bound up with the life and development of the people, that "nothing which is common to them, is foreign to it," to paraphrase another famous saying.

The United States has now reached a development of population and of material resources, which makes the nation absolutely inde pendent. Justice and courtesy are the only motives that need to be considered in our intercourse with other powers. Surely a people counting nearly sixty million of free citizens can have no occasion for undue sensitiveness to the opinions or acts of other nations, or to the utterances of friendly or hostile critics.

The American people are strong enough and sensible enough to be able to calmly survey the situation, ascertain and reflect upon their own deficiencies, and to consult freely together upon the best and speediest way of practically repairing any existing errors, and of making provision for any needed improvement in methods of educa tion, or of manufactures.

In this belief, there has been, in the preparation of the present work, no hesitation in pointing out possible deficiences, and in suggesting means and methods approved by the experience of other nations. Conscious of our own power, it becomes us not to be in any way elated by any tardy condescension and courtesies offered to our country.

Let us, in our intercourse with the nations, meet courtesy by courtesy, resolved to be outdone by none in the exercise of the sweet amenities of life; but let us relax no effort in the practical business of developing and improving our own industrial resources.

ART INDUSTRIES IN AMERICA BEFORE THE CENTENNIAL

English example as shown in the Centennial of great value to Americans-American illustrated magazines and the art of engraving - Tendency in American inventions to lightness and grace-Inartistic furniture shown-Cause of decline of woolen manufactures, once prosperous-Excellent quality of undecorated china shown by Trenton manufacturers-Inferiority of American decorated ware-Glass manufactures long established-Silver repoussé ware made in Baltimore as early as 1830— Goldsmiths' and jewellers' work-American watches-Recent origin of the use in the United States of brick ornament in architecture-Some early instances-The railroad passenger depot in Providence built about 1849-An artistic brick-factory building built in Cannelton, Ind., as early as 1852-The late Thomas A. Tefft of Providence, R. I., inaugurates use of brick ornament in the United States-The future possibilities of terra cotta foreseen by Mr. Tefft and his friend the sculptor Paul Akers as early as 1856-Mr. Tefft as Commissioner of Industrial Art Education for the State of Rhode Island in Europe, in 1859-His death in Florence in 1860-Use of brick ornament and terra cotta promoted by the Centennial-Grounds of confidence in the art capacity of Americans.

At the Centennial, amends were incontinently made to America for some of the wrongs that had been inflicted a century before; since it was at Philadelphia, that England, who had formerly prohibited all manufactures in America, gave to observant Americans many a prac tical lesson and suggestion for the development and improvement of industrial and artistic manufactures.

English methods of industrial art education have already been proved easily adaptable to the situation in America, while the marvellous success of England in the general and rapid development of artistic indus tries, is full of encouragement to Americans.

It is in connection with literature that in England and America movements towards artistic development begin. To the American illustrated magazines is probably due a wider dissemination of interest in works of art as seen in engravings than to any other influence. The introduction of Mezzotint engraving was directly due to Sartain's Magazine, published in Philadelphia many years ago by Mr. John Sartain, the veteran engraver, who, by the way, was the Art Director of the Centennial. Graham's Magazine and Godey's Lady's Book, also published in Philadel

phia, each made steel engravings a popular feature. Harper's Magazine, and the illustrated journals issued by the same house, in New York and the rival New York illustrated papers published by Leslie and others made a great feature of their wood engravings, upon the excellence of which they prided themselves. If one is inclined to question whether there has really been any advance in the art of the wood engraver, or of engraving in general, a comparison between the volumes of Harper's Magazine anywhere in the Forties and in the Eighties, will decide the question effectually and affirmatively. To these magazines and to the excellent steel engravings issued during the few years of its existence by the American Art Union, the American people were chiefly indebted for such popular knowledge and interest in works of art as existed prior to 1860. The book publishers indeed were not indifferent to the attractiveness of engravings and numbers of books finely and profusely illustrated with steel or wood engravings were issued. Still the circulation of such expensive works is necessarily limited.

The art of wood engraving in America prior to the Centennial was well advanced and relatively held its own in comparison with that of other countries.

In chromo-lithography there had been great activity long anterior to the Centennial. The maps and scientific illustrations by Julius Bien & Co. of New York are well known. The firm of L. Prang & Co. of Boston were pioneers in the artistic development of this phase of a popular art. By their publication of the drawing books, etc., comprised in Professor Walter Smith's System of Industrial Art Drawing, they greatly aided in the introduction of the study of drawing in the public schools. By their issue of Christmas and Easter Cards, for the designs of which they have for several years offered prizes of such value as to induce a lively competition among artists, they have done much to develop and popularize a taste for these artistic trifles. The publishing houses of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. and Osgood & Co., both of Boston, have each very extensive departments of Chromo-Lithography. These firms stimulate art production by the employment of artists and engravers in the preparation of their various illustrated books, while, by the circulation of such art works, they aid in the art education of the people; for a correct taste in art can only be developed by seeing good art.

