58 
PACIFIC ERA 
up, and stacked like logs on a wood-pile; the interplay of parts in the former 
is really infinite in that delicacy of balance which we call simplicity. 
Shall these new and broad movements in art lead on, for America, to 
some ripe fruition or must they be thwarted by a philistinism that never hides 
its head though it disguise its voice, sometimes even in the jargon of the studios? 
Our growing museums afford some help; in proportion, however, as they lay 
more stress upon the beauty of their treasures than upon the rarety, money-value, 
or historical significance. Few private collections, even, are amassed for the 
purpose of showing the splendid ranges of technical achievement involved in 
building up new molecules of form-music, or of color. The example of our 
impressionists is not salutary, if it shows that freedom leads rather to the coarse 
and sensational. The scope of fine examples available for the study of our 
craftsmen is too limited. The art-education of our schools tends to fall back 
upon the non-artistic technique of mere accuracy in representation. Our ex¬ 
hibitions of new paintings do little, one infers from complaints, to bridge the 
gap between an academic supply and a genuine economic demand. Our art 
books seem written rather to merit the appearance of scholars than to inform 
the public about the treasures of appreciation hidden in their own souls. 
It is just here that it seems worth while to call attention to a unique collec¬ 
tion which is destined to play a great part in developing the future art of 
America. I refer to the collection of Mr. Charles L. Freer of Detroit, which 
has already become, by his donation and an official acceptance, a nucleus,— 
though to remain unified and detached,—of a vast National Art Museum at 
Washington. This central position of the Freer collection, after the death of 
the founder, must greatly enhance the value of its unique qualities. Much has 
been written of this great group of treasures, but chiefly from the points of view 
of the superficial interest of the day. Because Mr. Whistler had recently 
died, it was lauded as the world’s greatest store-house of his expensive works. 
Because some New York capitalists have started a “fad” for ceramics, it 
becomes noteworthy as a unique massing of valuable pieces in pottery. Those 
few who affect admiration for the “oddities” of oriental painting may care to 
know that a wide range of such work is here exemplified. But little attempt 
has been made to forecast the practical meaning of this great public gift from 
such large points of view as the future, in its stresses of new aesthetic problems, 
is likely to take of it. In how far does it supplement the lack in our museums? 
In how far furnish the models needed for a true art-education? To what 
extent exemplify those very laws of upbuilding in line, mass, and color, which 
should become the groundwork of our future creation? 
It may be premised that the Freer collection, with a very few exceptions, 
consists, as already hinted, of three great parts, apparently, at first sight, dis¬ 
tinct from each other. These are, to state briefly;—first, by far the largest and 
most representative series of all the pictorial work of James McNeill V/histler 
that now exists in any one group, or that it is physically possible shall ever 
