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 years ago.
But as to fiction, even if the writers of it were all trained in it as an
art, it is not so easy to lift the public taste to their artistic level.
The best supply in this case will only very slowly affect the quality of
the demand. When the poor novel sells vastly better than the good novel,
the poor will be produced to supply the demand, the general taste will be
still further lowered, and the power of discrimination fade out more and
more. What is true of the novel is true of all other literature. Taste
for it must be cultivated in childhood. The common schools must do for