REPORT OF MR. HINTON.
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we want from England, while we devote ourselves to rougher and better-paying labor.
In Europe they have the advantage over us, in the long artistic training that has been afforded the people; but we can avail ourselves of their previous experience, and progress more rapidly from the knowledge so gained, as is evident from the work already accomplished in Massachusetts. But, as has been indicated in the instances cited above, without exhausting the list, there are so many kinds of artistic work of which we know nothing, except as we purchase specimens ready-mad« from foreign markets, that much hard and continuous labor is entailed upon us, if we desire to be an artistic as well as an industrial people.
It is worth while to note the fact that terra-cotta, like brick-work, is a fire-proof material, hence deserving of notice in America where the fire-king has wrought such terrible havoc. Specimens of terra-cotta that have passed through a fierce and destructive fire are shown at Vienna, to prove its power of resisting heat. The facts, as related, certainly demonstrate that it will stand fire without being very seriously damaged, if it is not injured by the falling masses that generally cave in, at any really calamitous conflagration. That it will endure for ages is proven by the specimens of a ncient workmanship exhibited in almost every European museum. There are articles made of terra-cotta in the British Museum, at least three thousand years old. The mark of the artificers’ tools show as plainly as when first burnt in.
While writing of terra-cotta specimens in the museums of Europe, it may be said that they contain specimens of everything, many articles and subjects exhibited being to-day priceless, on account of their antiquity, rarity, and intrinsic Va lue as exemplars of ancient art and industry. Vienna is a bundautly supplied with these collections. The imperial palace* is a rich treasury of works of art and collections of scientific objects easily accessible to the public. The Swiss Court has the private library of the Emperor; also some sixty
* principal royal palaces of Europe are becoming more and more every year
^-places or art-galleries for the occasional use of the crowned monarchs, who Nominally own them, and for the general use of the public, who really own them.
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