What a great interview link provided to us Thank you so much for it. I watched part 1 & 2 and I really like David McCullough, he seems like a man I would enjoy sitting down with and listening to all his knowledge he could share from all his researching for his nine books. He seemed to favor this quote opening his book:
"For we constantly deal with practical problems, with moulders, contractors, derricks, stonemen, trucks, rubbish, plasterers, and what-not-else, all the while trying to soar into the blue."
__Augustus Saint-Gaudens
I also found this interesting, "They came from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Ohio, North Carolina, Louisiana, nearly all of the twenty-four states that then constituted their country. With few expectations, they were well educated and reasonably well off, or their parents were."[/b]
In McCullough's interview, (paraphrasing) he said, the foreigners were allowed to study for free, all they had to do was provide their own room and board.
It seems these were an elite class of people who were able to take advantage of a free education in Paris. America benefited from this because they came back and shared their knowledge, talents, professions, etc. with Americans. Like McCullough said in his interview, (paraphrasing) we would be surprised how much of America is what it is, because of these and other Americans going to Paris. Not just our art, music, medicine, but also our culture.
JoanP. I have no knowledge of the lights you speak of since I have never had the privilege to visit Paris, but I do remember in our last book, I Always Loved You, it spoke of how the artists flocked to paint in that light during the day.
