sense, is very far from corresponding with the facts. In confirmation of the theoretical side of the question it is enough to cite the classical passage which expresses the whole philosophy of the matter in a few words. "Young citizens," says Plato in the Republic, "must not be allowed to grow up amongst images of evil, lest their souls assimilate the ugliness of their surroundings. Rather they should be like men living in a beautiful and healthy place; from everything that they see and hear, loveliness like a breeze should pass into their souls and teach them without their knowing it the truth of which beauty is a manifestation." In the study of art "liking comes by looking." Children cannot learn what a beautiful work of art really is unless they have an opportunity of seeing good specimens almost every day of their lives. A love for the study of beautiful things is gained by a slow process; it cannot be dinned into the mind like the multiplication table, it was never imparted by the rapid method of acquiring knowledge which is known as "cramming." It is
Like the heaven's glorious sun,
Who doubts that children ought to be fold of the deeds of good and great men who lived before them where they live now, and loved the land and sacrificed for it all that they had, even to their lives? It is equally incumbent on parents to subject the growing child to the influence of beautiful works of art, for moral beauty is not in its roots different from, but essentially one with, the beauty which we learn to recognize in the handwork of the artist. Let a child learn to discover the beauties of a good picture, and he is helped thereby to recognize the beauty of right conduct, and what is more -- the ugliness of the opposite.
Some critics who approve these principles nevertheless are skeptical as to the children's power of appreciation. Do the little ones, as a matter of fact, care for Raphael's Sistine Madonna? The appeal to experience is likely to yield varied replies. Parents and others in charge of children differ widely in their own powers of observation, and there are many people who live constantly with children, and yet acquire only a slight knowledge of the contents of a child's mind. What has no interest for themselves people think cannot interest their child, and accordingly they overlook what they are not expecting to find. A good illustration of a child's power of understanding a work of art may be read in the memoirs of Sir F. H. Doyle. A little three-year-old child accompanied her parents to see the statue of the Dying Gladiator. To their surprise she presently put out her small hand and stroked the cold marble, saying, "Poor, poor man," with tone and gesture as expressive in their way as the famous verse of Lord Byron. Sir Francis draws the unavoidable inference that it is possible for a child of the tenderest years to grasp the spirit and purpose of a great artist as sympathetically as older persons.
The Association has so far provided pictures for Elementary and Higher Schools, but it is desirable that the advantages which it offers should be extended to nurseries and private schoolrooms. Could not Miss Christie arrange with the editor of the Parents' Review and with the branches of the Parents' Union to distribute the Association's pictures by means of some system of coupons?
The members of this Association have already heard two lectures, the first expounding the principles which underlie all pictorial art, and the second tracing the history of art from early times, and therefore I have thought that the best thing I could do would be to dwell upon some particular picture in our collection, and offer such an explanation of it as might be given to older children in a conversational way. Leaving to others the study of the technical skill displayed by the artist, and of the position of the painter in the closely connected schools of European Art, I will direct attention to the subject which has been chosen, and to the thoughts which the present treatment of it may suggest. The picture which I have brought with me is on