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19

into some more useful employment.

Some of our remarks may seem harsh, but we make them from a sincere love of the arts. We would by no means be illiberal to our artists, who give any promise of excellence; but there is no property in encouraging them in false taste or mediocrity. We would hold high the standard of taste: as high as it is in any place. We would not have the arts degraded even in favor of the artists. And so far are we from approving of any thing, which is said to encourage the of importance of old [[/strikethrough]] or [[/strikethrough]] and foreign paintings that we wish still greater facilities were afforded for it.  If the old masters were, as we believe, better than the painters of our day, their works should be the models on which to form the public taste; and we would have as many of them as possible.  And the same may be said of modern paintings of foreign countries, so far as they are better than our own.  We are not prepared to see the American System, as it is called extended to literature or the arts.  It would be the worst possible policy for the

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