Ar^t as Education. 87 



A glory of Orion round her head, 



Behold her in her majesty! 

 Her keen glance all but purer Demons dread, 



Consuming where she looks, she rides on high. 



Above the stars, upon her sunny throne, 



Urania — the stately, the severe! 

 But she has laid aside her blazing crov»-n. 



And stands — in Beauty's form, before us here. 



She puts on loveliness' enchanted belt, 

 Becomes a child, is hailed by simplest youth. 



What here as Beauty we have felt. 

 Shall one day come to us as Truth. 



Now let us consider briefly, the influence of arS in educating 

 and elevating the mind. An artist, gifted with a soul alive to all 

 the influences of sight, and sound, and thought, around and within 

 him, produces a work : it may be an Oratorio ; Handel's Messiah ; 

 a statue, The Night, or the Day, of Michael Angelo; a painting, 

 The Last Supper, by Da Vinci ; a temple, The Parthenon ; a poem, 

 or any one of the myriad works which make up the true wealth 

 of the world! In the production of such a work, the artist, by 

 his innate love for, and sympathy with the elements of which we 

 have spoken, perceives them intuitively in objects of nature or m 

 thought, or from his own mind creating these qualities, clothes 

 the thoughts he presents with them, and thus we, who of our- 

 selves might not perceive these poetic qualities, or create them, 

 have them forced upon us, and the art faculty is gradually awak- 

 ened and developed within us. 



And the great art- work which has served us, once created, lives 

 forever. Lives to delight and quicken the souls through all the 

 ages. 



That the art sense is so gradually produced, that this is the 

 general process of art-education is I think, the experience of all 

 artists, and we have upon it the testiraonj'' of so consummate an 

 artist as Goethe, who gives as his own experience 



" For when I think how, year by year. 



This sense hath kept unfolding; 

 Where once the barren heath spread drear, 



Now springs of joy beholding." 



