often incorrectly used. Science relates to
principles, and art to practice. The word art is derived from a Greek
word signifying utility, profit. Arts are divided into liberal and
mechanical.

What are the Liberal Arts?

The liberal arts are those that are noble and ingenious, or which are
worthy of being cultivated without any immediate regard to the
pecuniary profit arising from them. They are Poetry, Music, Painting,
Sculpture, Architecture, Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, Astronomy, and
Navigation. The arts which relate more especially to the sight and
hearing are also called Fine Arts.

_Pecuniary_, relating to money.

_Military_, belonging to soldiers, or to arms.

What do the Fine Arts usually include?

All those which are more or less addressed to the sentiment of taste,
and whose object is pleasure; these are more especially Music,
Painting, Sculpture, and Poetry.

What are the Mechanical Arts?

Those in which the hand and body are more concerned than the mind, and
which are chiefly cultivated for the sake of the profit attending
them. To this class belong those which furnish us with the necessaries
of life, and which are commonly called trades, as carpentry, weaving,
printing, &c. There are also many other arts, as the art of writing,
&c.

When was the art of Writing invented?

It is supposed that the art was invented before the Deluge: it was
certainly practised long before the time of Moses. There were,
doubtless, many steps taken in slow succession before the invention of
alphabetic writing. Perhaps the earliest method might have been that
which is still employed among the untutored tribes of North American
Indians, who record events by picture-painting of the rudest
description. Picture-painting was afterwards gradually converted into
the hieroglyphical system, which is still the only kind of writing
among the Chinese. It is not known who invented the alphabetic system
of writing.

_Deluge_, a flood: the term used in particular to denote
that mighty flood of water with which God swept away the
first nations of the earth for their wickedness.

_Alphabetic_, from alphabet, the series of written signs of
language called letters. The word is formed from _alpha_,
_beta_, the names of the first two letters of the Greek
alphabet.

_Untutored_, ignorant, unlearned.

Were not the Egyptians quite early acquainted with this art?

Yes, they w