while their lives were usually commonplace and void of incident. Of the few exceptions to this rule I have written in the later pages of this book.

The suggestion that the nineteenth century cannot yet be judged as to its final effect in many directions has already been made, and of nothing is this more true than of its Art. Of one phase of this period, however, we may speak with confidence. No other century of which we know the history has seen so many changes—such progress, or such energy of purpose so largely rewarded as in the century we are considering.

To one who has lived through more than three score years of this period, no fairy tale is more marvellous than the changes in the department of daily life alone.

When I recall the time when the only mode of travel was by stage-coach, boat, or private carriage—when the journey from Boston to St. Louis demanded a week longer in time than we now spend in going from Boston to Egypt—when no telegraph existed—when letter postage was twenty-five cents and the postal service extremely primitive—when no house was comfortably warmed and women carried foot-stoves to unheated churches—when candles and oil lamps were the only means of "lighting up," and we went about the streets at night with dim lanterns—when women spun and wove and sewed with their hands only, and all they accomplished was done at the hardest—when in our country a young girl might almost as reasonably attempt to reach the moon as to become an artist—remembering all this it seems as if an army of magicians must incessantly have waved their wands above us, and that human brains and hands could not have invented and put in operation the innumerable changes in our daily life during the last half-century.

When, in the same way, we review the changes that have taken place in the domains of science, in scholarly research in all directions, in printing, bookmaking, and the methods of illustrating everything that is printed—from the most serious and learned writing to advertisements scattered over all-out-of-doors—when we add to these the revolutions in many other departments of life and industry, we must regard the nineteenth as the century par excellence of expansion, and in various directions an epoch-making era.

When we turn to our special subject we find an activity and expansion in nineteenth-century art quite in accordance with the spirit of the time. This expansion is especially noticeable in the increased number of subjects represented in works of art, and in the invention of new methods of artistic expression.

Prior to this period there had been a certain selection of such subjects for artistic representation as could be called "picturesque," and though more ordinary and commonplace subjects might be rendered with such skill—such drawing, color, and technique—as to demand approbation, it was given with a certain condescension and the feeling was manifested that these subjects, though treated with consummate art, were not artistic. The nineteenth century has signally changed these theories.

Nothing that makes a part in human experience is now too commonplace or too unusual and mysterious to afford inspiration to painter and sculptor; while the normal characteristics of human beings and the circumstances common to their lives are not omitted, the artist frequently endeavors to express in his work the most subtle experiences of the heart and soul, and to embody in his picture or statue an absolutely psychologic phenomenon.

The present easy communication with all nations has awakened interest in the life of countries almost unknown to us a half-century ago. So customary is it for artists to wander far and wide, seeking new motives for their works, that I felt no surprise when I recently received a letter from a young American woman who is living and painting in Biskra. How short a time has passed since this would have been thought impossible!

It is also true that subjects not new in art are treated in a nineteenth-century manner. This is noticeable in the picturing of historical subjects. The more intimate knowledge of the world enables the historical painter of the present to impart to his representations of the important events of the past a more human and emotional element than exists in the historical art of earlier centuries. In a word, nineteenth-century art is sympathetic, and has found inspiration in all countries and classes and has so treated its subjects as to be intelligible to all, from the favored children for whom Kate Greenaway, Walter Crane, and many others have spent their delightful talents, to men and women of all varieties of individual tastes and of all degrees of ability to comprehend and appreciate artistic representations.

A fuller acquaintance with the art and art-methods of countries of which but little had before been known has been an element in art expansion. Technical methods which have not been absolutely adopted by European and English-speaking artists have yet had an influence upon their art. The interest in Japanese Art is the most important example of such influence, and it is also true that Japanese artists have been attracted to the study of the art of America and Europe, while some foreign artists resident in Japan—notably Miss Helen Hyde, a young American—have studied and practised Japanese painting to such purpose that Japanese juries have accorded the greatest excellence and its honors to their works, exhibited in competition with native artists.

Other factors in the expansion of art have been found in photography and the various new methods of illustration that have filled books, magazines, and newspapers with pictures of more or less (?) merit. Even the painting of "posters" has not been scorned by good artists, some of whom have treated them in such a manner as to make them worthy a place in museums where only works of true merit are exhibited.

Other elements in the nineteenth-century expansion in art are seen in the improved productions of the so-called Arts and Crafts which are of inestimable value in cultivating the artistic sense in all classes. Another influence in the same direction is the improved decoration of porcelain, majolica, and pottery, which, while not equal to that of earlier date in the esteem of connoisseurs, brings artistic objects to the sight and knowledge of all, at prices suited to moderate means.

In America the unparalleled increase of Free Libraries has brought, not books alone, but collections of photographs and other reproductions of the best Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in the world, as well as medals, book-plates, artistic bindings, etc., within reach of students of art.

Art Academies and Museums have also been greatly multiplied. It is often a surprise to find, in a comparatively small town, a fine Art Gallery, rich in a variety of precious objects. Such an one is the Art Museum of Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Me. The edifice itself is the most beautiful of the works by McKim that I have seen. The frescoes by La Farge and Vedder are most satisfactory, and one exhibit, among many of interest—that of original drawings by famous Old Masters—would make this Museum a worthy place of pilgrimage. Can one doubt that such a Museum must be an element of artistic development in those who are in contact with it?

I cannot omit saying that this splendid monument to the appreciation of art and to great generosity was the gift of women, while the artists who perfected its architecture and decorations are Americans; it is an impressive expression of the expansion of American Art in the nineteenth century.

The advantages for the study of Art have been largely improved and increased in this period. In numberless studios small classes of pupils are received; in schools of Design, schools of National Academies, and in those of