PARK AND CE-ME-TERY 
240 
as their architecture is, it would have little attraction 
for the public were it not for the sculpture of the ex- 
terior and the mural painting within. 
Let us consider for a moment the public buildings of 
Europe. What makes Florence so interesting? At 
every turn you meet some building whose intrinsic 
ai'chitectural excellence is enhanced by ornament . 
In Paris we have the Hotel de Ville, profusely en- 
riched with sculpture and mural painting by the best 
artists in France, and the Opera, similarly treated, 
while every city of France has one or more public 
buildings in which artistic enrichment is a dominating 
measured by their Art and Literature. In some cases 
the wealth of a people is measured by their collections 
of Art. Take, for example, Greece, once the wonder 
of the world in artistic treasures. Despoiled by the 
Romans, Goths, Turks and English, but comparatively 
little remains to her. The people are impoverished by 
the loss of their Art, and they are but the shadow of 
their former greatness. Italy, on the other hand, con- 
tains much of the Grecian artistic wealth to which the 
Romans and Renaissance periods added with lavish 
hand, so that Italy may be likened to a huge museum 
of Art. Without this Art Italy would lose one of the 
THE ALBRECHT'S FOUNTAIN IN VIENNA. 
feature, and Germany’s late advance toward a leading 
place among nations is nowhere better shown than in 
the artistic development of Berlin, which is so rapidly 
becoming one of the most completely and beautifully 
decorated cities of the world. 
How many public buildings have any other interest 
for the people than the use to which they are put? 
While the functions of a building should be manifest 
in the lines of its architecture, yet on sculpture and 
painting must it depend for the interpretation of its 
meaning and purpose to the people. 
The strength of nations is measured by their com- 
merce or their conquests, but the glory of a people is 
great resources of her wealth. With it she derives an 
income of $50,000,000 per year from the foreigners who 
live permanently or sojourn for a time within her 
borders. To offset this there is scarcely any item in 
the national balance of trade. It is a clean yearly 
income, being 5 per cent on one billion dollars ; a pretty 
fair capitalization of the Art of Italy. They long since 
recognized the value of her Art as a national source 
of income, and prohibited by law the export of any 
ancient work of Art. Through the encouragement of 
Art in France, she derives an annual income of $150,- 
000,000 from the foreigners who are attracted there, 
or 5 per cent income on three billions. 
