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Date 
THE FREER CQ1AECTION. 
Establ 
of. 
Nation Possesses Fine Specimens 
Oriental Art. 
Scribners. 
In a vague way there hr a general 
knowledge among those interested in 
the development-of art in the United 
States that the nation, through the 
Smithsonian IiiStituion (National Gal¬ 
lery), is the owner of a great col¬ 
lection of Oriental art objects, 
brought together and presented to the* 
public by Mr. Charles E. Freer, of 
Detroit, The range and contents of 
O-ift collection , its purpose and oppor- 1 
tunities—in a word, its meaning—are 
less clearly understood, notwithstand¬ 
ing that, the collector has loaned gen¬ 
erously to various exhibitions and 
permitted special students access to 
his treasured accumulations. 
, The government authorities having 
not long ago designated the site, on 
the Mall, for the building which the 
donor himself provides to house the 
collection, donor arid architect to¬ 
gether are now planning the details of 
of the museum that is to open new 
fields of study to which limits may 
hardly be set. 
Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Mesopo¬ 
tamia, Persia, China, Corea, Japan— 
the history of the ancient world re¬ 
corded by itself, preserved by Mother 
Earth and in temples, palaces, tombs, 
Jand the treasure-chests of Celestial 
(generations; a history written ini 
terms of art and of domestic and poli- 1 
tical life, in objects of daily use en¬ 
hanced and exalted by the imagina¬ 
tive, the creative, mind and skill of 
the artist and the artisan. This his¬ 
tory the museum is to open to scholar 
and artist, to specialists and public, 
proffering to ail the elevating in- 
