removal from a date long past, that Americans may call the tomahawk period; and also that the ministry alone, as a profession, can rank with art in value of social service or nobility of mission.

Reverence for art is claimed to an extent at least equal to that paid to the science of law or of medicine-and in no degree as a favor, still less as a concession, but it is insisted on as a conspicuous right.

It is to be remembered also, that given the opportunity to examine a master-piece of art, one can appropriate only such part of it as preparatory study allows, and is benefited by only such portion as mental digestion can assimilate. All the rest is lost. Because we have strong bodily eyes we do not with these vigorous organs and by an untrained as well as undeveloped natural impulse penetrate the secrets of law or of medicine and thus with Pasteur discover the mysterious origin of deadly inoculation; or with Webster explain the perplexing point in law that involves success to our case and justice to our client.

It has been well said that learning to paint is learning to see. It is also true that not every one who possesses good natural eyes has artistic sight, though few are ready to admit the fact or to believe it of themselves. Convinced that they can look at a given object as well as anyone, they therefore conclude that they see all there is to be seen. Such an eye can stare into the works of a precious chronometer that has proved itself capable of all but absolute precision in time-keeping, and although this staring eye can see the movements and the wheels which combine in the motion, no one will contend that such unskilled sight can recognize the secret of its remarkable accuracy or be able to comprehend and measure all that is clearly visible and valuable to the eye of the expert watchmaker who understands every detail of its construction and who himself made this same chronometer. Two men are before a famous picture; one of them looks through and through and up and down the canvas, takes it all in, knows where the values are preserved, where harmonies are grouped or tones happily contrasted and why, understands the drawing, color, composition, and technique. He has subtle enjoyment of cold sky reflections skillfully mingled with warmer local tones in the representation of atmosphere. It is

clear that the picture has much of interest to say to the man who has studied the language of art. Compared with such an observer as this, the impression produced on the other person is slight. It is true that the second man sees the details of drawing and color as plainly as the first, but neither tone nor line conveys any meaning to him. They might be anything else and it would be all the same; he would be entirely satisfied. If the object of the picture be simple or plain-story-telling, his attention may be attracted for a few moments while he looks as hard as he can in an effort to display remarkable penetration by a discovery of some trifling defect. He would be greatly delighted if he could find and point to the very spot where the painter had happened to place a button less on one side of a coat than on the other. In this sadly frequent style of looking at a picture and aping what he mistakes to be the province of a critic, he imagines that he is enjoying himself profoundly—like a veritable expert! Unable to appreciate fine qualities of mind or technique, and just now engrossed with ignoble search for some trivial mistake or oversight, his lack of depth may easily be read while we clearly see the familiar contraction of his art scope. And so we are again reminded that bodily eyes see little worth seeing when mental eyes are blind.

The medical man does not pretend to be expert with intricacies of law, nor does the student of law profess to understand the cause and cure of disease, yet either one or both of them would be reluctant to admit ignorance of any detail in an art matter. This delusion is less reasonable and the cause for such conduct more inexplicable when we consider that neither of these professional men would hesitate to admit that the requirements of high art are as broad, as deep, and as exacting as those of either law or medicine. Given unlimited time in a gallery of famous pictures, neither of our two experts, without study in that direction, could furnish substantial reasons for like or dislike of the contents of a single frame. And yet such observers as these are plainly men with intelligence developed beyond and above that of the average self-constituted critic. It certainly follows that by so much as their education is broader and higher are they the more likely to form an opinion supported with some actual foundation and having possible value. And

it also follows that no opinion thus formed can or ought to be competent to dispute with that of the trained professional.

The reader is invited to experiment with the first acquaintance that he meets. As proof of the statement that the average man firmly believes himself, by nature and without study, to be a capable judge and critic on any art matter, let him venture to insist that his friend does not appreciate a fine picture and is no judge of good painting. If not exactly polite, both statements are probably true, and are very likely to result in immediate and hot discussion.

Let him, who can, explain the origin of the curious and widespread fallacy!

The occasion is here accepted to sketch in an objectionable species of the genus under consideration. Gifted with fixed and irremovable belief in his own infallible judgment, as well as thorough-going confidence in personal art-omniscience independent of all study, he is sure to disapprove of every serious grapple with art-lore. Pains-taking research as well as conscientious analysis will certainly be opposed with the full strength of a scorn, not only fine, but positive and energetic. Contemptuous or flat contradiction of opinions expressed by the trained professional on strictly technical points is scarcely concealed at all or is lightly veiled by the convenient circumlocution "that is my opinion." Of course this dictum is accompanied with the intended, if not quite defiantly expressed inference that to differ from such authority is to be surely wrong.

