Adams, Adeline: The spirit of American sculpture (New York: Nat. Sculpture Soc., 1923)

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THE SPIRIT OF
Belgian produced their art under their
native skies. They were not torn up
by the roots to live in a strange land.
Yes, the main impediment in early
American art was spiritual rather
than material. When we see to-day
in some lonely, half-forgotten New
England village a spacious, nobly-
designed, admirably-built meeting-
house, capping the very crest of a high
rock-ribbed hill of exceeding difficulty,
(the church at Acworth will serve as an
example) we uncover our heads be-
fore the efforts of our fathers to
erect a house of prayer. The spirit
moved them. Nothing less would have
sufficed in what they did and suffered.
The obstacles in their path were many
and great, but being material, were
surmounted. In our early strivings
toward sculpture, the obstacles were
both spiritual and material, and gen-
erally speaking, the obstacles won the
day. We had no noteworthy early na-
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MRS. PATIENCE WRIGHT