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33 and dependant on the Academy of Fine Arts; and at length, it was mentioned at one of the meetings, that a Director of the American Academy had suggested to some of the members of the association, that they should sign the matriculation book, and thus identify themselves with the Institution which had so long neglected them and their interests, and now that they seemed to be rising into importance, manifested a willingness to extend to them its protecting patronage. Until this period, the probability of an union with the Academy, has never occurred to the members of the Association; nor in fact had they ever adverted to the question which now arose, "In what relation does this Association stand to the American Academy?" It was distinctly and separately organized, with its own exclusive officers, paid its own expenses, and was governed by regulations of its own adoption, and with reference to its own peculiar objects; but the casts and models of the Academy were, by the permission of the Directors, used at the meetings of the Association. By some, the idea was suggested, of forming, in reality, a new Academy, but the prevailing sentiment was unfavorable to the proposition. Others wished the casts and models to be returned, and that in their stead, those only should be used, which belonged to, or could be procured by individual members of the association; but this measure, it was considered, would be construed as indicative of hostility, and therefore was abandoned; still there was an universal unwillingness in the minds of the artists to be looked upon, in the present state of things, as dependant on, or connected with, the academy. At length it was suggested, that perhaps a plan might be adopted, which would remove the objections of the artists to an union with the Academy: and that by becoming parties to a revision and re-modelling of its constitution and by-laws, the practical knowledge and experience of the artists, and the valuable collection of the Academy, might be rendered reciprocally subservient to the promotion of the art, for whose cultivation they were associated. This was cordially received, and it was 5