personality that it could be placed beside the great French master's work, be identified with it, and yet retain its own character. This, while excellent in its way, is of course by no means provocative of a real national school, but rather serves to cramp the steps of later exponents of the art, and render their work lifeless; and one is not surprised to find that, after the days of Penfield, Bradley, and Gould, a good many years passed without any striking development in poster art in America. The last ten years, however, have discovered artists of pronounced originality and genius, and the posters of Robert Wildhack, Adolph Treidler, and Maxfield Parrish--to mention only three of the most eminent of their designers of the days immediately before the War--testified to the existence of a genuine national school, and led one to expect vital results in the production of posters inspired by the great world upheaval. In this, indeed, were the very elements needed to call out the utmost ability of the national artists. The United States--we say it with all respect--has a keener eye for advertisement than any other nation. Let the American loose on a "whirlwind campaign"--whether in aid of church funds, an enormous commercial enterprise, or a world war--and he is in his element. All the possibilities of sign-boards, hoardings, flashlights, and every novelty and contrivance for catching the public eye, have been carried to their farthest limit, either of invention or of human endurance, on the other side of the Atlantic; and behind all this is the driving power of an intense, restless energy. It is not our place to speak here of the battlefields of Europe, and of how that energy and activity were thrown into the scale to weigh down the balance which had been trembling for so long. But in the United States, as elsewhere, it was inevitable that posters should be among the first munitions of war, and it was to be anticipated that, learning their lesson from the experiences of countries engaged in the struggle whilst their own yet remained in the position of a spectator, the State departments would improve upon the machinery which Europe had produced in this particular cause. To some extent this was done. As regards the magnitude of output, never was there such facility in the production of posters. Immediately on the outbreak of war, the Army, the Navy, and the Treasury Departments plunged into an orgy of advertisement, and employed not only their national artists, but men among the Allies and neutrals who had done distinguished work in the cause of universal freedom. That these artists were not slow to avail themselves of this new field for their restless energies is witnessed by the work done by Brangwyn and Raemaekers, who, like knights-errant, plunged with enthusiasm into this new campaign. Jonas, too, the French lithographer, was among the artists of other nations employed by the