ably, tortured by hatred of himself, agonized by thoughts of the world's blindness, exhausted by the futility of his yearning to bring light among the shadows.

She ceased speaking and they sat in silence for a long time. The music in the atrium had given place to a murmur of contented voices. The soft air from the summer night came in from an open window on the quieter side of the house. The moonlight strayed in, too, and fell across a little bird in the picture of Orpheus playing the magic music. A thoughtful slave, who had been allowed to share the singing in the atrium, slipped in to replenish the lamps. Anna's face had grown serene again. She clasped her hands quickly in a young, happy gesture that her friends loved, and turned to Lucius with a smile. "Ah, dear friend," she said, "he is a great man, and he is our leader and guide and teacher. But he, too, needs just to become a child again. That would be the way of Jesus Christ.”

ANNE C. E. ALLINSON.

MUSEUMS OF ART

BY MRS. SCHUYLER VAN RENSSELAER

"Too big! Too big!" So exclaims a friend of mine, an intelligent friend, when I boast of something newly acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The place is much too large. We should be far better off if we had several small museums instead of such a big one.'

"Why?" I need not repeat the answer in detail. Physical fatigue, mental confusion, inability to find what one wants to see, eventual vexation and discouragement-dwelling upon trials such as these, many other intelligent people deplore the size of the Metropolitan. Intelligent, I repeat, to point the fact that they are of a kind that ought not to be unintelligent in this matter. They have not thought about it. They have thought only of their own personal pleasure in visiting a museum. They should think with a broader sympathy. They should think as they already do about public libraries. They do not declare that the New York Public Library, or any other, is "too big".

But, you may say, the Metropolitan is what it is a great general museum of the arts. It is big and it will stay big and grow bigger. Why dwell, then, upon a merely academic question? It is not academic; it is a living and an important question. It is very important that the public should be satisfied with its museums and the way they are managed, should understand what they are meant to be and how they may best be used and enjoyed. It is important also that possible givers should not be tempted to fancy that any museum needs no more gifts. And it is important that the citizens of other American towns, so apt to look to New York for examples to follow or avoid, should not be misled.

A surprisingly large number of museums of art have been founded in this country in recent years, foreshadowing, of course, many more to follow. No general rules can be laid down as to

how they may rightly be started: the problem ought in each case to be studied afresh with an eye to the size of the town, its resources, the character of its population, and its nearness to other towns which already possess museums of art. But I may at least try to explain why no great and wealthy city need hesitate to plan for collections which will grow into a great and varied museum; why, in fact, such a museum will serve such a city better than could a number of small ones each devoted to certain branches or periods of art.

The first reason is the lesser cost of a single large than of several small museums. In respect to sites and buildings this may easily be understood. But the public does not understand the great expense of running a museum properly or the difficulty of getting money for the purpose. He who gives or bequeaths money for the purchase of works of art can see with his mind's eye concrete results, and among them those little labels affixed to the objects bought with his “fund” which will keep his name agreeably alive. But he who gives for maintenance, or gives without restrictions knowing that his money will probably be used for maintenance, does so out of pure unselfish love for his fellow-citizens. Therefore his gifts are rarer. Despite the aid it gets from the city, the Metropolitan is so short of money for running expenses that year by year a large deficit must be met from funds which should if possible be used for purchases, and from the pockets of its trustees.

Such troubles would be still greater were there several museums instead of one. With segregated collections there would be no need, perhaps, for any large increase in the number of officials and employees of certain kinds; but of other kinds, beginning with the Director himself, as many would be required in each small museum as in a great one. So it may be said of other costs as well as of salaries-for example, of the expense of maintaining the necessary photographic ateliers and repair shops. Moreover, a single reservoir of money that may be used for purchases as occasion prompts can do the public better service than several small funds each confined to a limited class of objects.

But pecuniary arguments are in this matter merely the beginning of wisdom. There are also questions of supervision and management. Even in a city as large as New York it is hard to

get the right number of persons of the right kind to give without recompense their time and thought as trustees of a museum. To multiply such boards would inevitably decrease efficiency; and to think that a single board might supervise several museums situated in different parts of the city shows little knowledge of what such work would mean. Again, it is hard to find as yet properly accomplished museum directors and curators. Often they must largely train themselves for their work after it begins, and it is well for them if they can have the help of association with many colleagues.

Most important to consider, however, are the needs and desires of the frequenters of a museum. Broadly speaking, these fall into five classes: serious students, professional or amateur, of art and the history of art; lovers of art who do not care or have not the time to study it; sight-seers; school children; and persons practically concerned with the applied arts.

The serious student is not likely to complain of the size of a museum-of the multiplicity of its collections or of the extent of any one of them. He knows that the arts of one time and country cannot be understood without some knowledge of those of other times and lands; or, if he is working in a different fashion, he knows that one branch of art cannot be intelligently examined in its parallel and consecutive manifestations without some knowledge of the development of other branches. He knows that in either case, in any case, comparison must be the basis of study, the touchstone of judgment. And the nearer together he finds the various objects that he must consider, the lighter his labors will be, not only lighter in the physical sense but easier intellectually. He will be thankful that he does not have to wait till another day and go to the other end of the city to make comparisons; and the more objects of any kind he can observe, the better right he will have to feel sure of his conclusions. Of course he will complain if he finds a professedly rich collection "stuffed" with inferior material, but if the material be good he can hardly have too much of it.

As it is with the collections, so it is with their necessary or desirable adjuncts-the photographs and casts that may supplement and the books that may elucidate them. Necessary indeed

are the books. The library of a museum of art is not a bibliophile's collection of rare or beautiful volumes. Such volumes it may contain, but its purpose is to supply books which, whether beautiful or not, facilitate the study of the arts. Very large it may be, for the possible books are many. Large it must be, for it must serve not only the public but first of all the curators of the museum, and their needs are wide. Their work is not simply to watch the market, find things for the trustees to buy, arrange the galleries attractively, and keep their contents in good condition. They must know about the things that they wish to buy and that living or dead people wish to give them, and also they must impart of their knowledge to the public. They must compile catalogues, handbooks, and bulletins and write labels, and when this is done as copiously and instructively as it is at the Metropolitan it means much knowledge of an accurate kind, much research carried, very often, into fields of art with which the object in view may seem to have little relation. And what the curators must know, other students will wish to know. Could we hope, therefore, to have a really good library in each of our imagined small museums? Would it be worth while thus to spend the money that would be needed for duplication and reduplication? Or should the books be segregated to match, so to say, the segregated collections? Would this, indeed, be possible without, again, much reduplication? In certain books, of course, the subject-matter is distinctly and more or less narrowly limited. But even upon these, as I have implied, the student of some other phase of art will often wish to call, and many costly books and voluminous periodicals deal with many branches or periods of art. No-we shall do all that even a city like New York can hope to do if we build up a single reference library such as a museum of art should contain.

When the lover of art who is not a student deserves his name, when he takes true delight in the interesting and beautiful works of the human hand, he should have no quarrel with a museum on account of its size. If it is strange to him he may lose his way, but he can hardly lose his time. Or, if he wants especially to pasture his eye in some particular field, surely he should have intelligence enough to ask his way and to pursue it until he reaches his objec