amount of vital force which he can spend in activities physical or intellectual, beneficent or vicious, in work or in play. If spent in one direction it cannot be spent in another. All kinds of activity are exhaustive, though not in equal degree. Exhaustive physical labor prevents any considerable mental activity, and exhaustive mental labor prevents any considerable physical activity. Dissipation, whatever form it may assume, is not only the waste of vital forces, so that no good purpose is possible, but it is usually the derangement of the vital functions diminishing the supply of force. When the stock of vitality at command is exhausted, no matter by what means, complete rest is demanded in the form of perfect quiet.

Daily Rest or Sleep.-By the constitution of human beings there seems to be an amount of extra vital force at command each day; and when the day ends, the force has been expended in some form-wisely in conserving and promoting human interests, or unwisely in dissipation by which forces are wasted, or in indolence by which they are expended in the morbid action of the organs themselves. This daily expenditure calls for the most perfect form of rest-sleep. During sleep all the powers are recuperated, and vital force is laid up for the next day's use. Regular daily undisturbed sleep is a necessity to well-being; and study, work, business, and play, should be arranged so as not to diminish its hours, or in any way to interfere with it.

Amount of Sleep.-The amount of sleep necessary to the full recuperation of the vital powers depends upon several conditions, among which are the constitution of the person, the nature of the employment, and the de

gree of the exhaustion. To prescribe the same number of hours of sleep for all would be as absurd as to pre scribe the same amount of food for all. When tired but not weary, the proper amount of sleep refreshes the person, and restores his powers to full vigor. Intellectual activities in an especial manner call for plenty of sleep, and pupils in school should be instructed never to let any supposed necessity of study interfere with their natural amount of sleep. Nothing is more detrimental to the well-being of a student than attempted study when sleep is needed. Excessively late and excessively early hours are alike injurious. Besides the injury resulting from the loss of sleep, study at late hours bears but little fruit in the way of mental improvement. One hour of study in full vigor is worth six hours when the mind is half asleep.

Rest from Weariness.-When activity is long continued, without adequate intervals of rest, there results a general exhaustion, shown by a weariness which sleep does not overcome. The only remedy for this is perfect rest-an entire cessation from activities that demand attention. In the complicated arrangement of business affairs there often comes a continued strain upon the attention, and an abnormal expenditure of vital force, which exhausts not only the surplus stock, but all that the organs can yield. The redress of the weariness that ensues is only found in perfect rest, which must be taken to the full extent of restoration of vigor, or the vital functions will be permanently impaired or altogether cease.

A knowledge of rest in its several degrees and in its relations to activities is of vital importance to teachers. Ignorance of the laws which govern the recuperation

of vitality often leads to absurd practices. In the olden time, students in the higher institutions of learning were obliged to get up at five o'clock in the morning, at all seasons of the year, to attend chapel exercises, observing divine worship by the disobedience of divine law. Teachers often stimulate pupils to an undue amount of study, by assigning too long lessons, and by censure expressed or implied when the lesson is not learned. In schools where the high-pressure principle in regard to study prevails, the most ambitious and delicately organized students are not uncommonly driven so hard that their powers of mind fail, and they either sink into premature graves, or pass the remainder of their lives the mere wrecks of what they might have been. In assigning too long lessons, the mistake of the teacher arises from judging of the capacity of the pupil by his own, and of expecting from children an amount of work which would tax the capacity of adults. When pupils have attained an age that gives them the power of independent study, the direction which should be given them is: "Give such time to your lessons as you can without encroaching upon your sleep, or hours of necessary recreation, and the amount of study required shall be arranged accordingly."

CHAPTER XII.

ESTHETIC CULTURE.

NATURE OF ÆSTHETICS.-In intellectual training the end is to ascertain the true-the true in the facts, relations, and laws of both the physical and mental worlds. In morals, the end sought is the good, which upon one side expresses the true in human relations, and upon the other converts it into action. In æsthetics, the end sought is the beautiful, which is the true in the relations of objects and their qualities as they affect the emotions through the senses. The true includes all phenomena; the good relates to human conduct; and the beautiful refers to objective relations which afford pleasure. The three are so united that the course which most certainly secures either is essential to the highest success in all, and that substantial attainment in each is necessary to the highest attainment in the others.

Esthetic culture includes both a perception of the beautiful as it exists, and also the ability to arrange elements in such a manner as to produce the beautiful. It is not only an appreciative, but a creative power. Its highest ends are attained through the imagination, and it furnishes one of the principal means by which the

imagination is cultivated. The æsthetic sense which we call taste, while greatly differing in individuals, can always be improved by systematic training.

Standard of Beauty.—In regard to the origin and nature of beauty, and the standard by which it is to be judged, there are two general theories. One, known as the intuitional, claims that in the spiritual world there is an absolute standard of beauty; that Nature is a realization of this standard to a greater or less degree; and that the human mind has an intuitive perception of the correspondence between the material and the spiritual whenever it occurs, and responds to the ideal standard. As natural forms approximate to the ideal standard, they are said to be beautiful; as they fall short in this respect, they are regarded as ugly.

Ruskin's Views.-Ruskin takes this view of the origin and nature of beauty, as is seen in the following extract: "Now I may state, that beauty has been appointed by the Deity to be one of the elements by which the human soul is continually sustained; it is, therefore, to be found in all natural objects; but in order that we may not satiate ourselves with it, and weary of it, it is rarely granted to us in its utmost degrees. When we see it in those utmost degrees, we are attracted to it strongly, and remember it long, as in the case of singularly beautiful scenery or a beautiful countenance. On the other hand, absolute ugliness is admitted as rarely as perfect beauty; but degrees of it, more or less distinct, are associated with whatever has the nature of death and sin, just as beauty is associated with what has the nature of virtue and of life.

"What Nature does generally is sure to be more or