to the forces so powerfully promoting American art the rapid spread of art museums, with their students' classes, and the increased attention paid to the arts and handicrafts in our public schools. Art associations are common in cities large and small, and foreign scholarships awarded by some museums give good post-graduate training to worthy students. Recently the generosity of private citizens has brought to our shores famous works by the old masters, while municipal art associations throughout the country tend toward improvement in many

ways.

Perhaps the happiest sign is the growing educational character of our art museums, which are becoming less and less storage warehouses. The Boston Museum was the first to undertake the work of art extension, coördinating its work with that of the public schools. Toledo, Detroit, New York, Indianapolis, St. Louis and others carry on similar work. Geography, history, biography, as well as art, are thus taught in the halls of the museum by means of lectures to the groups of classes wno attend at stated hours. Elementary instruction in the public schools aims not only to teach drawing for use in various trades, but also to train the pupils' taste in line, mass and color.

Sculpture was more backward than its sister arts in attaining maturity. It was not until the decades preceding and following the Civil War that America could point to sculptors of

fame, such as Powers and Crawford. Horatio Greenough is among American pioneers in the art in which J. Q. A. Ward, W. W. Story, Harriet Hosmer, Launt Thompson, Randolph Rogers, J. S. Hartley, D. C. French, and Augustus St. Gaudens were to attain eminence. The recent exhibitions of our National Sculpture Society in New York indicate the varied quality of its work, which is both plastic and pictorial. Wood and stone carving and monumental work, the decoration of church and civic buildings, have entered sculpture's broadening sphere.

Still more hopeful is the outlook for architecture. Here, too, the close of the Civil War marked an epoch in its growth, as our cities expanded and the need of greater beauty in civic and domestic building was more generally felt. It is a far cry from the simple Colonial or Queen Anne and the severer Gothic to the Romanesque of Richardson and the word of his contemporaries, R. M. Hunt, McKim, and Stanford White. The Institute of Architects (1857), the Commission of Fine Arts recently established by Congress, New York's Architectural League, and similar clubs in other cities which organized the Architectural League of America, with its circuit of exhibitions, its forming of new schools and traveling scholarship at Harvard, are promising signs. Whether a more original and creative period is to dawn, cannot be stated. Landscape architecture, too, has reached a more ambitious stage with

our era of civic planning and rural improvement and the growth of what may be termed National aesthetics. Under this new impetus the group system of public buildings is beautifying our cities, and model industrial villages and recreation centres are widening the scope of architects and designers. Here, too, every effort is made to combine the practical and the artistic.

Music.

The years of civil strife were not propitious to musical development, yet there were intermittent operatic performances under Ullman, Maretzek, Strakosch, Grau, and Carl Anschutz. After the war Offenbach became the favorite, a powerful rival to Italian opera. Then Gilbert and Sullivan's melodious operettas held the boards for some years, to be followed by a mixed multitude of comic operas. New York's musical centre then was Steinway Hall, opened in 1866 with Bateman's concert troupe, which included Parepa, Brignoli, Ferranti, Fortuna, S. B. Mills, Carl Rosa, J. L. Hatton, with Theodore Thomas leading the orchestra. A few years later came Christine Nilsson, first in concerts and then in operatic rôles. "Lohengrin" was heard for the first time in America in 1874. German influence grew more and more paramount, the Philharmonic leading the way, with such conductors as Bergmann, L. Damrosch, Neuendorf, Thomas, Seidel, and others of recent date. Thomas gathered an orchestral

band comparable with the best European organization and began a series of symphony soirées. In 1873 Leopold Damrosch founded the Oratorio Society and in 1878 the Symphony Society, conducting both until his death in 1885, when his son Walter succeeded him. In 1881 and 1882 New York had musical festivals of a high order, under Damrosch and Thomas respectively, the latter on a remarkable scale, with Materna and Gerster, Anna Louise Cary and Emily Winant, Campanini and Candidus, Galassi, Remnertz, and Myron W. Whitney among the solo singers. Mr. Thomas conducted the Wagner festival concerts in New York in 1885 and the American Opera from 1885 to 1887. After a brief sojourn in Cincinnati, he returned as leader of the Philharmonic. In 1891 he organized the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and maintained the high standard of his New York concerts.

The Metropolitan Opera House (opened in 1882) gave a new impetus to Italian and German opera, the latter (under Damrosch and Seidel) supplanting the former, where Wagner's music-dramas were given on a scale of magnificence unsurpassed even in Germany, while production of more recent composers like Strauss, Humperdinck and Franchetti have also been heard. The most eminent vocalists and musicians of the world. have been welcomed. Dvorák (1892) for some years was head of New York's Conservatory of Music. The

New York is but an illustration in this regard of similar growth throughout the country, with music-festivals, seasons of opera (permanent or temporary), classical concerts, musical clubs and societies in large number. Music is now part of the regular schedule in our public schools, and elementary vocal music instruction is of profound value to the health and culture of millions of pupils. Chairs for music have been founded in some of our universities. Church music has attained a better style; more appropriate compositions are introduced, while public taste is being improved by organ and other free recitals. marked influence for good can be mentioned municipal lectures, recitals, orchestral park concerts, and similar agencies for our general musical growth.

