35 



little child, whose expressions of delight and smiles of pleas- 

 ure are called forth, simply perhaps, by a piece of tinted 

 paper. In the older child, pictures from nature and art, 

 form legitimate objects of its exercise; while the cultivation 

 of this endowment in the adult, has placed before the world 

 all those beauties of art with which we are surrounded. 

 Indeed, life itself would be but barely tolerable, were all the 

 enjoyment arising from the exercise of this faculty, denied 

 us ; man would cease to be an image of his Maker. 



That there is an increasing interest among our people in 

 this direction, cannot be denied. Our buildings, both public 

 and private, show it. Our cemetries, our road-sides, and our 

 gardens, prove that we are beginning to think of something, 

 other than dollars and cents. The success of the New Eng- 

 land School of Design for Women, an institution where fe- 

 males are taught the use of those faculties, which they pos- 

 sess, naturally, in a degree far superior to man, goes to sus- 

 tain the same point. Graduates of this school are employed 

 at large prices, by the manufacturers of carpetings, prints, 

 paper hangings, &c., for the sole purpose of originating new 

 and tasteful designs for these kind of goods. This would 

 not be done, were it not for the taste among the mass of the- 

 people, which sustains and demands it. 



Many persons, who will display a very fine taste in the 

 selection of articles of this kind, appear to think that they 

 themselves are never called upon to exercise this faculty in 

 their every day life ; not thinking that even the thousand 

 little things in which they are called upon to act, may be so 

 managed as to please and gratify those around them, rather 

 than to offend and displease by an opposite course. 



It is the cultivation of this gift, in our ordinary pursuits, 

 which we should be glad to see more of. Let not the fair 

 contributors of fancy goods, suppose, that because of their 

 having done what they have toward rendering the exhibi- 

 tion of to-day so attractive, they are absolved from the dis- 

 play of any farther taste for the beautiful : but rather let 



