n 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 one by Briton Riviere, called "Circe." Have you ever gone to see the pigs fed? Accompany me and you shall witness a scene of the most intense and absorbing gluttony which is not to be surpassed in its kind amid all the wonders of creation. As we approach the sty bearing a heavy bucket of bran and meal stirred up into a thick creamy mixture, we hear inside pushing, struggling, squealing, grunting, shrieks of excited greedy anticipation mixed with squeals of disappointment, as some porker gets shoved away by an old sow from a place near the trough which is to receive the cause of all this babel of sounds. Now we pour out the luscious nutriment. Wonderful result! In a moment the din stops. Not a sound is heard but of a furious supping, interrupted by an occasional subdued and comfortable grunt of utter enjoyment and satisfaction. If we now study the picture we shall see that the pigs are painted as at the moment they expect to be fed. See them crowding up, pushing each other over, uplifting their ugly heads, stretching their throats, which in the absence of a neck delude you into the popular error that pigs "cut their throats when they swim," look at their flexible coarsely-shaped snouts, their huge wrinkled brawny faces with small greedy eyes, and ask yourselves whether the artist has not studied nature to good purpose, in depicting the scene of animal selfishness which I have just described.
Let us now turn from this delineation of true beast life, to contemplate the fair form of the woman who sits and surveys it. What a contrast! What grace, refinement, and beauty are here! Observe the long fall of hair, gathered above the neck in a single circlet of gold, the graceful curve of the seated figure, her hands clasping her knees, and her head tilted backwards with strange but well-marked expression of countenance, and the exquisite poise and balance of the posture. At first sight the juxtaposition of so much loveliness and so much deformity is almost painful. An artist may well paint fair ladies on an errand of mercy i