In other words, American painters, regardless of where they are trained, where they work, and what they paint, must produce American paintings; they cannot wholly eliminate their individuality and nationality; they cannot become so completely French or English as to absolutely obliterate every trace of their American origin, and their works, though English, French, or Italian to the last degree, will still exhibit traces of American origin. So true is this, that the paintings of men who have lived longest abroad and tried hardest to paint after the manner of others find their most congenial surroundings amidst American art. * * * * * So long as we have American paintings we shall have an American “school” in the sense that all American paintings taken together, whether few or many, whether good or bad, will be distinguished and distinguishable from the paintings of every other country. In that sense America has, and always has had, a “school” of painting, though for a long time the school was little more than a kindergarten. America has no centre like Paris, or Rome, or Florence, where a large body of men and women are gathered from the four quarters of the globe to study art. In that sense America has no “school;” but that sort of a “school” is about the worst thing that can happen to a country. These great centres for the diffusion of art are usually fatal to the development of native art; the presence of a horde of foreigners, each with his own peculiarities and characteristics, some with the effeminacy of the South, others with the brutal force and overpowering virilty of the North, stifles national initiative and produces sterile cosmopolites. Paris, with its salons, exhibitions, competitions, medals, prizes, and innumerable incentives towards commercial, blatant, and vicious art, is the curse of French art, and pretty soon France will have no art that is really hers. The atmosphere of Paris is one of strenuous striving after effect, of mighty endeavor to make an impression; it encourages facility, dash, bravura, eccentricities, and experiments of all kinds. From the depths of our hearts let us be thankful that America has no “school” of that kind, and earnestly hope that American artists residing temporarily within that atmosphere will be affected as little as was Whistler. Paris is an æsthetic Babel. The art of Greece was suffocated when the entire coast-line of the Mediterranean came to study the Acropolis. * * * * *