tiful and another is lacking in all these qualities can be made clear to the mind of a child, is, in effect, to remove art and artistic manufacturers from the realm of empiricism to that of certainty. If the public can be thus trained to become intelligent art critics, the rapid improvement of American art manufactures is secured.

COL. J. EDWARDS CLARK. (Bureau of Education, Washington.)

DELSARTE AND AGASSIZ.-Delsarte taught that every muscle, joint, organ, and atom of the body has a mission to perform as an instrument of expression for the soul. He studied anatomy five years that he might know the body. This gave him one side of the subject. For the other side he went to the street, went everywhere he could find men, studied them as they were under the sway of special thought and emotions; thus he saw the anatomy in action.

Applying the same method that had given him the laws of structure, he derived the laws of movement.

Thus he founded a new science-that of "expressive man."

There are interesting points of likeness between Delsarte and Agassiz. Their method of viewing the universe, method of study, and method of teaching were the same. The one was an artist using the rigid method of the naturalist; the other was a naturalist with the fine feelings of an artist. The method in each case was the same-they differed only in the subject to which they were applied.-Prof. H. H. Straight, Oswego Normal School, N. Y.

BODY AND MIND.-In these days, when there is a great rage for education, a certain top-heaviness has been produced among children, and the good homely help-mate of the mind, the body, is decidedly neglected. It is looked upon as is the dull but sensible wife of some clever man, whose duty is to get through all the home drudgery. She must be invited out with him, but is ignored in society, and is only tolerated on account of her brilliant husband. Now, I consider the body to be just as important as the mind, and that it ought to be treated with just as much respect, especially in these days of intense competition, when, given an equality of brains and education, it is the strong body that tells in the long run and gives staying power. That alone can help the mind to bear the strain, and anything that can assist our children to bear this dailyincreasing strain is surely not beneath our notice.

It is really surprising to see the amount of trouble and pains bestowed on the proper housing and feeding of horses and dogs, or other domestic

animals, while at the same time comparatively little attention is paid to these matters with regard to the rearing of children. Model stables and model kennels abound, while the model nursery is almost wholly unknown. Warming, ventilation, and aspect are all subjects which are thoroughly considered in the stable, while as regards the nursery they are generally left for chance to decide-though the health of a child is surely more important than that of a horse or a dog.-Jessie Oriana Woller, in Nineteenth Century.

BORN DELSARTEANS.--Nature is all right enough if left to herself. What is at fault, on the contrary, is the unnatural life we lead, crowded together in cities, one half the people doing a double share of the work of the world, and the other half doing nothing at all. Added to this, there is our mode of dress, which robs the greater part of our muscles of their use and beauty. We are all natural-born Delsarteans, if I may be excused the term; but from the moment our education begins-say at six years of age-nature is slowly but surely stifled. The mental is assiduously cultivated to the utter detriment of the physical and moral, and this in the face of the ordinary gymnastics, which frequently develop one special set of muscles at the expense of the entire nervous system. Depend upon it, there is a time coming when the folly of this will be recognized and amended.-Edmund Russell.

GLADSTONE AND TENNYSON.-The Hon. W. E. Gladstone and Tennyson, the poet, were both at a public dinner lately. Mr. Gladstone ate with relish, laughed, chatted and told a good share of anecdotes, and played the boy by eating the sugar out of the bottom of his cup. Tennyson, on the other hand, moped through the time, being bored with nearly everything that occurred. Gladstone is the older man of the two, and has done more mental and physical work than the poet has.

What is the difference in their lives? Tennyson has been and is a tobacco smoker, and now sits, almost by the hour, with a number of new clay pipes beside him, from each of which he smokes once, then breaks it and throws it into his waste-basket. This is delightful and soothing to his nerves, no doubt, but bleeds away his vitality and leaves him a decrepit old man who can scarcely endure his own existence, and is a trouble to all around him. Carlyle was a similar victim, and Spurgeon suffers from the same cause. Mr. Gladstone has made a study of health and practises what he believes. He expends his strength on muscular work, which keeps his nervous system sound and vigorous. Instead of being gouty, growling, and disagreeable at his age, he is sound in mind, hale and vigorous, creating joy wherever he goes-excepting among British Tories.-A. Cuthbertson.

"Let not any one say that he cannot govern his passions nor hinder them from breaking out and carrying him to action; for what he can do before a prince or a great man he can do alone, or in the presence of God, if he will."-Locke.

"We have had something too much of the gospel of work; it is time to preach the gospel of relaxation."-Herbert Spencer.

CHAPTER III.

HEALTH, NATURAL EXPRESSION, GRACE.

I.

Delsartean development—“Know thyself ”—The different kinds of exercises-Grace-Rest-Sleep-Labor -Corpulency-"The Pace That Kills "—Vital economy-Broken-down old age.

DELSARTEAN development introduces a person to himself. As the avenues of expression are freed from restriction and our bodies become responsive instruments, latent talents and possibilities are often awakened. Most people are capable of more than they think they are. Lack of physical self-knowledge handicaps many people; they think their bodies are angular, clumsy, out of proportion, even deformed, when in truth the bodies are symmetrical, but are unnaturally, inharmoniously used.

The Delsarte philosophy teaches how to train

the nerves, how to rest, and how to move and act with economy of force.

The Delsarte gymnastics develop habitual grace. They break up bad physical habits and establish natural ones. Awkwardness is a waste of force.

The Delsarte relaxing exercises remove wasteful nerve-tension and conserve vital energy. They appeal especially to nervous, overworked people.

The Delsarte sleep exercises have enabled many to overcome insomnia.

The Delsarte abdominal exercises have overcome and can prevent that abnormal physical condition-corpulency.

The Delsarte laws of expression furnish a key to character study. These laws underlie all art. The Delsarte work develops self-possession and overcomes self-consciousness.

The Delsarte rhythmical exercises enable a person not only to appear and feel better, but by their reflex action to be better.

By seeming worthy we grow to what we seem.

Physical habits have a reflex action upon the inner nature.

"The improved man will differ from the man of to-day chiefly in the economy of nervous power,” says Judge Tourgée. Many teach domestic economy, political economy; Delsarte teaches vital economy. Conservation of energy is the funda

mental principle of the Delsarte development. By the freeing or relaxing exercises all nerve-tension is removed from the muscles when they are not in use. Nerve-force thus drawn from the extremities and exterior muscles is conserved and reserved in the great nerve-centres, giving 66 strength at the centre, freedom at the extremities."

This nerve-training benefits especially the army of nerve-bound, overworked people-those who waste vital force by the tension kept upon the muscles even when the body is in the attitude of repose. We should unstring the bow when it is not in use.

Bad physical habits-bad, because wasteful and irritating in effect, unrefined in expressioncan be broken up by the Delsarte scientific drill. In place thereof healthful, upbuilding physical habits can be developed by the practice of the rhythmical, formative exercises.

By disciplining the physical as well as the mental nature, we can escape the rigidity and heaviness of old age; we can retain youthful elasticity and erectness of carriage.

The Delsarte philosophy, in its entirety, is a tree whose roots feed at the heart of nature: whose trunk is science; upon whose branches unfold all the departments of art. Through a knowledge of its principles, painting, acting, sculpture, music, poetry, oratory, man, and na