Artists--painters, sculptors, musicians alike--had to have studied abroad before they could get a hearing in America. But, unfortunately, most of the people who patronized art learned about the subject from a few simple home rules. They were breaking out of the awesome, gewgaw-enveloped homes of the eighties and nineties and moving into chateaus imported by the boatload from France. But there is no record that any art dealer ever succeeded in selling an American house to some customer in Paris. It often happens that a convert to a religious sect is more fanatical in his beliefs than one born into the fold. Gutzon’s father had come to the United States from Denmark to escape the ancient fetters of thought, and Gutzon himself had become thoroughly disillusioned by his years abroad. He considered America to be the last stronghold of freedom for the spirit. And he believed that the time had come for the country to express itself culturally. He had a theory that many people are born Americans though their physical birthplace might have been Denmark or Poland or Timbuktu. He insisted that although America was comparatively a young nation, the significance of her discovery, colonization and development offered rich sources for the painter or sculptor seeking decorative themes. He wanted architects to stop copying classic models. He was a great admirer of Louis Sullivan’s individual art, and he understood it. Once, driving through a small town in Ohio that he had never seen before, he suddenly stopped the car and went back to look at a red-brick building. “Built by Sullivan,” he said. And so it was. The subject of the Prix de Rome scholarships, in his opinion, was debatable. He thought it a mistake to send talented young artists to Rome during their most formative period and expose them to the overpowering influence of the great masters. He lived his theory, for he did not see Italy until late in life, rather than lose his individuality in the presence of those giants, Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Donatello, whom he deeply revered. Borglum came to America a sculptor. He painted very little after 1901. Among his first direct contacts with American art methods on the Atlantic coast was a competition for an equestrian monument to General Grant to be placed in Washington. He devoted a great deal of time and thought to the making of a model and worked it out in fine detail. Grant and two other officers on horseback were mounted on a high pedestal, Grant a little higher than the other two. Around the base of the pedestal and extending out on both sides was a rich frieze of figures more than life-size, showing events leading to the Civil War, the struggle itself and the period of reconstruction. Gutzon was told afterward that Augustus Saint-Gaudens, all-powerful in the selection, had thrown out the model because he felt that no sculptor in America could carve so elaborate a frieze and that he suspected foreign help.