Daily evening star. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1852-1854, 1853-02-12
Our City-Its Duty to the Arts.
NUMBER TWO,


Fine Arts vas one in which all classes ought
to feel an interest; that these arts were the
most important agency of personal and ma
tional refinement; that they were eminently
popular rather than aristocratic in their
tendencies; that judgment in art was attain
ed only by constant contact with works of
art, and that our country would never hold
Its proper position among cultivated nations
until 1t fostered and cherished the fine arts
with more generous zeal.
If we did not fail in establishing these
propositions, the differences from them in
relation to our own city point to positive
duties. Where should the work of improve
ment begin at the capital of the country?
La this city the people of the United States
should all feel an equal pride: it is the civ
of the nation, not of the people of Washing
ton, and it should in all things fairly repre-
sent the position and progress of the nation.
The city was planned for great capital on
a scale of rare magnifcence, and the filing
up of that plan was never meant to be en-
trusted to the limited means of the corpora
ton of Washington, but to the liberality, the
nationality of the American people, Reser-
vations Of land were made for public mr.
poses, both Of ornament and use; the one
purpose is rs much to be respected and as
important in its place as the other. The
city will never be what this nation ought to
require in its capital until it has availed of
every appliance of modern improvement to
make it the most com Portable place of resi-
dence in the country, and until all the re-
sources Of art have been called in 10 render
it the most beautiful city on the globe. 1t
must be well paved, we'll lighted, we'll sup
piled with water, we'll guarded and we'll
provisioned, and it must abound with noble
buildings, true opponents of the advance of
architecture spacious parks must adorn it
and purify its air; fountains must throw up
their liquid diamonds into the sunlight, in
the midst of squares blooming with ''shrub-
berry that Sheustone might have enyied;"
monuments to our departed heroes-the
revered fathers and defenders of the Repub-
lic-must graceits numerous public gardens;
statues and paintings commemorative of our
eventful and spirit stirring history must
crowd the inches and panels of its public
edifces.
Does any one think this picture over
drawn? He has little faith in the capabili
ties of Republicanism. What has been
done under despotisms by oppression and
wrong, can be accomplished by free peo-
PIC ny "CdDO tuS uOSt uODiC. "A temple
mi ght here be dedicated "to all the glories
Of America" by the free-will offerings of
this great people, before, which even the
splendors of Versailles should dwindle and
grow pale. We will not live to see it, but
that time will come. When the problem of
the physical subjugation of this country has
been worked out when time and space
have been annihillated by steam or caloric
and electricity, when good roads and rail-
ways have covered the land like net work,
when California, the Pacific, and the East
shall pour their treasures, through Darien |;
and across the plains into our lap; and
American energy seeks new fields of effort
and of triumph, then Art shall have it's day
of jubilee and shall receive from the hands
of free and happy people culture more
thorough and more liberal than has ever
been accorded to it.