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Vinci; and he was an Italian. I will not presume to speak for the Americans, but I am sure that, in the Englishman, the want of this admirable symmetry of the Greeks is a thousand times more great and crying than in any Italian. The results of the want show themselves most glaringly, perhaps, in our architecture, but they show themselves, also, in all our art. Fit details strictly combined, in view of a large general result nobly conceived; that is just the beautiful symmetria prisca of the Greeks, and it is just where we English fail, where all our art fails. Striking ideas we have, and well-executed details we have; but that high symmetry which, with satisfying and delightful effect, combines them, we seldom or never have. The glorious beauty of the Acropolis at Athens did not come from single fine things stuck about on that hill, a statue here, a gateway there, no, it arose from all things being perfectly combined for a supreme total effect. What must not an Englishman feel about our deficiencies in this respect, as the sense for beauty, whereof this symmetry is an essential element, awakens and strengthens within him! what will not one day be his respect and desire for Greece and its symmetria prisca, when the scales drop from his eyes as he walks the London streets, and he sees such a lesson in meanness as the Strand, for instance, in its true deformity! But here we are coming to our friend Mr. Ruskin's province, and I will not intrude upon it, for he is its very sufficient guardian.

And so we at last find, it seems, we find flowing in favor of the humanities the natural and necessary stream of things, which seemed against them when we started. The "hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits," this good fellow carried hidden in his nature, apparently, something destined to develop into a necessity for humane letters. Nay, more; we seem finally to be even led to the further conclusion that our hairy ancestor carried in his nature, also, a necessity for Greek.

And therefore, to say the truth, I cannot really think that humane letters are in much actual danger of being thrust out from their leading place in education, in spite of the array of

authorities against them at this moment. So long as human nature is what it is, their attractions will remain irresistible. As with Greek so with letters generally: they will some day come, we may hope, to be studied more rationally, but they will not lose their place. What will happen will rather be that there will be crowded into education other matters besides, far too many; there will be, perhaps, a period of unsettlement and confusion and false tendency; but letters will not in the end lose their leading place. If they lose it for a time, they will get it back again. We shall be brought back to them by our wants and aspirations. And a poor humanist may possess his soul in patience, neither strive nor cry, admit the energy and brilliancy of the partisans of physical science, and their present favor with the public, to be far greater than his own, and still have a happy faith that the nature of things works silently on behalf of the studies which he loves, and that, while we shall all have to acquaint ourselves with the great results reached by modern science, and to give ourselves as much training in its disciplines as we can conveniently carry, yet the majority of men will always require humane letters; and so much the more, as they have the more and the greater results of science to relate to the need in man for conduct, and to the need in him for beauty.

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION AND PRACTICE IN WRITING

1. Explain clearly what Arnold thinks is the value of the study of literature. 2. Discuss how far belief in the special efficacy of science or of literature in education may be a matter of temperament. Possibly Arnold and Huxley might be used as typical cases. 3. Set forth Arnold's definition of culture. See his essay, “Sweetness and Light," in Culture and Anarchy for further elaboration of this rather famous definition. 4. How well has Arnold succeeded in uniting literature and science by his statement, "all learning is scientific which is systematically laid out and followed up to its original sources" (page 100)? 5. How far may Arnold's definition of literature as "all knowledge that reaches us through books" be accepted? 6. Endeavor to explain in simple fashion what is the meaning of each

of the four powers which Arnold indicates as going into the building up of human life. 7. Set forth Arnold's grounds for his staunch belief in the classical literatures. If his position does not appeal to you, give your criticism of it.

THE FUNCTION OF ART!
JOHN CAIRD

[John Caird (1820-1898) was a distinguished Scotch divine and philosopher. From 1873 to the close of his life he was vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Glasgow. It was his custom to deliver at the opening of each session of the University an address on some subject connected with the studies of the University, or on the work of some great author-philosopher or theologian, scientific or literary man—who might be regarded as representative of one of these studies. The selection here given is a portion of one of these addresses, entitled The Study of Art.]

