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Show Tan editorial by 1 i florence davies 4 WILL WE LEAD IN ART? i Art lovers are waking up to the fact that much of the finest art of the world Is drifting to America For generations, as every one knows, this continent has been notor ; toualy poor in art treasures. That i was only natural in a new country Pioneers found little time for painting and little leisure to enjoy pictures I had they the money to bring them i from abroad. I But all that is changing rapidly. Long beforo the war America had i mado a fair beginning In the accumulation accumu-lation of art treasures. Then the war I gave a tremendous Impetus to the buy-ling buy-ling of art In this country. ' n this side tho ocean were many now fortunes. On the other side were I impoverished estates rich in precious objects of art. And so American gold and European I art treasures have chanced hands and we are rapidly approaching a place of I real eminence- in the world of art. Rut pictures hanging in galleries will not make uh an art loving or an art knowing penj.li . li matter noi that some millionaire has bought a : priceless Rembrandt, or some munlcl pal museum has acquired a C.reok m.arble if you and I and our boys and 'girls don't ever see the marble or I come to know the Rembrandt. I Of courso it goes without saying that If Is well nigh impossible for a j country to own great art treasures without the people eventually profiting profit-ing thereby One. thing is curtain then and that is that the inillicualres alone can't make us true leaders In art. The people peo-ple have to help, and especially tho mothers who learn to know and care lor the beautiful themselves and so in-hpiro in-hpiro their children to help make this an art loving nation. One of the splendid things which our women's clubs have been doing lately Is to take a renewed interest in all the aits. Their fine arts and music mu-sic committees have been leading the way. and within the last decade many women who had previously known little lit-tle about either music or pictorial art now finds herself a sympathetic student stu-dent of both. oo |