CHRISTMAS GIVING AS A MEANS OF CULTURE 



81 



their quaint music, all combine to form a 

 world of delight. 



The tastes which are planted in child- 

 hood are those which are going to rule 

 the adult years. The child who is asso- 

 ciated with the refined and the beautiful 

 through his early years will not love the 

 coarse and vulgar in his maturity, and 

 this applies to all the finer side of life — 

 to music, to books, to pictures, to thought, 

 and to conduct. There is an atmosphere 

 about the person whose formative period 

 has been spent amid surroundings of cul- 

 ture that none other ever has, and it can- 

 not be gained when the years of childhood 

 and youth are past. 



Objects of beauty always have within 

 themselves the material for conversation 

 and for education. The child who is given 

 a statuette of the Winged Victory is at 

 once sensitive to the air f life and of 

 vigor, and the onward rush of the draper- 

 ies. He will surely ask, "What was a 

 Winged Victory? How did it get its 

 name ? Why hasn't it any head If the 

 mother does not know how to answer her 

 child she at once increases her own stock 

 of culture by finding the required infor- 

 mation, and then the small questioner will 

 learn in the story she tells him something 

 which puts him in touch with the world 

 of long ago as with that of today, and with 

 the world of art. 



There is no boy, whether he be five or 

 fifteen, who will not like the Disc Thrower, 

 and The Gladiator, and their splendid 

 bodies will be an inspiration to him to 

 have his own grow into like perfection. It 

 is said that the Greeks owed their physical 

 perfection — which the world has never 

 since equaled — to the frequent exposure 

 of the perfect nude bodies in games and 

 elsewhere. The law of suggestion works 

 with this as with all other things, and the 

 body will move to more graceful curves 

 and poses if the eyes rest only upon those 

 which are beautiful. The litheness and 

 Bavage grace of Barye's animals make them 

 gifts to be chosen for all who enjoy the 

 beauty of animal life. 



Nor is it necessary to confine one's 

 choice to the copies of old masters. There 

 are Sargent, Abbey, Tarbell, Inness, and 

 others among modern American painters, 

 to say nothing of those abroad, whose 

 paintings are reproduced by photographs, 

 and some of these prints, like the Cosmos 

 pictures, are very inexpensive and lovely 

 in tone, being printed on tint. Sargent's 

 "Prophets," painted for the Boston Pub- 

 lic Library, may be had in its sets of four 

 in large size for fifty cents or a dollar the 

 set. In one room there is a frieze of pic- 

 tures of this kind mounted as simply as 

 possible, and covered with glass for pro- 

 tection. The absence of much detail in 

 the prints makes them plain to the sight 

 though hung higher than one ordinarily 

 places photographs. In a certain library 

 the verses of the Eubaiyat with Vedder's 

 illustrations are frariied in a long line to 

 form a band between two doors. These 

 are placed at just the level of the eyes, 

 and the effect is as pleasing as the idea is 

 unique. Moreover, every time one passes 

 it he gains a glimpse of a rare picture, 

 and reads, almost without knowing it, a 

 beautiful verse. Something of this sort 

 would be a gift for the adults. 



There is a fancy now for an arrange- 

 ment of an author's photograph, auto- 

 graph, and a selection from his works 

 in one frame, and this has its advantage 

 rather in the beauty of the thought than 

 in the thing itself. Bookmakers have 

 evolved a system of color illustrations 

 which is beyond cavil. It is not reserved 

 for editions de luxe, but may be found in 

 some of the newer books of as low price 

 as one dollar and fifty cents. This ap- 

 plies to books for adults as well as to books 

 for children. 



In seeking those gifts which make for 

 culture it is not necessary to expend much 

 money. Eeproductions of paintings in 

 warm, soft tones cost very little. Casts 

 and statuettes of different sizes in plaster 

 Tnay be bought as low as forty cents. A 

 cast of the Venus de Milo — that perfect 

 embodiment of the perfect woman — may 



