ion of works of art (still blindly
restricted by the American Congress) were the lessons that began to work
a change. Now, in all our large towns, and even in hundreds of villages,
there are well-established art schools; in the greater cities, unions and
associations, under the guidance of skillful artists, where five or six
hundred young men and women are diligently, day and night, learning the
rudiments of art. The result is already apparent. Excellent drawing is
seen in illustrations for books and magazines, in the satirical and comic
publications, even in the advertisements and theatrical posters. At our
present rate of progress, the drawings in all our amusing weeklies will
soon be as good as those in the 'Fliegende Blatter.' The change is
marvelous; and the popular taste has so improved that it would not be
profitable to go back to the ill-drawn illustrations of twenty years ago.
But as to fiction, even if the writers of it were all trained in it as an
art, it is not so easy to lift the public taste to their artistic level.
The best supply in this case will only very slowly affect the quality of
the demand. When the poor novel sells vastly better than the good novel,
the poor will be produced to supply the demand, the general taste will be
still further lowered, and the power of discrimination fade out more and
more. What is true of the novel is true of all other literature. Taste
for it must be cultivated in childhood. The common schools must do for
literature what the art schools are doing for art. Not every one can
become an artist, not every one can become a writer--though this is
contrary to general opinion; but knowledge to distinguish good drawing
from bad can be acquired by most people, and there are probably few minds
that cannot, by right methods applied early, be led to prefer good
literature, and to have an enjoyment in it in proportion to its
sincerity, naturalness, verity, and truth to life.

It is, perhaps, too much to say that all the American novel needs for its
development is an audience, but it is safe to say that an audience would
greatly assist it. Evidence is on all sides of a fresh, new, wonderful
artistic development in America in drawing, painting, sculpture, in
instrumental music and singing, and in literature. The promise of this is
not only in the climate, the free republican opportunity, the mixed races
blending the traditions and aptitudes of so many civilizations, but it is
in a certa