under the accidents of economic and social circumstance,
many a flower may really be born to blush unseen through the
fact that its talents receive no opportunity. The occasional
"discovery" by a wealthy man of a genius in the slums, indicates
how a more liberal and general provision of training in
the arts might redound to the general good. And a more
widespread endowment of training in the fine arts, if it did
not produce many geniuses, might at least produce a number
of competent painters and musicians, who, in the practice of
their skill, during their leisure, would derive considerable and
altogether wholesome pleasure.

While high aesthetic capacity may be lacking in most people,
aesthetic appreciation is widely diffused, and the education of
taste and the growth in appreciation of the arts have been
marked. The museums of art in our large cities report a
constantly increasing attendance, both of visitors to the
galleries and attendants at lectures. And the crowds which
regularly attend musical programs of a sustainedly high
character in many cities, winter and summer, are evidence of how
widespread and eager is appreciation of the fine arts. In
the Scandinavian countries and in Germany one of the most
remarkable social phenomena has been the growth of a
widely supported people's theater movement, in which there
has been consistent support of the highest type of operas and
plays.

ART AS AN INDUSTRY. The fact that objects of art are
themselves immediate satisfactions and supply human wants,
makes their provision for large numbers an important social
enterprise. Certain forms of art, therefore, become highly
industrialized. The provision of the objects of art becomes
a profitable business, as it is also made possible only by a large
economic outlay. Tolstoy in his _What is Art?_ brings out
strikingly the economic basis of artistic enterprises in
contemporary society:

For the support of art in Russia [1898], the government grants
millions of roubles in subsidies to academies, conservatories, and
theatres. In France, twenty million francs are assigned for art, and
similar grants are made in Germany and England.

In every large town enormous buildings are erected for museums,
academies, conservatories, dramatic schools, and for performances
and concerts. Hundreds of thousands of workmen--carpenters,
masons, painters, joiners, paperhangers, tailors, hairdressers, jewelers,
molders, type-setters--spend their w