The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-03-21
TIE rLErrrNG sHow.

some OF It's tac and Fancies.
Written for the JOURNAL AND g uRrEg.l
A CIRCULATING PICTURE GAL
LERY.
Hull House in Chicago Is. as perhaps
most people know, q great building,
founded and conducted principally by
women for the use, the pleasure, the
education and uplifting of the city's ar
my of toilers. 1t is not charity in the
low sense that contents itself with the
doing out of occasional and insufficient
aims, but charity in the broad apos-
tolic sense that is the inspiration and
object of all Hull House plans and pro-
jects; 1t is, in short. wisely and sue
cessfully managed bureau OF practical
philanthropy.
One of its latest devices for carry
ing pleasure into lowly homes, where
the demand for life's necessities for
bids the purchase of anything of value
| in the way of ornament, is the estab-
| fishing of a circulating picture gallery.
In one Of its rooms the walls are hung
with etchings, photographs, engravings.
heliotypes and colored prints, all being
copies of really good originals, we'll Sc
| lected and properly framed. And these
/ pictures are not merely to be looked at
! by visitors; they are taken down, car
| ried away and hung again, perhaps on
the dingy wall Of some poor little room
| where there is nothing else upon which
| the eye can rest with pleasure. After
/ a specified time it is returned, like a
book to circulating library, another
| picture is selected and carried away in
! its turn, so that throughout the year
| there may be in the home a succession
/ of pictures, grave, gay, bright, inspir-
| ing developing taste and the appreci-
alton of what Is best and truest in art
| that the pictures are carefully kept and
promptly returned.
| 1t may be asked what is the use of
developing a love for beautiful things
! in the minds of those who may never
/ possess the means of acquiring them
| for themselves? Or if one has it al
! ready, would not this temporary grati-
| fication Of it only foster the spirit of
! discomfort But the love of beauty is
| inborn--it is the dover of the child of
the tenement as well as of the child
| of the palace Offer a baby--any baby.
no matter whose--a flower, and it COOS
with delight and stretches out tiny
| hands to grasp it. BY and by it may
be that the enjoyment of the little prin-
ceiling grows less keen--he has been
/ surfeited with pretty toys and has be-
! come too critical and fastidious for his
own comfort While he turns careless
! ly away from some expensive gift, the
/ child less favored by fortune is in a
| transport of delight and gratitude over
some gay little advertising card, a half
worn picture book or a discarded doll.
| In some poor homes there is an attempt
| at decoration that, crude as it is, shows
a degree of taste beyond that posse ssed
| by many who have better materials to
deal with. It. proves, at least, that
! there is a love of form and of color in
/ herent i'll most natures, that though
! uncultured might well have been worth
! cultivating. That they are seemingly
/ content with inartistic ornaments does
not prove that they would not more
/ heartily enjoy those that are really
beautiful. And there are those who.
stinted in artistic objects. feel a sense
Of derivation almost as keen as that