772 THE GEOEGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



State of New York, Executive Chamber, 



A Ibaruj, March 16, 1874. 

 I am averse to signing petitions to Congress, but I can sincerely say that no one ap- 

 preciates more highly than myself the value *of Catlin's Indian gallery and museum ; 

 and no one would be more gratified by seeing it preserved in so me public institution. 

 Indeed, I think it ought to be the property of the Governrn out, to be treasured as a 

 memorial of a race of which probably after a century more scarcely a vestige will 

 remain. I knew George Catlin well, was familiar with his perseverance and long- 

 continued labors in preparing his gallery, and can bear witness to the fidelity of sev- 

 eral of the principal portraits. I should regret deeply to see it broken up, and if it 

 is not preserved entire I am satisfied that the time will soon come when it will be a 

 source of sincere regret. 



I am ever, truly, yours, 



John A. Dix. 



VIEWS OF THE OFFICERS AND FACULTIES OF SEVERAL AMERICAN COL- 

 LEGES IN 1873-74 AS TO THE VALUE OF MR. CATLIN'S GALLERY. 



At the time of the expected purchase by the Government in 1874 of 

 the original Catlin gallery (then in Mr. Harrison's possession), many 

 of the colleges of the country became earnestly interested in the matter 

 and presented memorials and petitions to Congress favoring the same. 



Williams, University of Vermont, Cornell, Bowdoin, Dartmouth, 

 University of New York, St. Xavier, Union, Amherst, Princeton, 

 Northwestern University, Kipon, Lafayette, University of Alabama, 

 and others were earnest in this statement of the ethnographic value of 

 the gallery. 



Cornell University, January 24, 1874. 

 Every year it [the Catlin collection] is becoming more and more valuable. * * * 



And. D. White. 



OPINION OF LEWIS H. MORGAN. 



George Catlin: He was an accurate and intelligent observer, and liis work on the 

 "Manners and Customs of the North American Indians" is a valuable contribution 

 to American ethnography. — Houses and Home Life of the American Aborigines, 1831, 

 page 50. 



GEORGE CATLIN AND HIS WORK, BY CHARLES RAU. 



Mr. Catlin's name was first brought to my knowledge through an article which I 

 read in 1845 in the Kolnische Zeitung (Cologne Gazette) several years before my emi- 

 gration to the United States. He was then at Paris with a party of twelve Iowa 

 Indians, men, women, and children, and the article in question related to the pre- 

 sentation of these Indians by Mr. Catlin to King Louis Phillippe,in the Tuileries.* 

 At the time just mentioned I little thought that I should become deeply interested in 

 Mr. Catlin's literary and artistic productions, and should meet him, more than a 



Note. — In 1874 a person interested in the Government having the collection, w hen the subject was 

 before Congress, called upon a member, who objected that the pictures were not particularly valua. 

 ble because they were not high art, as, for instance, were not in the m odern French or Belgian school 

 The old masters would fare badly before such a juror.— T. D. 



*A detailed account of this interview was afterward published by Mr. Catlin in " Notes of Eight 

 Years' Travel and Residence in Europe" (London, 1848, Vol. II, p. 210, etc.). 



