SCIENCE VERSUS ART-APPRECIATION. 461 



of furniture are fingerposts to character. We see, in turn, the homes 

 of the loquacious, the conventional, the shallow, the vain, the sincere, 

 the refined, the deceitful, the vulgar; in fact most human virtues and 

 weaknesses are unconsciously stamped on man's chosen surroundings. 

 Such a study of decorative art will fit the student to take up, in the 

 same way, other branches of art, and finally painting and sculpture. 



Although now recognized by a few people that these two subjects 

 may be intelligently studied without learning to paint or model, their 

 true educational value is lost through the manner of teaching them. 

 Either they are taught as purely sentimental subjects with which rude 

 facts have nothing to do as though they possessed some mysterious 

 essence of beauty too ethereal to touch or think on ; or else, like chemical 

 substances, they are analyzed into their elements, the relation of their 

 parts determined mathematically and the mannerisms of the artists' 

 pointed out and carefully noted down. Now while certain attributes of 

 a painting and the balance of its parts are curious, and, for certain 

 purposes, important items of knowledge, to single them out and teach 

 them for their own sake, supposing it to be the study of art, is not 

 unlike the mistake of the foolish virgins. The few features of a 

 painting made use of to build up appreciation must be judiciously 

 selected as witnesses to testify to the character of the art and thus 

 assist the student to arrive at a just esthetic decision. The choice of 

 facts for teaching art is determined by the capacity of the learners and 

 like the pawns on a chess board, their value lies in the way they are 

 used. Every choice that man makes illustrates the truth that all 

 appreciation roots in experience ; it therefore follows that a work of art 

 is a sealed book to the spectator unless it deals with phenomena which 

 are related to his mental world. For this reason, it is unwise to place 

 before pupils paintings and statues which lead them into a foreign 

 world of ideas and customs. The subject-matter should be explainable 

 by the pupil 's experience, leaving the art as the only new thing. As the 

 character of pictures should be determined by the age and under- 

 standing of the pupils, rather than by the glory of the work of art, it 

 naturally follows that for young people it is wise to select those works 

 which portray familiar features of their known world. Our cities con- 

 tain first-rate collections of modern art which can be thoroughly studied 

 instead of making use of photographs of old masters, so foreign to 

 the pupils. This will not seem so difficult if once recognized that a 

 museum is not a storehouse, but a laboratory. 



All art instruction, however good it may be, is bound to remain 

 incomplete unless the school-room, its background, is brought into 

 harmony with it. This can not be done by merely hanging the walls 

 with pictures, as is clearly shown by the attempts in two of our large 

 cities. The class-rooms in at least one public school in each of these 



