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REPLY, &c.


In the last number of the North American Review, the article No. X. purports to be a critique on my discourse delivered before the National Academy of Design. In that article, written with much ability, and for the most part with courtesy, there are some strictures on the Institution with which I am connected, and on subjects relating to the Fine Arts generally, that I have thought it my duty to notice. At a time when these Arts are beginning to attract the public attention, every discussion which has for its object the extension of correct opinions respecting them, must be of public interest. It is for this reason, and also from a very natural desire to see the art for which I profess, as well as the other arts of Design, more generally appreciated, that I have ventured to ask a portion of public attention to the following remarks. 

The principal object of the discourse which I delivered before the National Academy of Design, (as its title indicates,)  was to show what constituted an Academy of Arts, and thus to dispel the prevailing erroneous impression of their nature. For this purpose I supposed that the surest method of arriving at a right result, would be to set before the Artists, and through them, the public, the economy of the various Academies of Arts in the world; and by comparing them together, to deduce from them the fundamental principles of these Institutions. I accordingly considered more or less copiously, the Academies of Italy, France, Austria, Spain, Russia, and England: from a review of these I drew the following conclusions: -First. In all cases the entire government of Academies of Arts is entrusted to Artists. Second. Schools for Students in the Arts are a prominent feature in