It is wholly out of the question for an outsider to understand the tiresome severity or the ceaseless and endless discouragements through which the well-schooled artist has worked and struggled; nor can inexperience imagine the sting of pain or rage that follows superficial and injudicious criticisms from lips otherwise accomplished and honored-mouths little used to utter folly or display ignorance.

It is evident that no professional or other pictorial art critic is completely equipped for his work who has not studied practically the art of painting-who has not floundered in spiteful masses of pigment that will only result in a dirty grey-who has not visibly spilled great splashing tears, literally weeping in discouragement over a difficulty that day after day mocked his

earnest, serious efforts and refused to be conquered—who has not regretted the hour he first used brush or color-tube and has not stormily asserted that with time and application he might manage to saw wood or cobble shoes, but to learn to paint— never!

Having fought past and through serious obstacles in study, still feeling the smart of the wounds and bearing in plain sight the scars of actual service, is it then strange that veteran painters become sensitive under criticism from those who have never even enlisted do not know the smoke of battle, and who have neither thought about nor studied the subject enough to have learned to be yet aware of the breadth and density of their ignorance. They mistake natural art taste for artistic knowledge, or an undoubted feeling for and pleasure in true art for the comprehension of its details or the understanding of its difficulties, and thus they fancy that with this unreal and unsubstantial preparation they are competent to step, pari passu, with the trained artist, tell him his faults of omission and of commission, criticize him ex cathedra, and even fluently dispute technical points which have, in the past, cost the conscientious painter much time to puzzle out and hard work to master.

It is not even desirable that we should be all gifted alike. There surely can be no disgrace in not having an ear for music or an eye for color, nor to have scant liking for the iterations of law, the potence of drug or sharpness of surgeon's knife. This same principle ought to apply to every form of art matter, but for some unaccountable reason it certainly does not. On the contrary, confessed ignorance of art and lack of breeding have grown to be considered terms synonymous.

And so, while it is true that the objectionable fact above referred to still remains unavoidable, the other consoling fact remains immovable. Thus it is that the reader is now earnestly invited to believe that when by nature, intuition, inspiration, genius, or in any other earthly way, it may be possible to attain to profound knowledge of law or of medicine without special technical study, then, in the same easy way, we may all learn to be consummate judges as well as critics in art matters, but— not till then!

F. WAYLAND FELLOWES.

UNIVERSITY TOPICS.

MATHEMATICAL CLUB.

At a meeting of the Mathematical Club, Tuesday, Oct. 16th, Mr. E. H. Moore discussed Cremona's treatment of Pascal's hexagon. Six points lying on a conic in a plane, form a figure which has many interesting properties, and which from the fact that the property first discovered and simplest was discovered by Pascal, is called Pascal's hexagon. Cremona shows that most, if not all, of these properties may be deduced from the properties of a certain relatively simple figure in three dimensions, viz: that defined by the fifteen lines which lie on a surface of the third order with a double point but do not pass through the double point.

YALE UNIVERSITY BULLETIN.

No. 67.-WEEK ENDING NOVEMBER 17, 1888.

Sunday, November 11.—Public Worship-Battell Chapel, 10.30 a. M. Rev. Professor Brastow. Yale Young Men's Christian Association Monthly Meeting-Dwight Hall, 6.30 P. M. Address by Mr. Abbott.

Monday, November 12.-Preservation of Health (Lectures to the Divinity School)—Leonard J. Sanford, M.D. Room B, East Divinity Hall, 2 P. M. Dwight Hall Lecture Course-Mr. George W. Cable, on "Some Very Old Politics." Dwight Hall, 7 P. M.

Tuesday, November 13.-Greek Readings (The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles)-Professor Reynolds. 194 Old Chapel, 6.45 P. M. Methods and Books in the Study of Latin (Lecture to the Freshman Class)—Mr. Abbott. 195 Old Chapel, 7.15-7.45 P. M.

Wednesday, November 14.-Psychology (University Lecture)-Professor Ladd. 194 Old Chapel, 4 P. M. History of Old Testament Prophecy (University Lecture)-Professor Harper. Room B, Cabinet, 5 P. M. Semitic Club-Paper on Assyrian Work and Workers. Room B, East Divinity Hall, 7 P. M. Phi Beta Kappa Society Meeting-106 North College, 8.30 P. M.