THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
with a beautiful building to exhibit it to the best ad¬ 
vantage, the whole standing as a magnificent gift from 
a patriotic American citizen to the American people. The 
formal opening brought forth widespread comment from 
the press and from art journals, paying all honor to Mr. 
Freer for his great benefaction. 
To give a brief idea of Mr. Freer’s aim in assembling 
his collection and of the collection itself, I cannot do 
better than quote what the Curator, Mr. Lodge, has 
written: 
“The collections installed in the Freer Gallery of Art, 
were brought together by Charles Lang Freer, of Detroit, 
Michigan. They represent the results of Mr. Freer’s 
personal study and acquisition over a period of about 
thirty-five years, the earliest of his purchases incorporated 
in the collections dating from the later eighties. It was 
not until after 1900, however, when at the age of 46 he 
retired from an active business life, that Mr. Freer was 
able to devote the greater part of his time to the develop¬ 
ment of his collections and of the ideals which lay behind 
them. From 1900 until the time of his death in September, 
1919, he gradually eliminated from his consideration all 
other activities which might absorb his time and strength, 
in order that he might work with increasing concentration 
on his endeavor to establish the beginnings of what he 
believed to be a most valuable field of research. 
“Mr. Freer was convinced that the more nearly a 
cultural object of any civilization expresses the underlying 
principles of artistic production in soundness of thought 
and workmanship, the more nearly it takes its place with 
other objects of equally high quality produced by any 
other civilization; and with that in view, he was intent 
upon bringing together such expressions of Western and 
Eastern cultures as seemed to him to embody at their 
best those characteristics which he believed to be inherent 
in all works of art. 
“From the West, he acquired principally American 
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