REPORT OF MR. HINTON.
109
men, long departed, who despised nothing in industry that could be made artistic.
The museums of Art and Industry will have performed a great work, if they do nothing more than cause a change in this respect, as there are signs that they have been able to do, not thoroughly as yet, but they have made a beginning. It is no longer a rarity to find men who have acquired a reputation for their art-work, designing, quietly and unobtrusively, furniture, plate, wrought-iron gates, carvings for stone and wood-workers, carpets, majolica ware, etc., both in England and on the continent of Europe.
The rank and file of labor need commanders who shall be not alone bent on conceiving great projects. Let a man come among them who can shape out great things, and he will make small things great also, if he is in earnest and loves the work ; especially, as is now the case in most of the leading countries in Europe, if the rank and file have had a knowledge of art imparted to them to prepare them for their life’s work.
Another fact has been demonstrated so plainly that it is now generally admitted as a truism, by the efforts put forth during the last fifty years to elevate the masses; i. e., "Those who can be taught to write can learn to draw.” This fact established destroys the awe that has so long hedged in the Fine Arts, and is another contribution of the nineteenth century to the freedom of mankind. Thus kid-glove artists, who have withdrawn from the company of artisans and manufacturers, have conferred an incalculable benefit upon the world at large, in forcing upon it the conviction that all of God’s gifts are universal, if not allowed to perish from neglect, or ^norance of their existence. So, if these artists have become so refined as to fear that the dust of the workshop may soil their fair, white hands, the workers will take up the task, and in the endeavor to elevate their own powers and taste will elevate the whole community. This is peculiarly in a line with the spirit of American growth. It is from the bottom that we work upward to the top. Wo may hope to develop a grand school of American Art when we have made the whole people familiar with its principles ; precisely as we formed* great men in politics, in war, and work, by making the Whole nation feel profoundly. This accomplished, the cap-