The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1901-09-04

This is the inexorabe law of development,
and the community which fails to take part
in this order OF progress Ieglects its duty
to civilization and will lose its place in the
line of advance. This alone is sufficient to
prompt us to strive for the realization of
the things which l have projected.
But there is another side from when
to view the proposed enterprises, purelJ
business side. II you develop your
present Gallery four times itS
size, five thousand strangers will
come here annually TO see 1t, and they will
leave anywhere from ten TO twenty five
thousand dollars annually in your city. II
you establish summer art school here,
such as has been outlined, you will bring
annually mo your ci y any where from one
hundred to five hundred art students, who
will leave behind them any where from ten
to fifty thousand dollars each year. And If
you develop here a school Of sculpture you
will put an original artistic quality into
your stone products and enhance their val
ne, no one can say how greatly. Ii Is put
{ ng it very moderately to say, that IL the
projects we are discussing here tonight
shall be pressed with reasonable ability and
determination, they will be realized and
their realiz alton will within ten years bring
into this city one hundred thousand dollars
annually, and distribute the same among
the people here, hich would not have come
into it otherwise at all. In fact it is not i'm
possible that the businesses which may be es-
tablished in connection with this Art Gal
lery and its proposed art school, or in con-
sequence of their existence, may be, in
twenty five or fifty years, among the chief
industries OF your city.
Let me give you an example. In the
middle of the fifteenth century, the city of
Florence, in Italy, was the great financial
cent, OF Europe. The banking house OF
the Medicl was like that of the Roths-
chids, Bleichrodeys and Morgans of today.
t. alaaa psaFVa oil hE
ing on the line of trade between the Orient
! and the Occident. Finally, 1t had import
ant manufacturing industries of silk and
wool. 1t WAS the most opulent OF the Ital-
ian or OF the European cities. No one
thought at the moment that IL could ever
lose its proud precedence in finance and
| commerce. Happily, however the Medici
| bought pictures and Greek statues with
some OF their money, and one day Lorenzo
| del Medici found fourteen year old boy IN
his garden making copy OF one of those
statues, just as you may see any day in this
Gallery one OF your own young townsmen
| diligently and successfully copying yonder
| statue of the Fighting Gladiator.
That bov was Michael Bonarroti, later
known as Michael Angelo Lorenzo recog-
velopment OF his art school, as we'll as in
the adornment of the city. Out of such
| beginnings sprang the magnificent galleries
| and great art schools OF the Florence of
today. Florence is no longer the banking
center of Europe or even OF Italy. The
| line of commerce between the east and the
west he's moved away from her. and her
manufactures, in the ordinary sense OF that
| word, are hardly worth mention III her peo-
pie were dependent upon such sources OF
wealth they would starve or be obliged to
scatter. But the great art galleries and the
great art schools and the hundreds. l might
| almost say, thousands OF studios and ate
liers that have grown up around them for
the production OF works Of art bring tens OF
thousands OF students and travellers to Flor
ence annually, who leave millions OF money
for the support of all classes OF the people.
1t ID safe to say that the greater part OF
| Florence today relates, in some way or
other, ultimately to the art galleries and the
art schools there, and that without these
she would be today an unknown. and an
insignificant place. She Yves also once the
| capital of Republic, then OF a Grand Duke
dom and then OF the Kingdom Italy. These
political advantages have all been taken
from her, and yet with her Pitt and Ufizi
galleries and her Aca1 envy of Fine Arts
and what they have produced about them,
she is still the lily OF Italy, exquisite,
Opulent and populous, the most agreeable
place on earth for men and women OF Gull
| ture to dwell in.
We can, in small way, initiate that ex-
ample, and in d small way. arrive at some
Of these results. The trustees of the Art
Gallery have estimated that with an asso.
oiate membership OF three hundred, they
would feel warranted in taking steps for
| the establishment of summer art school.
They have issued some six hundred invita-
tions to membership, and the number of
acceptances Is now nearing the one hundred
mark. They think that the time is now
ripe for provisional organization OF those
| who have already accepted, for the purpose
chiefly Of canvassing for larger member
ship, and they feel the hope and the conf
dent expectation that they will receive the
cooperation OF this community In the great
work they propose, and that 1t will be
given not grudgingly, nor ftfully, nor Lam