Whatever reform comes from within the arts, will probably not come from carefully fostered survivals nor yet from conscious revivals, but rather from the response of the wanted arts to a finer demand. The comic strip and the moving picture seem barometric to me, as does illustration for advertising. Whenever I see a marked improvement in these popular arts, I shall expect to find greater improvement in the traditional fine arts of sculpture, painting, and architecture. And while I am only a casual observer of these barometric arts, what I have observed of design for advertising and of the moving picture does not cause me either to hope unduly nor yet to despair utterly. Certainly both have improved much within my experience. There remains the dilemma: can the democratic arts really acquire distinction, that solicitude for perfecting trifles which we have already remarked, or must they stop at a certain level simply because they are democratic arts? It would be hazardous to answer this question, but historically no democratic art, with the possible exception of engraving, has as yet transcended fine craftsmanship and successfully invaded the realm of great ideas. That realm has without exception been occupied by the arts that were frankly aristocratic. IV Our desired rehabilitation of the traditional and also of the new arts may in the last analysis depend upon the creation _within_ our democracy of the right sort of an aristocracy. Here we are back to the central problem of humanism--how to produce a superiority that is generally accepted and socially available. If we can make such an aristocracy, it will foster the artist and the arts justly and generously; it will provide a world in which the creative artist is no longer a tolerated alien but solidly at home. Whenever such an aristocracy has a clear and noble vision of the good life, it will want symbols for its ideals, and will call upon the only man who can provide such symbols--the artist.