during the different epochs in the birth, growth, decay, and disappearance of various nations of the past, the leaders of which, periodically, became too busy with fostering their own private fortunes and thus too indifferent about the general good. This accounts for the recurrent appearance of stern prophets among the Jews.

The law of Generation was supremely in the saddle in Greece during the Periclean period; but, within fifty years, the law of Degeneration had won the upper hand, and kept it -until Greece disappeared, as a free people. Alexandria, once the greatest commercial power in the world, and Rome, once the "Mistress of the World," all went the same way: overpopulation; the unwieldiness of the city; too many morons, fatigue of the leading men, degeneration and-ruin!

In support of Mr. Burroughs, we could give the opinions of many leading artists, business men, lawyers, legislators, not to speak of preachers, who have in substance said, what one of the most important editors of America said, as recorded in the N. Y. Times of August 11, 1925:

After visiting the Arts and Decoration Exposition in Paris, (a "Modernistic" show) he had arrived at the conclusion that modern French art was saturated with the Bolshevist influence. At the Spring Salon, where he also saw much of modern treatment in painting and sculpture, he saw a decadent note.

This from a keen business man, one of many expressions of similar opinions we could give from laymen, should wake up our business men, who are the final support of every art movement in America, to look to it that a halt should be called to the spreading over this land of ours of disintegrating modernism in art.

What we have now laid before the Reader, should suggest to him, if he does not wish to be led astray, to investigate this most important subject of insanity among artists, critics, editors of magazines, art dealers, etc.-in order to sharpen his power of making discriminations between the normal and abnormal in art.

Finally, we suggest to the Reader to reflect over this pro

foundly important paragraph, from Herbert Spencer's great "First Principles":

Aboriginal men, our uneducated population, and even most of the so-called educated, think in an extremely indefinite manner. From careless observations, they pass, by careless reasoning, to conclusions of which they do not contemplate the implications— conclusions which they never develop for the purpose of seeing whether they are consistent.

Thus we end this homily, with the injunction, used at the beginning on the title-page of the Art World, Fig. 10— to recall the Reader to reflect over the full meaning of the wisest slogan of all time, and which the Athenians carved on the marble tympanum of their Treasury temple at sacred Delphi:

MEYDEN AGAN!

Nothing To Excess!

My first statue. Honorable mention in Paris Salon of 1888. Grand Gold Medal, Chicago World's Fair. Now in Metropolitan Museum. Symbolizes the folding up of all nature, at twilight.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE

REVERTING, now, to the first person pronoun, I will say: It occurred to me that, if the reader has taken the trouble to read thus far, he may do, as I have often done, say to himself: "Who is this writer, anyway; what has he done as an artist?" It is a natural question, because we are prone to inquire what an artist has done in the world besides merely writing a lot of essays for a magazine. To satisfy that natural curiosity I will give a very brief sketch of my life, followed by illustrations of most of my important works. I do this at the risk of being accused of self-advertising. But such a charge falls to the ground in view of the fact that no one during the last thirty years has done more than I have to advertise his fellow sculptors: through the National Sculpture Society, fathered and nursed into strength by me; also through the "Art World" Magazine, which I organized and edited: with the purpose of showing the public what constitutes a great work of art, and also to hold up to the admiration of this country the finest pieces of sculpture, as well as of painting, by American artists.

I was born in the village of Breitenbach, in Alsace, France, on the 22d of May, 1853. My father emigrated and settled in St. Louis, Mo., in the spring of 1855. There I was raised. As a child I loved to carve. My mother was a devout Christian, so was my father.

I was six years old when my mother died, leaving four children who, under the care of servants, merely "grew up, like Topsy." At nine years of age, I dreamed of becoming a marble cutter; at fifteen, I wanted to apprentice myself to a marble tomb-stone maker; but my father, who had now destined me to become a missionary to the heathen, objected, and began to influence me to think of going to Rochester