Ward had in his nature and in his art the great elements of the precursor. He represents not only the pioneer in American sculpture, but in no small measure and sometimes in a singular way, the prophet. Witness the dog with scalloped mane in his admirable group of the Indian Hunter, a work that much impressed the youthful Saint-Gaudens, fresh from years of study among European masters and masterpieces. Here we have a fore-taste of that delightful treatment of animal form found in the bronzes of the young men from the American Academy in Rome. To be sure, Ward’s dog does not seem to spring forward full-armed in a beautifully conventionalized linear panoply of bone and muscle resurrected from some newly revealed Klazomenian sarcophagus; he is not quite so Cretanly curled as some of the appealing animal figures of to-day, but ’tis enough, ’t will serve. And the whole group, as seen happily placed in Central Park, reveals the naturalism in which Ward envelops his own peculiar kind of classicism. For a nobler instance of Ward’s forward-looking quality, choose the bronze Washington standing on the steps of the Sub-Treasury in New York, in the very heart of all our heart-breaking yet inspiring financial traffic. That statue is not merely a portrait of Washington, but a symbolic expression of early American greatness in leadership. [Illustration: STATUE OF WASHINGTON BY JOHN QUINCY ADAMS WARD] A comparison between the Ward Washington and the Houdon Washington is permitted here; Houdon’s position as a commanding figure among the sculptors of all time is too securely based on his incomparable busts and on his Voltaire at the Comédie-Française to be in the least disturbed by any of our observations. Remembering that Ward’s task was naturally less difficult than Houdon’s, we shall do no injustice to our earliest foreign master in sculpture when we remark that Ward’s Washington, rather than Houdon’s, bears away the palm for the larger monumental qualities of design. The great Frenchman’s work is cumbered from the waist down with naturalistic emblems from field and forum. Neither ploughshare nor fasces nor cane nor sword nor cloak are omitted. Their insistence is of course redeemed in general by Houdon’s general mastery, and in particular by his particular prowess in rendering the head; it is Houdon’s glory that in some inexplicable way his hand makes every face it touches come alive. Ward’s statue, appearing almost a century later, owes something to Houdon; every portrait statue of Washington, if worth much, will owe something to Houdon. But what we would especially note is, that in this virile presentment of Washington, Ward has chosen the better part of both realism and classicism; The work has something of the serenity of synthesis and elimination of detail that we love in the Parthenon masterpieces, yet it has enough of modern individualism and modern insistence upon expression and emotion to satisfy the longings of the everyday American spectator.