ABSTRACT
The supporters of the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), together with the museum movement itself, successfully argued for the provision of the arts in wartime by presenting the conflict as a fight for the maintenance of cultural freedoms, emphasising the preservation of liberty through artistic expression. However, the state's support for CEMA was not purely altruistic. The Treasury, for example, indicated that its funding depended on CEMA's activities being 'more intrinsically linked to the war effort' so that culture might represent national identity and citizenship. The term mouseion referred to the temple of the arts or the 'seat of the muses'. Curators welcomed the advantages that CEMA's work brought to provincial galleries, especially local art galleries, which had not been funded in the Carnegie Trust's museum programme in the 1930s. The Council's travelling exhibitions increased communication between museums and brought about a more national and integrated service.
