This noble
desire was not usually accompanied by artistic discrimination, and the
land is filled with monuments and statues which express the gratitude of
the people. The coming age may wish to replace them by images and
structures which will express gratitude and patriotism in a higher
because more artistic form. In the matter of art the development is
distinctly reflex. The exhibition of works of genius will slowly instruct
and elevate the popular taste, and in time the cultivated popular taste
will reject mediocrity and demand better things. Only a little while ago
few people in the United States knew how to draw, and only a few could
tell good drawing from bad. To realize the change that has taken place,
we have only to recall the illustrations in books, magazines, and comic
newspapers of less than a quarter of a century ago. Foreign travel,
foreign study, and the importation of works of art (still blindly
restricted by the American Congress) were the lessons that began to work
a change. Now, in all our large towns, and even in hundreds of villages,
there are well-established art schools; in the greater cities, unions and
associations, under the guidance of skillful artists, where five or six
hundred young men and women are diligently, day and night, learning the
rudiments of art.
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