the taste, books were generally written for this class, and
aimed at its real or supposed capacities. If the age was coarse in speech
or specially affected in manner, the books followed the lead given by the
demand; but, coarse or affected, they had the quality of art demanded by
the best existing cultivation. Naturally, when the art of reading is
acquired by the great mass of the people, whose taste has not been
cultivated, the supply for this increased demand will, more or less,
follow the level of its intelligence. After our civil war there was a
patriotic desire to commemorate the heroic sacrifices of our soldiers in
monuments, and the deeds of our great captains in statues. 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. The result is already apparent. Excellent drawing is
seen in illustrations for books and magazines, in the satirical and comic
publications, even in the advertisements and theatrical posters. At our
present rate of progress, the drawings in all our amusing weeklies will
soon be as good as those in the 'Fliegende Blatter.' The change is
marvelous; and the popular taste has so improved that it would not be
profitable to go back to the ill-drawn illustrations of twenty