THE RELATION OF ESTHETICS TO INDUSTRY. 665 



dustry have also received great benefit from the Centennial Exhibition. But we, 

 as a people, have much to learn ; we are yet on the threshhold. Our homes as 

 receptacles of art are poverty-stricken. The time when every article we use shall 

 give forth the fragrance of good art feeling is yet to come. 



It may not be amiss, in this connection, to consider what are some of the es- 

 sential requisites of excellence in art industry. You will remember that I divided 

 the elements of excellence into the obtrusive and the abstruse. 



Of the obtrusive elements, stands, First, Utility. Nothing has a reason to exist 

 unless it serves a purpose. Nature abhors uselessness as intensely as she abhors 

 that vacuum which we hear so much about. She never, in all of her labors, cre- 

 ates anything that has not a definite work to perform, and when the task is ac- 

 complished disintegration commences, and the elements of which the thing is 

 composed are hurried off to the performance of other duties. 



Second — Durability. Other things being equal, that article of manufacture 

 which is to all appearance most durable, is accounted most desirable The chair 

 that would endure but one sitting, no matter how pretty it might be otherwise, 

 would have but little art value. And, of two similar chairs, the one that would 

 outlast the greater number of sittings would be the most valuable. The mediaeval 

 architects understood this principle. Using, as they did, as little material as pos- 

 sible, their structures always took that pyramidal form which the eye knows to be 

 the form of durability. The old cathedrals standing to-day bear evidence of their 

 wisdom. There is something in the mere capacity to endure that excites our ad- 

 miration, and especially attractive is it when we find it in the works of men. 



These attributes of excellence — utility and durability — are dominant; their 

 claims are above all other claims. They admit of no interference with their rights. 

 Any object of industrial art which does not possesss them is not what it should 

 have been. 



There is a false idea of art — notably prevalent during the Renaissance 

 period, which dates from the fifteenth century until now — which places the claims 

 of beauty before those of durability, and ofttimes of utility. Articles of furniture 

 were cut and carved into all manner of grotesque shapes, under the impression 

 that so they were more beautiful, though the nature of the material used cried loud- 

 ly against it. 



{Continued.) 



It is not surprising that barley, potatoes and many other plants and vegeta- 

 bles ripen in the most northern latitudes, seeing that they are exposed to a con- 

 siderable amount of heat during two or three months of the year. In those 

 regions where the sun hardly descends below the horizon in summer, there is no 

 night, only a short twilight; the growing plant, therefore, enjoys permanently, 

 and without interruption, the heat and light which it requires. 



