EDUCATION OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL ROOM. 105 



But in this brief estimate of educating forces we cannot overlook the exalted 

 and refining power of music and art, nor reject their contributions to the culture 

 and happiness of the human race. 



The meaning of song goes deep into the heart. No one can express in a 

 logical form the effect music has on man. It is a form of unfathomable speech, 

 warming the soul for heroic deeds. According to a fable, Orpheus was presented 

 with a lyre by his father, who taught him to play upon it. He attained such a skill 

 that nothing could withstand the charm of his music. Men and wild animals 

 thronged round him entranced, the trees crowded about him and the rocks soft- 

 ened under tlie magic of his notes. His wife dying, he followed her into the 

 realms of Pluto and there sang his woes so pathetically that the ghosts wept. Tan- 

 talus forgot his thirst, the fairies shed tears and Pluto consented to restore his 

 lost wife. 



However much of fancy there may be in this, music forms the universal 

 language which, when all other tongues were confounded, was left unchanged 

 amid the babbling multitude. All nations can sing' together when they cannot 

 understand each other so as to converse. Music is the inarticulate speech of the 

 heart, and cannot be compressed into words, because it is infinite. And this 

 universal teacher teaches kings and peasant, and puts its polishing hand upon 

 the farmer's son and the statesjnan. It is our inspiration to patriotism, philan- 

 thropy and religion, an agent more effectual than the instruction of the professor, 

 in shaping the character and destiny of nations and men. 



Intimately related to music is art, a wonderful teacher; also a perpetual force 

 in character building, an inspiration to the student to seek a more intimate ac- 

 quaintance with his own powers. "Art is the enduring record of man's purest 

 conceptions in tones universally and forever intelligible." 



However broad the scholarship, art improves the taste, refines and polishes 

 the manners, and gives the luster and brilliancy to all other attainments. Art 

 establishes a holy communion between man and nature. Ruskin says: "Man 

 is not a child of nature like a hare. That nature is worse to man than a step- 

 mother, persecuting him to the death if he does not return to the realm of art 

 where he belongs." The gallery of art runs back through the ages of the world's 

 life, and has gathered the finest conceptions of the finite mind. Within the 

 golden gates of this temple the canvas and the stone are full of vitaHty and 

 intense v/ith expression. Along the polished walls of this temple are hung the 

 masterpieces of the great artists. Along its lengthened corridors architecture has 

 inscribed her name and lent her loveliness for its pillar and canopy. In her gor- 

 geous aisles the sculptured marble stands radiant with grace and beauty, and 

 from the canvas and the stone the mind catches the divine outline, the fair ideal 

 of a perfect life. The productions of pencil, brush and chisel, the frescoes, the 

 carved work and painting of the ancient temple and modern gallery are the silent 

 teachers of the coming ages, the high ideals toward which each new generation 

 aspires. 



