One point more deserves consideration. In America and Europe nearly everything is done by machinery: in India nearly everything is made by hand. Whatever is done, therefore, is the expression of a thought; and that art in the East is not trammelled by tradition may be inferred not less from the variety of its productions than from the Indianizing process to which foreign arts are subjected. The hand leaves almost unconsciously the impress of the workman's individuality. There is room there for patronage to lead to superexcellence. The saving of time and rapidity of output are not important objects when a prince lends his encouragement to art and his influence to its elevation. In the East--in China, in Persia and in India--artisans have worked directly under the imperial power. All that was asked of them was good work. In India offices of this kind were, in the imperial workshop as in the villages, hereditary; and without trouble about subsistence, without a thought of time, without limit in expense--without, in short, one disturbing element--the art-workers labored only for their art and for the approval of their king or chief. In the museum is a rug of silk woven by deft fingers which have for possibly three centuries been still. Four hundred knots occupy every square inch, and the size of the rug leads to the total of three and a half millions of knots, between every two of which the pattern demanded a change in the treadles of the loom. We turn from this to a bowl of jade beautifully engraved upon which were expended the labors of three generations of workers in the employ of the emperors of Delhi. It is in this way the best work of all kinds is produced to-day. Spinning, weaving and embroidering are, moreover, practised all over the country in the homes of the rich and in the dwellings of the poor. "Every house in India," says Doctor Birdwood, "is a nursery of the beautiful." The words are suggestive. They imply that correct taste is best formed by practice. We who have lectures on decorative art and technological schools live in too fast an age ever to rival the industrial art of India, and shall in our hurry do well if we arrive at something like an understanding appreciation of the works of the villagers of Hindostan. [Illustration: PIERCED AND REPOUSSÉE SILVER SHRINE-SCREEN: MADURA, MADRAS.]