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natural or acquired habits of observation and inquiry, which might have been called out in the candidates by intercourse with their parents on the farm or in the market, than furnished any test of the results either of school-training or of individual study; and, therefore, in an educational point of view, they were worth but little. The questions, however, served to satisfy parents that the object aimed at was to fit the boys for their calling in life. We may now with confidence expect public support to the principle asserted by the Council of the Bath and West of England Society, that "skill in business generally is best acquired by practice, and that the best preparation for practical life is a good general education."

THE POSITION OF THE ARTS IN EDUCATION.

I have reserved one subject for special discussion:-the proper connexion between the Arts and General Education.

In every country which has reached an advanced state of civilization the right mode of cultivating the Arts, and of educating the designer and the workman, must sooner or later engage attention. We appear to be arrived in England at a crisis in this subject from which we must either go forward or backward.

I understand by the term Art, not merely the Fine Arts, but what are commonly called the Useful and Ornamental Arts, especially those which are in any way connected with beauty in form, colour, or sound. If we set aside those arts which relate to the provision of food, how large a proportion of the middle classes are concerned in making, buying, or selling what may minister to the sense of beauty or the reverse! House-building, with all that it involves in the way of decoration, exterior or interior, and furniture, and the supply of clothing, must ever occupy a large portion of our population; to say nothing of the minor arts which minister to personal ornament, or to the multiplication of the works of the artist. On merely utilitarian grounds it is of the utmost importance to the commercial position of England that she should not be outdone by foreigners in matters of such general demand. But in order to this end Art must find its place in national education by the side of Literature and Science; if the artist is to design and the workman is

to execute, there must be a discerning public to appreciate the good and discourage the bad. The want of such discernment in their customers is beginning to be keenly felt by manufacturers who have taken pains to improve the quality of their work.

It is of paramount importance that this subject of Art should receive its due share of attention in any schemes for the promotion of Middle-Class Education, and especially that it should be recognized by the Universities in their proposed examinations; because it is a subject on which half-educated persons are peculiarly tempted to wrong, for want of balance of mind and general good sense. It is one so dependent on subjective impressions, and one on which so much arbitrary assertion passes current under the name of good taste, that it seems at times doubtful whether truth or falsehood enters into it at all, and yet to no subject does the old saying more truly apply, "Opinionum commenta delet dies; naturæ judicia confirmat." If there are true principles involved in Art,-in other words, if Art in the sense here spoken of have a correlative science,―the University which ignores the existence of such a science will not long or successfully guide the practical intellect of the country.

Meanwhile it is evident that there are at least three parties contending in England for the mastery in the guidance of Art. The traditions of the past, and the tastes of dilettanti of various temperaments, find their expression in the Royal Academy. Influences of a different kind, to which I mean no disrespect if I apply the term doctrinaire (as implying a certain philosophical system and adherence to abstract principles rather than an appeal to taste alone), may be considered to be represented by Schools of Design, or rather by the Department of Science and Art; while a considerable force of irregulars make themselves felt under the somewhat erratic but intensely vigorous leadership of Mr. Ruskin and his Pre-Raphaelite allies.

I am afraid that any one who dares confess that he thinks there is much to be learned from them all, and that no one of the three can afford to despise the other, may expose himself to the charge of indistinctness of thought; but speaking in the interest of the public, and not of any particular school, I think it clear that a closer alliance between General Education and Art would tend to diminish the influence of feebleness, pedantry, or extravagance, and to secure more universal admiration of real power

and honest labour in whatever school they may be formed. For want of general sympathy between the scholar and the artist the critic often sneers, while the artist chafes under the presumed ignorance of his judge; the fact being only that they have not learned to speak a language common to both. The remedy would seem to be twofold :

First, To recognise Art as one branch of a liberal Education by the side of Literature and Science.

Secondly, To give the artist facilities and encouragement for the general cultivation of his own mind.

Entering into life with crude notions of possible novelties in Art, and ignorant of the laws derived from the study of great works, and from a knowledge of what can and what cannot be done with certain materials for the uses to which they are to be put, I well remember how I was made to feel the want of such knowledge before I could understand the language of those who possessed it, while they explained the limits imposed on inventive power in pictures, or windows, or metal-work. I was still more struck with the reality of the laws of Art and their connexion with classical education when my friend Mr. Newton, in the British Museum, taught me that medals and coins have a language of their own, and showed me on the map of the Mediterranean how the course of Greek civilization might be traced in the groups of cities known by their coins; or, again, when the same gentleman at the Wilton Gallery pointed out the principles of criticism by which genuine Greek Art is to be distinguished from its spurious imitations. I could not but feel what a stream of light might be let in by such lectures upon classical studies, and upon history, ancient and modern.

