INTRODUCTION IT is impossible that we can attain to a national taste in art and colour such as has been long characteristic of Continental nations-France and Italy and Spain-until we realise how important it is that the people, as an essential part of their education, should be taught to appreciate the beautiful. How much less likely are we to rival in this matter the great peoples of the East Until we have accomplished this we can only excel here and there by producing perhaps a few great masters of landscape and of sculpture such as those in the past whose very success should have encouraged us to go on and hope for a raised standard of taste amongst the general public. As it is, only a handful of us know how to appreciate the great things actually accomplished by our countrymen, and the general improvement in taste if it exists at all has not reached the masses. The houses of the middle and lower classes are far less artistic in their ornaments and furniture than the hut of an...