THE SPIRIT OF AMERICAN SCULPTURE [Illustration: STUDY FOR HEAD OF NIKE-EIRENE BY AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS] THE SPIRIT OF AMERICAN SCULPTURE BY ADELINE ADAMS WRITTEN FOR THE NATIONAL SCULPTURE SOCIETY [Illustration] NEW YORK MCMXXIII COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY THE NATIONAL SCULPTURE SOCIETY PREFACE Any survey of the Spirit of American Sculpture must naturally take into account the Body of American Sculptors. On the other hand, the outline here offered does not attempt the preposterous task of putting everyone in his place, and thereby producing an unmannerly and unreliable Who’s Who in Sculpture. Many sculptors whose work is dear to me are scarcely named in the following pages. Why? Because, very frequently, the individual achievement has been too fine to be slurred over and shunted off with the faint praise of mere listing, while at the same time it cannot well be appreciated at deserved length, given the limitations laid upon the present writer,--limitations temporal, spatial, personal. Again, it often happens in art, as in nature and in politics, that certain forces for good are better left unmentioned; headlines would disturb their harmonious functioning.