Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/465

Rh This implies the perception of art. In this we have the process of growth, for the standard of appreciation is built up out of a countless number of these esthetic judgments—judgments rendered by the joint action of the emotion and the intellect. Hence the art-teacher is typified by the horticulturist who trims, buds and nourishes, making all conditions as favorable as possible, but recognizing that here his power ends, and that all growth must come from within. As all plant culture requires essentially the same methods, so the cultivation of appreciation rests on a few identical principles, no matter what branch of art is studied. Beneath the apparent diversity, art is a unity.—When the pupils of Angelo asked: 'Master, which is the greatest art?' he replied: 'I know of but one art.' So that our art instruction must rest on the great fact that art is not something done in a corner, but is as broad as human life. Not a nook nor cranny of human activity which does not hold some gem of joyous workmanship. Art shuns no medium, but clothes alike the Parthenon and the humblest object of daily use with dignity and. beauty. As it forms some part of the environment of every child we naturally begin to build its standard of appreciation with the material nearest to hand. In literature, we do not begin with Wordsworth and Emerson, nor in music with the Ninth Symphony; why should we begin the study of plastic art with its most exalted forms? Life's interest centers in its immediate environment, and as it is with this that all rational education begins, we commence our instruction by teaching children to appreciate the art in the common and familiar objects which they touch and handle every day. In spite of the most rigid demands of utility, a big percentage of man's toil is devoted to the ornamentation of practical objects. The concrete world takes on every whimsical shape or color that can be thought of to solicit favor, and we pick out objects chiefly for the attributes which please the eye. Few will deny that very much of this is in bad taste and does not satisfy the esthetic sense, but gratifies some merely transitory feeling. Notwithstanding, we surround ourselves with these tawdry objects, because in the bewildering flood of forms and colors in which human effort takes shape we must direct our course by the chart with which we are most familiar, and this as the world goes is a price-list. Trusting too much to this, and urged on by fickle motives, it is not strange that in our search for art we lose all bearings, like the sailors perishing from thirst who hailed a distant ship for a little fresh water: 'Dip down! You're in the Amazon!' was signaled back.

Though few are aware of it, in every neighborhood are some works of art in daily use, and more hidden away in garrets, such as articles of table service, embroideries, household furniture, toys, kitchen utensils and workmen's tools. Nearly every kind of article has at times been made by artists. What a surprise to most young people to find out that