I .caning Tower or St. Mark’s, but tour operators have come uprnwith the solution: a list of notable attractions to be signed atrnthe end of the day by each weary pilgrim. Why do they go?rnThe footsore group sprawled at the foot of the Spanish Stepsrnlooks about as happy as 13-ycar-old boys at their first dance.rn”Am I having a good time yet?”rnAmericans always assume they are being cheated by crookedrnforeigners. Usually the problem is language, since many ofrnour fellow countrymen speak no written language. “The Frogsrnand Dagos always cheat you,” they say, expressing a contemptrnthat almost justifies the swindles. Serving tourists is not anrncasv business. The profit margin is low, and the usual recipernfor success—good food and service—does not apply to grazingrnanimals on a cattle drive. The French do not believe the customerrnis always right—a petty and servile notion, beneath therndignity of a man who owns his own business—but their ownrnstandard—the best, whether the customer wants it or not—rngives wav to “Head ‘cm up, move ’em out” when large groupsrnof one-time visitors are involved.rnI remember sitting outdoors in a pleasant trattoria in Lucca.rnThe food was good, the service a bit slow but friendly. Inside,rnhowever, a German horde was being whipped throughrnidentical courses, while the guide got into a shouting matchrnwith the proprietor. I can only assume that the Germans tookrnhome mixed memories of Lucca. When I have comparedrnnotes with friends who have taken tours, I am always surprisedrnby how disgruntled they arc by bad service, poor food, and arngeneral sense of disorientation. Of course they are disoriented,rnwhen thcv arc being processed by an impersonal machine thatrnstamps each diverse individual into the same mold.rnOur lives are our own, and any grown-up who is not an invalidrnought to be prepared to find his own way through a foreignrncitv. Getting lost is half the experience, as I kept tellingrnnw daughter in London, where wc wandered lost for hours, onlyrnto be washed up on the shore of Buckingham Palace. Whenrnyou know exactly where you are on the map and can check tornsee if the guidebook description matches what is in front ofrnvon, it is someone else’s perception, not yours. Out of ignorancernand ineptitude, I have often found myself wondering atrnthe beauties of some undiscovered church, only to find, backrnin the hotel, that it is celebrated in the Guide Bleu. In Rome,rnI stumbled onto Santa Maria Maggiore in search of a drugstorernand pecked into San Luigi for the first time because the pizzeriarnwas not open vet.rnI am probably misleading my readers into thinking that Irnplay everything by ear. On the contrary, I bore my wife andrnchildren, months before a trip, reading histories and guidebooks,rnstudying maps and city plans. Like Henry Reed, I havernpored over “A Map of Verona”:rnAnd over this city for a whole long winter season.rnThrough streets on a map, my thoughts havernhovered and paced.rnBut these are private and personal preparations, like languagernstudy, and guidebooks are the dictionaries and grammarsrnof travel: useful for study in advance and for checkingrnpoints, but as impractical for conversation with places as withrnpeople. Ultimately, your goal is to break free and see things forrnyourself.rnThis is truer of museums than of cities. I cannot say howrnmany times I have been standing alone in a room at Ghicago’srnArt Institute or the National Gallery in Washington, only to bernset upon by a train of trouser-clad housewives, each carrying arnfolding chair. Their lector marches them right in front of thernvery picture I am looking at and proceeds to deliver a discoursernthat is half platitude and more than half error (platitudesrnare sometimes wrong). These women arc not littlernnraids from school; they are battle-hardened veterans of marriagernand motherhood. Can’t they look, with their own eyes,rnat a picture? And if they cannot, what are thev doing in arnmuseum?rnIt is better to be an ignoramus on vour own terms than thernparrot of a half-trained semiprofcssional. (I am not, of course,rnspeaking of the excellent guides who give tours of manor houses,rnpalaces, and special collections that are as useful to thernart historian as to the school girl, but of the pre-chewed paprnspat into the mouths of tour-takers.)rnThe mischief of arts education began in the 18th century,rnwhen it was no longer enough to cultivate an appreciationrnfor the beautiful. Great museums were established to serve asrneducational institutions inculcating lofty principles. In hisrnwill that conferred the original core of the British Museum,rnDr. I lans Sloane declared that his collection should be open tornthe public “for the improvement of the Arts and Sciences andrnthe benefit of mankind.” But it was the Germans, followingrnWinekelmann’s lead, who most insisted upon rational andrnscientific display of art—first the ancients and only later thernmoderns—for instructional purposes.rnEarlier collections had been assembled haphazardly byrnkings, noblemen, and princes of the Ghurch to gratify theirrntastes and impress their friends, but increasingly museumsrnbecame national foundations, arranged on a scientihe basis, forrnthe edification of the populace, and what could possibly bernmore edifying than a demonstration of the power and glory ofrnthe nation and its rulers?rnThe Louvre, which had been a royal palace before the Revolution,rnwas turned into a grisly display of art treasures thatrnhad been looted from the homes of murdered aristocrats. Asrnthe armies of the Republic and of the Empire ravaged theirrnway across Europe, the masterpieces of half the worid wererncarted off to France as spoils of war and put on display in thernPalais du Louvre, renamed the Museum National and, inrn1803, the Musce Napoleon.rnAfter Watcdoo, the liberated provinces of Napoleon’s Empirernrecovered much of the loot, but some of the works of artrnwent not to the original owners but to the royal, papal, and nationalrnart museums that were being established or reorganized.rnThe museum became the symbol of nationhood andrnempire, and the imperial nations of the French, the Germans,rnand the British displayed their trophies of ancient art—muchrnof it looted from sites in Greece, Turkey, Egypt, and Italy—asrnproof of their own status as successors to the Roman Empire.rnOne of the first acts of newly independent Greece was to demandrnthe Elgin Marbles back. Those demands have beenrnrepeated throughout the years, but Britain retains just enoughrnimperial spirit (or is it spite?) to refuse.rnAmericans, for obvious reasons, were somewhat slow inrnfounding great museums. The eadier foundations tended tornresemble the Gharleston Library Society’s collection of curiosrnthat constituted the hrst museum in America (1773). Sornlong as America remained a republic, its museums were veryrnmodest affairs and not merely because of the difficulties andrnMARCH 1993/11rnrnrn