is same Eggers is starting, in Denver, an Art Museum from its
very foundations, but on the same constructive scale. So this enterprise,
in my fond and fatuous fancy, is associated with the sweet Mae Marsh as
The Wild Girl of the Sierras--one of the loveliest bits of poetry ever
put into screen or fable.

For about one year, off and on, I had the honor to be the photoplay
critic of The New Republic, this invitation also based on the first
edition of this book. Looking back upon that experience I am delighted to
affirm that not only The New Republic constituency but the world of the
college and the university where I moved at that time, while at loss for
a policy, were not only willing but eager to take the films with
seriousness.

But when I was through with all these dashes into the field, and went
back to reciting verses again, no one had given me any light as to who
should make the disinterested, non-commercial film for these immediate
times, the film that would class, in our civilization, with The New
Republic or The Atlantic Monthly or the poems of Edwin Arlington
Robinson. That is, the production not for the trade, but for the soul.
Anita Loos, that good crusader, came out several years ago with the
flaming announcement that there was now hope, since a school of films had
been heavily endowed for the University of Rochester. The school was to
be largely devoted to producing music for the photoplay, in defiance of
chapter fourteen. But incidentally there were to be motion pictures made
to fit good music. Neither music nor films have as yet shaken the world.

I liked this Rochester idea. I felt that once it was started the films
would take their proper place and dominate the project, disinterested
non-commercial films to be classed with the dramas so well stimulated by
the great drama department under Professor Baker of Harvard.

As I look back over this history I see that the printed page had counted
too much, and the real forces of the visible arts in America had not been
definitely enlisted. They should take the lead. I would suggest as the
three people to interview first on building any Art Museum Photoplay
project: Victor Freeburg, with his long experience of teaching the
subject in Columbia, and John Emerson and Anita Loos, who are as brainy
as people dare to be and still remain in the department store film
business. No three people would more welcome opportunities to outline the
idealistic possibilities of