Of

After English, Italian and German influences, is there opportunity for native musical art? And what new fundamental art-elements will America produce? There is a long list of

American composers, many of whose works are of merit and promise. In the field of serious composition (excluding the popular ballad and the light opera) there are some eminent names, but none surpasses that of Edward A. MacDowell. His years of activity as teacher and composer were limited, but his worth is recognized. The music festivals at Peterboro, New Hampshire, in his memory, invest American life with a certain ideality which will spread with the years. His "Indian Symphony "is a meritorious American addition to the world's music. No less significant of progress was Horatio Parker's tragic opera "Mona," which won the Metropolitan prize of 1911. Of worth, though lacking in evenness, was Victor Herbert's" Natoma " (1911). Mr. Pulitzer's bequest of $500,000 to the Philharmonic (1910) means much for musical culture. The formation of a permanent symphony orchestra in San Francisco (1911), with Henry K. Hadley as conductor, was a noteworthy event for Western musical growth. The Boston symphony concerts, held in the chief cities of the country, add appreciably to popular interest in music. In 1911 Liszt's centenary was fitly celebrated by special programs devoted to that master. The enthusiasm aroused indicated the steady musical progress.

The Drama.

With the increased prosperity that dawned after 1865, the rapid growth of our cities, the frequent visits by

foreign stars, the building of new theatres throughout the country, the American stage witnessed a development both in plays and players. The old-fashioned stock companies began to give way to the combination, and the stars were monopolized by a few managers who gradually controlled the chief playhouses. The drama thus became more of a business than an art. With an exception here and there, the really artistic plays are few. It is hardly fair to blame only the manager for present conditions; the public itself is at fault for patronizing what is unhealthy and unworthy. And public taste has admittedly changed. The theatre, in our large cities at least, has ceased to attract the cultured and representative element of former decades. At the same time audiences seem to prefer plays on American themes by American authors. So many foreign masterpieces have proved costly failures on the American boards that managers are giving more thought to native themes, and at last the American drama may deserve and gain recognition. Denman Thompson's "The Old Homestead " was a native drama of genuine American flavor.

Among American managers and playwrights to whom our drama is greatly indebted for artistic representation and an admirably equipped company, Augustin Daly (1899)

merits special mention. Around his theatres cluster the best traditions of the American stage. Other dramatists of distinction are Bartley Campbell (1843-1888), who wrote a number of successful plays; Bronson Howard (1842-1908), whose society drama, "Saratoga," was presented in Berlin; and James De Mille (1850-1893). Among others of similar ability are William Gillette, Clyde Fitch, David Belasco, H. G. Carleton, Charles H. Hoyt, with Epes Sargent (1812-1880), R. W. Bird (1803-1854), Joseph Stevens Jones (1811-1877), a voluminous writer, and George H. Boker (1823-1890).

Of our actors and actresses, may be mentioned John McCullough, Edwin Booth, Laurence Barrett, Joseph Jefferson, John Gilbert, Lester Wallack, W. J. Florence, E. A. Sothern, Richard Mansfield, James Lewis, John E. Owens, Mrs. Sefton, the Le Moynes, Fanny Morant, Fanny Davenport, with Ada Rehan, Mrs. Crabtree and Maud Adams.

In 1889 an "American Academy of Dramatic Art" was founded in New York by Franklin Sargent to train pupils for the stage.

The history of the American drama is as yet merely a record of plays and players. The great names are few. Present tendencies, with the hold of commercialism on the stage, are not very reassuring. Augustus Thomas,

in his "As a Man Thinks " (1910), shows what a serious American dramatist can do. The popularity of "Get Rich Quick Wallingford" and "Excuse Me " (1910) tell the popular taste. If it is true that every country has the drama it deserves, America must await a broader spirit of culture and a more purified taste before its dramas can attain a higher place. And this can be said as truly of Ameri

can creative art and music-" the best is yet to be." *

Samuel Isham, History of American Painting (1905); Louis C. Elson, History of American Music; L. Taft, History of American Sculpture;

S. G. W. Benjamin, American Art; Dunlap, History of American Theatre (1832); Ireland, Records of the New York Stage 1750-1860 (1891); Ritter, Music in America (1900); Wilson, Memorial History of the City of New York, vol. iv., chaps. v., xi., xvii. (1893); L. C. Elson, National Music of America and Its Sources (1900); Krehbiel, Music in America, in Lavignac's Music and Musicians, pp. 489-528 (1904); L. Gilman, Phases of Modern Music (1904).