destiny? Are the institutions with a purely literary theory of life going
to meet the need? Are the art schools and the art museums making
themselves ready to assimilate a new art form? Or what is the type of
institution that will ultimately take the position of leadership in
culture through this new universal instrument?

What possibilities lie in this art, once it is understood and developed,
to plant new conceptions of civic and national idealism? How far may it
go in cultivating concerted emotion in the now ungoverned crowd? Such
questions as these can be answered only by minds with the imagination to
see art as a reality; with faith to visualize for the little mid-western
"home town" a new and living Pallas Athena; with courage to raze the very
houses of the city to make new and greater forums and "civic centres."

For ourselves in Denver, we shall try to do justice to the new Muse. In
the museum which we build we shall provide a shrine for her. We shall
first endeavor by those simple means which lie to our hands, to know the
areas of charm and imagination which remain as yet an untilled field of
her domain. Plowing is a simple art, but it requires much sweat. This at
least we know--to the expenditure we cheerfully consent. So much for the
beginning. It would be boastful to describe plans to keep pace with the
enlarging of the motion picture field before a real beginning is made.
But with youth in its favor, the Denver Art Museum hopes yet to see this
art set in its rightful place with painting, sculpture, architecture, and
the handicrafts--hopes yet to be an instrument in the great work of
making this art real as those others are being even now made real, to the
expanding vision of an eager people.

GEORGE WILLIAM EGGERS
Director