ART AND DEMOCRACY

Elsewhere in these columns is a provoking editorial note praising the generosity of a patron of art and suggesting that it would not be amiss if the Chicago community were to aid Mr. Louis Eckstein in his material support of the Ravinia Park summer opera. Bostonians have not to go abroad to find a citizen equally praiseworthy for his beneficence in a similar work. They have only to refer to Major Higginson.

The comment of the Boston herald indicates once more that the best in art in this country is too often reliant upon the generosity of an individual, or grouped individuals, for its maintenance. Laudable though the support of such patrons may be, it is unfortunate that the direction of what little of fine music there is in the United States must remain cloistered in the precincts of the moneyed few. Where well-performed music is within reach of the financially less fortunate the executants are usually paid from private funds. Where there is no individual benefactor willing to make the requisite personal sacrifice the attending public must pay admission prices that are prohibitive to the comfortable as well as to the poorer classes.

The comparatively recent birth of interest and practice in instrumental and choral music in American institutions of secondary and higher education makes confident the prophecy that America soon will attain a musical majority. With the future in mind is it not high time to give constructive consideration to the question of supporting the arts with public funds? The number of wealthy citizens is limited and the demands of support of art in America will overwhelm their generous gestures.