. 1350, which was the origin of the present Academy of Fine Arts of that city. But this institution did not possess a museum until 1784. Indeed, public galleries were not in vogue until long after art itself had degenerated into that impotency and insipidity which preceded its revival in the present century. True, there were noble and royal collections like the Pitti, Borghese, and Modena. To these, however, the public had only partial access. But as the churches and public buildings of that period still retained altar- pieces and other important paintings in those positions for which they were originally designed, the people did not miss as much as they otherwise would have done the less important easel-pictures of the same masters, in the private collections of their rulers. Later, however, on the suppression of many convents

and churches, places of deposit had to be provided for the works of art taken from them. Many of these fell into the hands of individuals, or became the prey of speculators. To prevent their total loss, the several governments promptly instituted galleries, into which were gradually gathered all works of art belonging to them, or which had been declared the property of the state. In this way masterpieces which for centuries had been lost to the public eye, or half forgotten in rarely explored apartments of princely residences, were brought out from their obscurity, and restored to their legitimate functions of popular enjoyment and instruction. Yet even in the best of these institutions there was no special order or system, and they had little to recommend them beside the indifferent opportunity they gave to those disposed to study art.

The present Museum of the Louvre is composed of numerous galleries of objects of art and antiquity, embracing the entire range of civilization, founded and conserved on a scale of imperial liberality and magnificence. As the visitor wanders through its long ranges of halls, overflowing with precious works, he is surprised to learn that this chief attraction of the most attractive city of the world is scarcely seventy years old. On the 18th of October, 1792, the first year of the French Republic, M. Roland wrote to David, the painter, that the National Convention had decreed the establishment of a museum in the palace of the Louvre, of which he was to be the director. it borne in mind that the greatest museum of Eu

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