If you have ever visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, you have seen, in the hall of statuary, one of Rinehart's most characteristic groups, "Latona and Her Children." The mother half seated, half lying upon the ground, gazes tenderly down at the two sleeping children, sheltered in the folds of her mantle. The whole work possesses a serene poetic charm and dignity very noteworthy; and this and other groups are among the most beautiful that any American ever turned out of an Italian studio. Rinehart was one of the last American disciples of the classic school. Certainly no art could have been more opposed to his than the frank and vivid realism of his immediate successor, John Rogers. Born in Salem, Massachusetts, the son of a family of merchants, he was educated in the common schools, worked for a time in a store, and then entered a machine shop as an apprentice, working up through all the grades, until finally he was in charge of a railroad repair shop. During all these years he had no suspicion of artistic talent within himself, but one day in Boston he happened to see a man modelling some images in clay. In that instant, the artist instinct clutched him, and procuring some clay and modelling tools, he spent all his leisure in practice. This leisure was scant enough, for his trade kept him employed fourteen hours of every day; but at the age of twenty-nine he was able to secure an eight months' vacation, which he spent in Europe, principally at Paris and Rome. He returned to America greatly discouraged, for the only thing he saw in Europe was classic sculpture, with which he had no sympathy and which, indeed, he could not understand. So, abandoning all thought of making sculpture a profession, he went to work as a draughtsman in Chicago, amusing himself, at odd hours, by the construction of a group of small figures, which he called "The Checker Players." It was exhibited at a charity fair, and awakened so much interest and delight that Rogers burned his bridges behind him by resigning his position, and proceeded to New York, and rented a studio, determined to be a sculptor in spite of classicism. The outbreak of the Civil War furnished him a host of subjects which he treated with a patriotic fervor that went straight to the heart of an overwrought people. "The Returned Volunteer," "The Picket-Guard," "The Sharp-shooters," "The Camp-fire," "One More Shot," and many others, came from his studio in rapid succession. They were all thoroughly American, and some were even admirably sculptural. They, at least, stood for an original idea, and deserve better treatment than the silent contempt which, in these days, is about all that has been accorded them.