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paintings, and this is the reason why they are not dear. The prices vary from £1 to £3 for those by ordinary painters—there may be some that are even cheaper, but good enough to look at. Pictures by first-rate artists are dearer, but even such rarely exceed £15. It would, therefore, be a matter of great advantage for foreign visitors, as regards their own pleasure, and good encouragement for artists, if they were good enough to purchase them more freely than they do. I occupy the position of president of one of these associations, and I often find some difficulty in giving good encouragement to the artists, from the fact of purchasers not being found in sufficient numbers at the exhibitions, though the artistic tastes of the people at large, and consequently the demand for art objects, have become strikingly extensive of recent years. The lower classes of towns and villages, that were once contented with paper-mounted or printed ‘ukiyo’ pictures, have now become anxious to possess pictures of much higher standards.

I must not omit to make reference to the work done by the College of Fine Arts, an institution in which a knowledge of sculpture, painting, and the arts in general is imparted to large numbers of students under the supervision of a Minister of State. The head institution is to be found in the capital, but collateral establishments exist in many of the large provincial cities and towns, conducted at the cost and under the control of the local authorities. There are also many private establishments of a similar character.

Although it may not be a proper place in this paper to speak of the art of making gardens in Japan, I cannot refrain from just touching on the subject, because our art in making gardens has much similarity to the landscape pictures, and has much of real art in it. Even on the smallest scale a garden is laid out in such a way as to represent a picturesque view as depicted in pictures. Hence artificial hills, natural rocks, and, where it is permissible, artificial lakes or cascades, are designed. We can say it is based upon the principle of fine art, but in the case of European gardens it seems to me that their original ideas were derived from the old ‘commons,’ and their later developments have been based more upon the principle of industrial art; to wit, there are fountains, but in the shape of mechanical apparatus, and not in the shape of natural springs—there are hewn stones, iron rails, iron bridges, and if there is any water at all it is mostly in the shape of a round or square tank. When they, the Occidentals, plant flowers they make the beds invariably in the shape of a square or triangle, as geometrically as though designing a carpet. They seem to have no idea of finding regularity in irregularity, or, rather, harmony in differentiation. In towns in Japan there are