Beside the permanent exhibition of the pictures which belonged to it, the Athenæum Library had generously devoted some of its rooms every season for several successive years to the exhibition of pictures painted by American artists, an exhibition answering to those held yearly by the National Academy of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Beside these regular exhibitions, there had been many occasional ones of importance, such as that of the Spanish pictures belonging to the Duc de Montpensier, which gave to those of us who had not visited Europe, the opportunity of seeing respectable specimens of the works of Zurbaran, Herrera, Morales, Murillo, Ribalta and Velasquez. There was also in the Athenæum a small but well selected collection of plaster-casts of antique sculpture, so that for a long time this institution was an art center of no little value and importance. The Athenæum was not, however, an art institution, but a library, and the time came when the increase of the library made it necessary to give up its art collections and devote all its space to books. The collections of the Athenæum were the most important, both in number and in value, to be found in Boston, but there were many interesting objects scattered about which it was felt would be of much greater service to the community if they could be brought together under one roof, and made to work in common for the education of the whole community. The late Francis C. Gray had bequeathed to Harvard College his large and valuable collection of engravings together with a fund for its maintenance, and it was found that its usefulness, whether for purposes of enjoyment or as a means of education was very much restricted by its being so far away from the capital. Yet it had been impossible to find a proper place for it in Boston, and it therefore remained shut up in Cambridge. The Institute of Technology had formed, under the direction of Prof. William R. Ware, a collection of architectural ornament, but as this was lodged in the Institute building it could only be seen and studied at such times as suited the convenience of the professors and their pupils. The Social Science Association had called the attention of the public to the need that existed of a large and complete collection of casts of antique sculpture. But—what to do with such a collection, could it be brought together?