Report of the President. IT 



The department of Arts has not hitherto met the ex- 

 pectations of those who were active in its organization. The 

 large number of intelligent gentlemen engaged in agriculture, 

 mining and manufacture?, as well as the considerable number 

 of engineers, architects and builders, who have had both scien- 

 tific training and practical experience, and are competent to- 

 make valuable contributions to the useful arts, would seem 

 to warrant the expectation that, under the new efforts to be 

 put forth by its officers, this department will have a more sat- 

 isfactory development. 



Effort has been made to induce the artists of this state to 

 unite their forces and effect the organization of a department 

 of Fine Arts, but, so far, without success. Art has had but 

 little cultivation, as yet, anywhere in America. Enough has 

 been done by American artists, however, to demonstrate that 

 we have artistic genius of a quality to insure to our art a rank 

 in the future second to that of no other modern nation. An 

 impetus has already been given to it by the introduction of 

 art education into many of the schools at the east, and a few 

 of those at the west — a movement fraught with interest, whether 

 art be considered in relation to its refining influence upon 

 the mind of the rising generation, or with reference to its bear- 

 ings upon the progress of the industrial arts. 



An art department, even though it should, for a time, simply 

 fulfil the offices of an Art Union, bringing artists frequently 

 together for mutual aid and encouragement, leading to the 

 gradual formation of a public art museum, and, by its co-opera- 

 tion with the educational authorities, promote the needed culti- 

 vation of art in all its various branches, would render a very 

 important service to the state and to the cause of American 

 civilization. 



The Department of Letters, though it has not made rapid 

 growth, is nevertheless in a prosperous condition. It is in 

 the management of gentlemen of deep and varied culture, who 

 have both prepared and secured for it several papers of real 



