POTTERY ANVD PORCELAIN.

our manufacturers are certainly entitled to official recogni-
tion.  It is gratifying to know that already some of our
Chief Executives have patronized home manufactures by
commissioning Americans to make special services for the
White House, and the recent example of a cabinet officer
selecting a dinner set for his own table from a Trenton
factory, after considering many which were submitted in
competition, is one which, we trust, may be extensively
emulated in the future.
Thus far our potters have been, in a great measure,
imitative rather than inventive, and the result is that we
have largely reproduced, though in a most creditable man-
ner, patterns and designs, bodies, glazes, and decorations,
of foreign factories.  With some few exceptions, our
commercial manufacturers have been content to copy and
imitate the products of foreign establishments and have,
in consequence, unconsciously assisted in perpetuating
certain offences against good taste, as, for instance, in the
continued production of the ancient style of table plates
with depressed centres and horizontal borders, the modern
use of individual salts, butters, and bread and butter plates
rendering the plate rim no longer necessary. It should,
therefore, be discarded as being obsolete and inelegant.
The most convenient, useful, and graceful form of plate is
that with the simple, sweeping, curved line, not made, how-
ever, except by a few progressive English potters.
Our producers have also yet to learn that modern
table etiquette demands a reduction in the size of many
pieces intended for family use. It is no longer necessary
to make butter dishes and gravy boats large enough to

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