judge from the most modern
paintings of the tone of mind of their own time, of its impatience and
restlessness and want of hope. Let them compare the patient finish, the
complete thought given to every detail in the works of the greatest
painters, the accumulated light and depth, the abounding life, with the
hasty, jagged, contemporary manner of painting, straining into harshness
from want of patience, tense and angular from want of real vitality,
exhausted from the absence of inward repose. They will comment for
themselves upon the pessimism to which so many surrender themselves,
taking with them their religious art, with its feeble Madonnas and
haggard saints, without hope or courage or help, painted out of the
abundance of their own heart's sadness. This contrast carries much
teaching to the children of to-day if they can understand it, for each
one who sets value upon faith and hope and resolution and courage in art
is a unit adding strength to the line of defence against the invasions
of sadness and dejection of spirit.

These considerations belong to the moral and spiritual value of the
study of art, in the early years of an education intended to be general.
They are of primary importance although in themselves only indirect
results of the study. As to its direct results, it may be said in
general that two things must be aimed at during the years of school
life, appreciation of the beautiful in the whole realm of art, and some
very elementary execution in one or other branch, some doing or making
according to the gift of each one.

The work on both sides is and can be only preparation, only the
establishment of principles and the laying of foundations; if anything
further is attempted during school life it is apt to throw the rest of
the education out of proportion, for in nothing whatever can a girl
leaving the school-room be looked upon as having finished. It is a great
deal if she is well-grounded and ready to begin. Even the very branches
of study to which a disproportioned space has been allowed will suffer
the penalty of it later on, for the narrow basis of incomplete
foundations tends to make an ill-balanced superstructure which cannot
bear the stress of effort required for perfection without falling into
eccentricity or wearing itself out. Both misfortunes have been seen
before now when infant prodigies have been allowed to grow on one side
only. Restraint and control and general building up tend to stre