16
A PHASE OF REFORM.
storm-cloud contains the vapor which will ripen his grain, that in no department of the domain of Nature is that which delights the eye neglected or despised. If the world created for us is thus beautiful, is it not our privilege, aye, our duty even, to make the world we create as pleasing and as joy-giving as brain can devise and hand can fashion? Have not we a divine right to the creation and possession of beauty? Down through the ages have come the rude, simple carvings of the Stone era. And ever since, the idea of ornamentation has been inherent in the human mind. Brought to light by various causes and under different circumstances, the forms assumed have been manifold. Under the patronage of princes, artists achieved magnificent results; art found an abiding place in tombs, temples and palaces, benefiting chiefly those who already had the most and needed the least. In the last hundred years a great change has been wrought. With the spread of liberty and the dependence of free and enlightened governments upon the education and refinement of the masses, art in the home has been encouraged. Not lavish expenditure, not gaudy ostentation do we need, but a cultivation of that pure, perfect taste which makes of the simplest dwelling a home of beauty and comfort. It is not for the wild aesthetic crazes which sweep over a country from east to west like
"Summer gusts of sudden birth and doom, Whose sound and motion not alone declare But are their whole of being."
that I plead. It is for the art which "does its duty in completing the comforts and refining the pleasures of daily occurrence and familiar service." The Michael Angelos and the Murillos have been potent factors in the world, but there is a more widely-spread call to-day for the humble worker in the arts whose greatest reward is the consciousness of having aided in enlarging the sensibilities of his brotherman, in increasing his means of enjoyment, and in preparing him for the appreciation of the most elevating and ennobling art.
To one living in an atmosphere of refinement, in daily intercourse with the highest and best that has been attained, the possibility of wrong-doing is lessened, higher aims are inspired, a nobler life is lived. The more true art a nation possesses, the better and the stronger will it be, if the art is created for and by the many.
American art is only in its infancy. Whether it shall have a long and a glorious record depends upon the people. Prejudice must be overcome, errors corrected, public opinion rightly formed. When this is accomplished, when the home becomes the temple of beauty, when intelligence and culture are universal, then America shall be "for all the world a source of light, a center of peace, mistress of Learning and the Arts."
A PHASE OF REFORM.
W. H. JOHNSON, Normal Department, OTTAWA, KANSAS.
REFORM is a characteristic of our era. The natural and gradual growth of civil and political institutions still tend toward a higher plane of refinement. Never, in the history of the world, have the energies which bespeak the destiny of a nation shown such wonderful activity as in the last century. Not only is this manifested in the wealth and splendor which surround us, but by the fact
that strenuous efforts are put-forth to crush even the appearance of evil which might originate from the freedom we enjoy.
We ask, and quite naturally too, for the most active agency in the perpetuation of our cause, and the schools of the country answer the question. What have they already accomplished? One hundred years ago our greatness was but a dream, a faint ray of light vanishing in the dim future;