In the publication of Heliotype reproductions of the best engravings of the old masters from the Gray collection, the Messrs. Osgood made

a positive contribution to the facilities for art education in this country; while Houghton, Mifflin & Co., in issuing from the Riverside Press such superbly illustrated works as the subscription edition of Longfellow's Poems, with designs by various artists, the volume of Twenty Poems of Longfellow, illustrated by his son, and the Omar Khayyam illustrated by the artist Vedder, have succeeded in adding to the literary and mechanical excellence which has long characterized its issues, the charm of an artistic setting no whit less admirable.

The exquisite illustrations of "Wide Awake" the children's maga zine published by D. Lothrop & Co. and those in the many charming books issued by this firm, show that there is no monopoly of artistic knowledge and appreciation by any single publisher in Boston, while in New York, the Children's Monthly, "St. Nicholas," in the excellence and abundance of its illustrations, rivals "The Century" itself. The illustrated Christmas Paper prepared by the Tile Club and published by the Harpers, and the beautifully illustrated books issued by the Appletons, Harpers, Putnams, Scribners, and others in New York, while in Philadelehia the publications by Lippincott and others, and the choice literature bearing the imprint of Porter & Coates, with the magnificently illustrated subscription art works by Gebbie & Co.,† all witness to the growing demand for excellence and to the popular love for pictorial art.

The illustrations in children's school books published by the various publishers ought of themselves to develop an artistic taste in those who use them. A comparison of any of these really artistic engravings with the coarsely engraved illustrations of the fables in the Webster's spelling book used fifty years ago, will afford a ready measure of the growth of popular art in the United States. Perhaps in nothing is the extent of this development so readily seen as in the contrast between the picture books prepared for children in England and America during the past twenty years and those that preceded them, before the names of Kate Greenaway and Rosina Emmett had become household words.

*Harper's Christmas Pictures and Papers, Done by the Tile Club and its Literary Friends; Christmas, 1882. Published by Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, New York.

This firm issue from time to time sumptuous books containing, in photogravure, copies of the notable new paintings acquired by public and private art galleries in the United States which, taken together, form a most interesting graphic record of the accretions brought to the art treasures of the country from European studios.

The opening of the Centennial found the art of wood engraving prospering in the United States. The subsequent rapid development in the general use of illustrations in all publications, owing doubtless in part to the invention of many new, cheap and satisfactory methods of reproduction, can hardly be fairly attributed to the influence of the Exposition; for which reason I have not carefully defined the situation before and after that event which in the general stimulus it gave to all the arts doubtless benefited that of engraving, but its direct influence upon that art cannot readily be pointed out. The art of steel engraving has suffered by the competition of cheaper and more facile methods of reproduction, especially by the various methods based on photography.

The availability of graphic illustrations as a means of influencing public opinion have long made them a favorite weapon of political partizans, as well as of satirists and moralists like Hogarth and Cruikshank. What the Gillray caricatures, and the Punch cartoons by Tenniel and Leech, have been to England, the incisive drawings of Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, for instance during the struggle before the downfall of Tweed, and, latterly, the somewhat coarse, unscrupulous but effective colored cartoons in Puck, are to America. The rapidly growing custom of inserting outline illustrations in the columns of the daily journals gives positive proof of the ever widening uses which the art of drawing may serve.

In the early industrial development of the Americans, quickness of apprehension, readiness and fertility of invention, and a happy knack in the application of means to ends, were soon recognized as characteristic. A tendency to discard useless weight and bulk, to substitute lightness for clumsiness, to seek to accomplish results by novel methods, often led to the adoption of more pleasing forms, which, though not originating in any conscious knowledge of art, were yet suggestive of a latent art capacity which gave promise of great results whenever attention should be directed to its development and culture.

The American wheeled vehicles, buggies and carriages, and the Amer ican clippers-the fleet, wooden ships, the fastest sailers of the seas,were each exquisite in their artistic lines as compared with the heavy, clumsy vehicles and ships, of other nations.

There is another quality of American invention which is philosophic in its breadth-this was shown in the adoption of interchangeable parts. first used, I believe, in the manufacture of fire-arms, later of watches, and capable of numberless adaptations; recently applied by Professor