204 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



it commands, with alluring prospects of fame and fortune, the 

 services of men of genius and learning. Those who enter it from 

 choice succeed or fail quickly. It is a life of activity, a work where 

 energy and intelligence are essential qualifications, and honor and 

 honesty are certain of reward. There is no enduring place in the 

 profession for hypocrisy, indolence, or mediocrity. 



VALUE OF THE STUDY OF ART. 



By GEORGES PERROT. 



Georges Perrot is one of the leading art writers and teachers of France. Born in 

 1832, not far from Paris, he was graduated from the Ecole Xormale about 1855, and was 

 then for three years at the French School at Athens. From his return to the present day 

 he has occupied, with honor and distinction, many positions in the world of letters. At 

 present he is a memher of the Institut, an officer of the Legion d'Honneur, a professor k la 

 Faculte des Lettres de Paris, and the director of the Ecole Norniale Superieure. He is best 

 known to scholars outside of France by the magnificent work on the History of Art in An- 

 tiquity, which he is writing, assisted by Charles Chipiez, architecte du gouvernement, and of 

 which seven superb quartos have already appeared. (Hachette et Cie.) In 1891, by a de- 

 cree of the Minister of Public Instruction, the study of the history of the fine arts was intro- 

 duced into a section of the studies pursued at the lycees. In an article in the Revue des 

 Deux Mondes, July 15, 1899, Perrot pleads for an increase of the time assigned to the study 

 and for its introduction into other parts of the curriculum. 



I have translate<l those pages of the aiticle which are of general interest as a contribu- 

 tion to a subject which is deservedly attracting the attention of American institutions of 

 learning. D. Cady Eaton. 



"\TTRITTEN and spoken language, the language of which the 

 ^ ^ signs are words, is not the only language which man uses 

 to convey his ideas. There is also the language of forms, which, 

 with no less clearness and force, conveys the conceptions of the in- 

 tellect and the sentiments of the heart. We study the history and 

 the literature of bygone people for the purpose of acquiring a 

 better knowledge of ourselves, and this knowledge is secured by 

 becoming conscious of the different states of mind, to use a modern 

 expression, through which our ancestors have passed. Even the 

 most elementary and the most remote of these successive condi- 

 tions are, unconsciously perhaps, represented in the depths of our 

 being by beliefs and customs for which the present order and prog- 

 ress of civilization can not account.* 



* The highest education consists in the presentation and in the aocejjtance of the purest 

 ideas and the highest ideals of all ages, whether they be presented in written or spoken 

 words, in songs of voices or sounds of instnmients, in plastic forms or glowing pictures, in 

 humble lives or glorious actions. The well-educated man should be the prodnct and the 

 epitome of the best thoughts and sentiments the woild has ])rodnced, for he carries the 

 re8ponsil)ility of past centuries. 



