[Illustration: Mr. A.A. Carey's
Cambridge, Mass.
_Sturgis & Brigham Archts._]

More than once we have endeavored to impress upon our readers the
importance of collections of casts and other art reproductions as
factors in popular education. It is only through these that the body of
our people can ever hope to become familiar with the great masterpieces
of European galleries, which have had so much effect upon the taste of
the people among whom they exist, and might do a similar good work in
this country were they only brought within reach. Doubtless there are
many who join us in the wish that not only every large, but every small
city might have its gallery of reproductions as well as its public
library--a gallery in which children could grow up familiar with the
noblest productions of Greece and Italy, in which the laborer could pass
some of his holiday hours, and in which the mechanic could find the
stimulus to make his own work beautiful as well as good. But the
principal reason why such collections are not more numerous is probably
that people have an exaggerated idea of their cost, and, among those who
might best afford this, there are doubts as to whether an undertaking of
the kind would be appreciated in any but the large cities.

Thanks to the liberality of Mr. W.A. Slater, the experiment has been
tried in Norwich, Conn., and the results of the first year of the Slater
Memorial Museum in attracting and holding popular interest have far
exceeded the anticipations of its founder and his advisers. As it has
been Mr. Slater's desire that the museum established by him should serve
not only to educate his townsmen, but also to stimulate others who had
the means to follow his example in other parts of the country, he has