s of style are comparable in importance to a familiarity
with the principles that should guide the rearing of children. Grant
that the taste may be improved by reading the poetry written in extinct
languages; yet it is not to be inferred that such improvement of taste
is equivalent in value to an acquaintance with the laws of health.
Accomplishments, the fine arts, _belles-lettres_, and all those things
which, as we say, constitute the efflorescence of civilisation, should
be wholly subordinate to that instruction and discipline in which
civilisation rests. _As they occupy the leisure part of life, so should
they occupy the leisure part of education._

Recognising thus the true position of aesthetics, and holding that while
the cultivation of them should form a part of education from its
commencement, such cultivation should be subsidiary; we have now to
inquire what knowledge is of most use to this end--what knowledge best
fits for this remaining sphere of activity? To this question the answer
is still the same as heretofore. Unexpected though the assertion may be,
it is nevertheless true, that the highest Art of every kind is based on
Science--that without Science there can be neither perfect production
nor full appreciation. Science, in that limited acceptation current in
society, may not have been possessed by various artists of high repute;
but acute observers as such artists have been, they have always
possessed a stock of those empirical generalisations which constitute
science in its lowest phase; and they have habitually fallen far below
perfection, partly because their generalisations were comparatively few
and inaccurate. That science necessarily underlies the fine arts,
becomes manifest, _a priori_, when we remember that art-products are all
more or less representative of objective or subjective phenomena; that
they can be good only in proportion as they conform to the laws of these
phenomena; and that before they can thus conform, the artist must know
what these laws are. That this _a priori_ conclusion tallies with
experience, we shall soon see.

Youths preparing for the practice of sculpture have to acquaint
themselves with the bones and muscles of the human frame in their
distribution, attachments, and movements. This is a portion of science;
and it has been found needful to impart it for the prevention of those
many errors which sculptors who do not possess it commit. A knowledge of
mechanical principl