elain, majolica, and pottery, which, while not equal to that of
earlier date in the esteem of connoisseurs, brings artistic objects to
the sight and knowledge of all, at prices suited to moderate means.

* * * * *

In America the unparalleled increase of Free Libraries has brought, not
books alone, but collections of photographs and other reproductions of
the best Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in the world, as well as
medals, book-plates, artistic bindings, etc., within reach of students of
art.

Art Academies and Museums have also been greatly multiplied. It is often
a surprise to find, in a comparatively small town, a fine Art Gallery,
rich in a variety of precious objects. Such an one is the Art Museum of
Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Me. The edifice itself is the most
beautiful of the works by McKim that I have seen. The frescoes by La
Farge and Vedder are most satisfactory, and one exhibit, among many of
interest--that of original drawings by famous Old Masters--would make
this Museum a worthy place of pilgrimage. Can one doubt that such a
Museum must be an element of artistic development in those who are in
contact with it?

I cannot omit saying that this splendid monument to the appreciation of
art and to great generosity was the gift of women, while the artists who
perfected its architecture and decorations are Americans; it is an
impressive expression of the expansion of American Art in the nineteenth
century.

* * * * *

The advantages for the study of Art have been largely improved and
increased in this period. In numberless studios small classes of pupils
are received; in schools of Design, schools of National Academies, and in
those of individual enterprise, all possible advantages for study under
the direction of the best artists are provided, and these are
supplemented by scholarships which relieve the student of limited means
from providing for daily needs.

All these opportunities are shared by men and women alike. Every
advantage is as freely at the command of one as of the other, and we
equal, in this regard, the centuries of the Renaissance, when women were
Artists, Students, and Professors of Letters and of Law, filling these
positions with honor, as women do in these days.

In 1859 T. Adolphus Trollope, in his "Decade of Italian Women," in which
he wrote of the scholarly women of the Renaissance, says: "The degree in
w