limited as our desires were ambitious. Occasionally some of us doubted whether anything would ever come of the plan. However, the Committee of Visitors of the German Department, especially its honored Chairman, Mr. Putnam, heartily entered into the scheme and raised a sum of money as a nucleus for a fund. The University added a sum from the bequest of Mr. Barthold Schlesinger, a friend of the department. We also had the good fortune of winning a generous patron in the person of Mr. Heinrich Conried, who has for many years labored to exhibit to the American public, in perfect form, one phase of German art, the drama, and who has most liberally provided for us here, as many of you will recall with delight, several performances of classic German plays, the proceeds of which have considerably increased the museum fund.
When enough had been accomplished to show that those in charge of the project were in earnest, endeavors were made to enlist the aid of prominent persons abroad. It augured well for the success of the enterprise that one of the first to lend active help was the distinguished biographer of Michel Angelo and Goethe, Herman Grimm, the friend and correspondent of Emerson, at whose feet so many American students in Berlin have sat, and who always followed with interest the intellectual life of this country. He presented to the incipient museum the beautiful folio edition of his “Life of Michel Angelo,” and he rendered the cause a much greater service still by bringing it to the notice of the German Government.
With this the project entered upon a new stage. As an indirect result of Herman Grimm's suggestion and on the basis of the friendly recommendations of the then German Ambassador at Washington, Dr. von Holleben, Emperor William offered to give to the Museum a set of casts representing in typical examples the history of German sculpture. Others will speak on this occasion of the significance of this imperial gift. I must content myself with pointing out that the mere offer of it produced at once the happiest results; other givers were stimulated to follow the Emperor's example, and the Germanic character of the enterprise indicated by this gift of the head of the German nation to an American museum was further emphasized by the
