enthusiasm. "Honesty and sincerity are absolutely necessary to the life of an artist," this great teacher used to insist, and he emphasized the vital importance of the development of character in such a way as to leave a lasting impression on the student's mind.

Seven years were spent in France, during which the young sculptor's work attracted much attention and was exhibited in the Salon of Paris, at the Royal Exhibition in Brussels, and at the Royal Academy in London.

F. Edwin Elwell, Sculptor.

"ROME."

New York Custom-House.

became actively interested in getting him into the Ecole des Beaux Arts. His efforts were seconded by the Hon. Levi P. Morton, who was then our minister to France. While attending this famous school of art Mr. Elwell came under the influence as a private pupil of the illustrious Jean Joseph Alexander Falguiere, a distinguished member of the Institute of France who has sometimes been termed the father of the modern movement in sculpture. The young American was wonderfully attracted to his master, finding in him more than a teacher of art. His lectures and instruction were instinct with moral

IV.

At length the student days were over and Mr. Elwell returned to America to take up his life-work. The first important commission received by the young sculptor was, singularly enough, for work to be erected in Holland. Mr. J. Q. A. Ward was requested by a Dutch painter, Mr. Krusmann Van Elten, to suggest a sculptor for a monument to be erected at Edam. He recommended Mr. Elwell, whose sketch when submitted was promptly accepted. This work is of special interest to friends of American sculpture, as it was the first statue ever modeled in America to be placed in Europe. It is called "The Death of Strength" and represents a dying lion over whose prostrate body rises an angel who is in the act of letting fall a branch of laurel. This statue evinces the strength and life-like qualities that are so conspicuous in this sculptor's work. He models all his own statues and thus endows them with the spirit and character so frequently wanting in modern sculpture. They hold one by their instant appeal alike to the eye, brain and soul. Men of undoubted genius and imagination who have also inherited the sturdy, robust New England character are rare indeed, and these qualities, shadowed forth as they are in Mr. Elwell's creations, give peculiar value to his work because of their strong and subtle appeal to the

finest elements in man's nature. If our people were wise enough to build on enduring foundations, by calling forth the high ideals of the noblest men of genius in all departments of culture and refinement, to beautify the city, state and nation and enlighten the brain of the people, awakening it on the Godward side as well as stimulating the intellect, we should find men like F. Edwin Elwell taxed to their utmost capacity by municipal and national governments to create works that would be nobly educative in influence on every beholder, awakening sentiments of patriotism, nobility, love, humanity and justice and also quickening the intellectual faculties in such a way as to lead the beholder to read and investigate. To appreciate this, let the reader contemplate for a few moments the picture of Mr. Elwell's statues, "The Flag" and "The Dispatch-Rider." Here are life and soul; here is a subtle power

"A SERIOUS THOUGHT."

Marble by F. Edwin Elwell.

that instantly appeals to the patriotism and the essential heroism in man.

Now turn to the exquisite and compelling "Little Nell" and note how it appeals to the heart. Let us suppose the beholder is a child or an art-loving emigrant recently Americanized. How eager either one would be to know more of Dickens and the story of Little Nell.

Again, turn to the allegorical or symbolic creation recently made by the sculptor for the New York CustomHouse, entitled "Rome." How much is conveyed by that masterful but soulstifled figure who is crushing the barbarian with force instead of leading him upward by the path of love. Rome's way has been the world's way, which is precisely the opposite of the Christ's

way.

These pictures explain what we wish to impress in regard to the educative value to the brain and soul of the people, and especially the young, to be gained from great and noble art-art that is glorified and reinforced by moral idealism and the imaginative power of the genius of poet soul.

If the nation, instead of squandering millions upon millions in armaments and military expenditures that encourage rather than discourage that greatest of all crimes against civilization-war, should devote one-third of the money thus annually appropriated to coast defenses, one-third to fostering measures that would encourage international fraternalism and favor compulsory arbitration, and with the other one-third of the sum thus saved the government should call to her service the greatest artists, sculptors, architects, practical educators, inventors and men of genius, to create works that should minister to the highest side of man's nature, thus exerting a lasting influence for moral upliftment and mental awakening, she would soon again become not only the greatest moral leader in civilization's family, but in the Republic there would soon be an art renaissance of which the Periclean

Age of Greece and the Renaissance of Italy would be but the prophecy, complementing a summer-time in poetry and music such as the world has never known; because here we have a fusion of all the nations that have given the Western world her greatest triumphs in art, literature, poetry, music and philosophy.

As yet the mortal blight of moral decay has not stricken our national life, and though it is doubtless true that the materialism of the market and the amazing growth of the gambling spirit throughout the Republic since the ascendency of

Wall street and the birth of modern high finance, have faced our Republic in the direction in which Rome went after the downfall of the Gracchi, the heart of America is yet sound, and all that is necessary is to so arouse the moral idealism or spiritual enthusiasm of the nation that it wil return to the old paths, making the spirit that was dominant when the Declaration of Independence was signed again the controlling spirit of the nation, substituting justice and altruism for greed and egoism and insisting that first and foremost the fundamental principles of free government equality of