It would seem at first sight that an inquiry into the uses of art involves a contradiction in terms. What we seek in a work of art is not instruction or information, not material or other advantages, but simply pleasure or enjoyment. Music, painting, poetry, and the other fine arts, whatever they do for the embellishment or decoration of human life, obviously contribute nothing to the supply of its practical necessities. They may form the luxury of idleness or the innocent pastime of our hours of leisure, but in themselves they have no moral purpose or practical utility; and whenever pleasure clashes with profit, they may even become noxious-diverting, as they do, time and thought from the serious work or sterner tasks of life.

> Moreover, the view of the function of art that relegates it to the province of the ornamental as distinguished from the useful, seems to be sanctioned not merely by popular thought, but also by philosophic theory. Among those who speculate on the subject the accepted theory seems to be that which is embodied in the phrase, "Art for art's sake," meaning by 1 Reprinted by permission from University Addresses, James MacLehose and Sons.

that, that art is to be prosecuted for itself, and not for any ulterior end. The end of a work of art is not to point a moral or to convey a lesson in science or philosophy, or even to soften the manners and refine the habits of society; but to be, in and for itself, a source of delight. It appeals to what has been called the "play impulse" in human nature, to the spontaneous enjoyment of activities which men put forth, not for the wages they are to earn or the benefits they are to procure thereby, but simply because they find in the free play of their energies an immediate satisfaction and joy. When the sympathetic observer stands in rapt admiration before some great masterpiece of painting or sculpture, or when ear and soul yield themselves up to the charm of the great composer's art in song, cantata, opera, oratorio, and vague, undefined emotions, passionate or pathetic, are awakened within the breast, no thought of ulterior use or profit crosses the mind. Its experience is that of absorption in present, immediate enjoyment. And, on the other hand, if we think of the attitude of the artist's mind in producing, equally foreign to it is the aim at anything beyond the work itself. He paints or sings or writes simply because the creative impulse is upon him, and he cannot choose but give it vent; because a dream of beauty has taken possession of his soul, and it is joy or rapture to him to express it.

But while this view of the essentially non-utilitarian character of art may be freely conceded, there is nothing inconsistent with the concession in claiming for works of art a higher function than that of recreation or amusement, or in the assertion that they contribute in no slight or inappreciable measure to the formation of character and the intellectual and moral education of the community. In making this claim, however, it must be admitted that, in one point of view, the principle of "art for art's sake" is profoundly true. The educative function of art is, at best, an indirect one. Whatever intellectual enlightenment or moral elevation is to be gained from works of imagination, to communicate such benefits cannot be the conscious aim of the artist; nor is the merit of his work to be estimated by its didactic excellencies. Bad or indifferent

painting or poetry is no more redeemed from artistic inferiority by the moral or religious aim of the author than ill-dressed food or ill-made clothes by the respectability or piety of the cook or tailor. And, on the other hand, a poem or picture may have many of the highest qualities of art, though the subject may be coarse or voluptuous, or the treatment such as to offend our moral susceptibilities.

The poetry of Shelley and Byron contains much which, from a religious or moral point of view, cannot escape censure, while the literary form is of the highest artistic merit. The works of Dr. Watts and Mr. Tupper are full of pious teaching and unexceptional moralizing, yet, regarded as poetry, both are execrable. The deepest truth, in short, the noblest moral lessons may be conveyed in a form of art, but it is as unconsciously, with as little of a didactic aim, as are the lessons which Nature herself is ever teaching. The teachings of rock and stream and sea, the moralities addressed to us by stars and flowers, by autumn woods and mountain solitudes, do not reach us in the form of argumentative disquisitions, but of feelings and emanations which win their way insensibly into the soul. There are better sermons in stones and in the running brooks than human pen ever indited, but the lessons which these unconsecrated preachers address to are innocent of logic or formal admonition.

Oh, to what uses shall we put

The wild-weed flower that simply blows
And is there any moral shut

Within the bosom of the rose?

But any man who walks the mead

In bud or blade or bloom may find,

According as his humors lead,

A meaning suited to his mind;

And liberal applications lie

In Art, like Nature, dearest friend,

So 'twere to cramp its use if I

Should hook it to some useful end.

And the reason for what has now been said is obvious. It arises from the very nature of art as distinguished from sci

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