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 212 THE CONDOR Vol. XV The secret of this magic fortress is the value of neutral gray. To parody Goethe: Grau ist eine ganz beYondere Farbe. Gray (neutral) is a tint of a very special kind. It is the epitome or synthesis of all other colors in turn, including that color positive and negative of color, black-and-white. Its use precludes the necessity of an intimate acquaintance with color comb/nations. You do not have to puzzle over a given color and say, this is blue plus red plus green plus violet. You have only to say, this is blue plus so much (or approximately so much) neutral gray, and you have it. All this may be rice to the initiated, but it is still ':caviar to the general." Once you get the idea you cannot get away from the color-file. It has the ul- timate authority of simplicity, of logical sequence, and of comprehensiveness. One even ventures to hope that such a color-file may one day be actualized in glass or blocks of painted wood, as a recognized essential of the color-worker's ap- paratus. Vith such a device one might, for instance, by lifting off the top layer of white prisms survey all possible light tints at a glance, or by lifting off the four top layers (or whatever number you elect to have in your scheme) view all the pure colors and all gray tones thereof at a glance. This woul(l De simplicity itself. Meanwhile this mental or '.'mnemonic" color-file will be found indispensable. A PRACTICAL SYSTEM OF COLOR DESIGNATION A Partial' Critique of Ridgway's "Color Standards and Nomenclature" By WILLIAM LEON DAWSON E ARE UNDER deep and lasting obligation to Mr. Ridgway for hav- ing brought order out of chaos in-the standardization of color. He has shown a comprehensive grasp of the whole color problem, and has brought to its solution a practical sagacity never before equalled. Thanks to him we have at last a real color key. The first edition of "Color Standards and Nonenclature" might have been a hundred thousand copies instead of one thou- sand if attention could first have been' properly aroused to this most exquisite and intimate of human interests, color appreciation. However, we are over- joyed to see an authoritative beginning made. The practical standardization of color has been accomplished; but the same cannot be said of the equally practical (though perhaps not equally important) standardization of color names. The reason for this is apparent. Color names have arisen singly and at haphazard, ac- cording to the convenience, or necessity, or caprice of the individual. Collectively, they have come down to us with a thousand varying sanctions of experience, of poetry, and nature and all the handicrafts besides. For every color name that has lived, a dozen have been still-born, or died in infancy. To make selection from this motley host is not only to be arbitrary and capricious, by reason of the thousands of other names rejected, but it is to fail in the fundamental purpose, which is to fix concepts in their necessary relations. Now the f. unction of language is to communicate thought, ideas. This it does by the use of words, words which are chiefly the symbols of a common ex- perience. The more established the value of the component words, i.e., the more certain their appeal to common experience, the clearer the language, the more