LONDON, ENGLAND.- Julian Spalding, former director of Manchester City Art Galleries and of Glasgow Museums, wrote in the New Statesman an article calling for the "eversal of a scandalous policy decision that is killing off a great institution (The national Gallery)". Spalding recently wrote the book "The Poetic Museum: reviving historic collections," published by Prestel. Spalding writes: "Neil MacGregor, who is shortly to leave his post as director of the National Gallery, has been an outstanding helmsman, especially for his exhibitions and educational work, and for holding the line against admissions charges. But he has stifled the institution he so effectively nurtured. As director, he had only to uphold the role of the gallery, but instead he acquiesced to Nicholas Serota's misjudged ambition to make Tate Modern this country's national gallery of post-19th-century art."