The practical difficulty seems to be of two kinds. First, that the principles of Art are so vague that they are difficult to state, and still more difficult to learn except by practice; and, secondly, that few have time both for Art and for general education— "Ars longa, vita brevis."

These difficulties are not to be lightly disregarded; nevertheless it may still be true-First, that a system of liberal education which ignores the principles of Art is incomplete; Secondly, that an artist who is a mere self-taught worker would in all ordinary cases be the better for a knowledge of what others have done before him, and for instruction in the facts with which he has to deal; in other words, that he needs Literature and Science

for the full development of the gift which Nature has implanted in him.

As to the First point.-It may be taken as now generally admitted that Literature, especially poetry, is of the first importance in the early stages of a liberal education—that it awakens power, gives vitality, and freedom, and versatility to the mind, for the absence of which, especially in those who are to act on the minds of other human beings, nothing can compensate. Secondly, that the exclusive cultivation of a literary taste, with a neglect of science, tends to a narrow fastidiousness, and robs a man of innumerable opportunities of interest in the laws of the world in which he lives and in the work of his fellow-creatures. The value of Science, both Mathematical and Physical, as a means of giving strength to the reasoning powers, accuracy and concentration of thought, and scrupulousness in the examination of evidence, will not be denied at the present day by any one who, with a desire to hand down unimpaired the work of our forefathers to future generations, has taken an interest in the expansion of the educational system of England. But while Literature fosters vitality, and Science accuracy-the one submission to great laws, the other a freedom which rises above slavery to system-it would seem that Art occupies a position between the two, and presumes, like poetry, the vital union of the imagination and the reason; and as Art manifests itself not in books, nor in systems of thought, but in works, the study of the works which great men have produced must bring a valuable contribution to a complete education. In one sense Art finds its expression in the constructive tendencies of children and in the games of boys, and so Nature calls into play invention, judgment, experience, and puts knowledge into practice; and some youths thus gain education from what they do as sailors or soldiers, or even from the activity or the failures of the cricket-field or the hunting-field, which they never gain from books or lectures. It may be a question whether any system of education which does not provide for spontaneous activity, except as an excrescence or an irregularity, can be right. Whether and in what way the practical arts can be made to bear their part in a liberal education, is another question; but clearly they must be taken into account in some form in dealing with Middle-Class Education, and therefore must not be neglected by those who undertake the responsibility of guiding it.

This, too, is certain, that Art has a history and a language; it

has also laws of its own, or at least it is subject to the laws of mind and of matter; and those who are ignorant of the Literature of Art, and of the scientific principles connected with Art, whether as paramount or subordinate to it (see Mr. Temple's Letter, below, p. 51), can have little hope of influencing the minds of workers conscious of their own inventive or constructive powers.

The hearts of thousands have been gladdened at Manchester by the liberality with which the treasures of Oxford, in private no less than in public collections, have been opened to the gaze of the multitude-treasures which were among the most instructive gems of that wonderful gathering for national education. How many more hearts would rejoice if buildings in Oxford, devoted to the custody of great works, could also be made available for the purpose of teaching the young to understand those works, under the guidance of competent interpreters !

I turn now to the Second point, the education of the artist, and of those who are to employ his talents for purposes of trade.— The chief question on which has turned the course to be taken in the New Oxford Examinations is this,-should Art enter into these Examinations simply as skill in Drawing or in Music? or should information "about Art," its history and principles, be recognized in the Examinations? On this subject it is needless for me to say much here, as I have stated my opinion on the question more fully in a letter to Mr. Richmond which follows these remarks, and the subject is amply illustrated by the letters of my friends who have permitted me to publish their opinions in this volume.

I will only say for myself that while I recognize to the full the danger apprehended by Mr. Temple of encouraging shallow secondhand gossip "about the Arts," I think it quite essential in the present day that the minds of young persons in the middle classes should be drawn to facts or laws in nature which make given materials unsuitable for certain uses, or for receiving certain kinds of decoration, without flagrant violations of common sense, or without shocking tastes which, if not universal, are general just in proportion to the knowledge of those who are susceptible of such tastes. I fully admit also that æsthetic criticism ought to be postponed till knowledge and experience have ripened the judgment; only let the young and the half-instructed be taught to feel that their superiors in age and education recognize the

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