at any time could be found a model posing. Special care was given to the study of form, chiefly made with leadpencil and charcoal. In this life-class students from the other departments joined, for it concerned the landscape-painter, etcher, and illustrator as closely as the portrait-painter. No matter how proficient they might have been before the war, they were set to draw with the greatest care from the model, trying to learn the meaning of the swing of the figure, its construction, the placing of light and shade, and the character of each individual model.

The contrast of the spirit of the students in the various phases of their work was very evident here. In the morning the hall was a mass of busy, noisy workers examining and discussing the exhibits. In the afternoon it was filled with an atmosphere of concentrated study, and so silent that one could have heard a pin drop.

In the early part of the day it was the concourse for students from all departments, particularly in composition and illustration, a kind of clearinghouse, in fact. If a man wanted to find out just where his work stood, he brought it in here and compared notes with his fellow-students. It was these meetings that brought out real talent and produced the greatest encouragement. The opportunity to compare one piece of work with another was practical criticism of the most effective kind. A specific subject was given out every week. On criticism day every student had to present his study of this subject, complete, at the appointed time, thus giving him a chance to show his full hand, his strength in the treatment of the subject, as well as in composition, drawing, and color.

On one red-letter day a subject was so well treated by a student that the French master from the École des Beaux Arts signed his own name on

the canvas over the student's name, a compliment which created a furor of enthusiasm and delight among the assembled students.

The subject of "Boating" was so provocative of the study of color, gaiety, and action, that there was evident the real spirit in which the soldier-students must have created their pictures. The subject of labor was so well treated by many that the individual tastes and trend of character of the students were often writ large upon their canvases. "Dancing" was a subject which brought out many varying personal moods. One student in particular showed by his canvas that he had to go back to the musty ages of Egypt for his inspiration, while other boys showed the dance up to date. One study was of the passing skirt-dancer, in a dingily lighted street of Paris, charmingly expressed in color and tone.

In this room, also, the etching-class met once a week, composed of those who were most advanced in drawing. They found that this beautiful art could express their ideals eloquently with its sensitive lines of black and white. Notre Dame, the cathedral that has been interpreted in all manners of arts, still proves a beautiful subject for etchers to work from. A little old church behind a château was etched by a soldier-student who had been employed during the war as an entertainer in the army. He had difficulty in getting his transfer papers ordering him to the school, so that he did not arrive until after the school had officially closed. This did not discourage him or the instructor in etching. He was at once given the opportunity to work, and had time to complete a few very charming examples.

Wood-engraving was not forgotten in the organization of the many departments, and those who worked in this class proved that this beautiful old art is very much alive, and capable of strong expression of modern thought and feeling.

Finally, a few words must be given to describe the work of one of the most interesting and progressive of the departments that of illustrating and so-called "commercial art." There is a

tendency among the more academic painters and teachers to belittle this field and to stigmatize it as basically and artistically separate and distinct from the other fields. There is a certain snobbishness inherent in this attitude of superiority much to be deplored and deprecated. Do not the material and purely utilitarian things of life lend themselves to artistic treatment, to the interpretation or rendition which an artist's hand and brain and spirit can supply? May not posters and advertisements, for whatever prime purpose they may be designed, be given effective and harmonious form, to their increased efficiency as well as to the gratification of the taste of those who see them?

In the class for this work at the school it was taught that a work used for practical purposes may yet stand alone as a thing of beauty, even though it be designed to be sold to a business man for advertising purposes; that as a picture it may express fine quality in harmony of color, composition, and drawing.

This class was taken to the studio of a great French painter. Almost before he welcomed the students the master apologized because the students saw on his easel a black-and-white drawing of a war poster. All artists seem to think they must apologize to one another for this kind of work.

The students were, in fact, astonished to see in this master's studio drawings for posters. However, noth

ing daunted this aged artist, a master of line drawing. It did not matter to him how his works were sold, so long as they could be sent out broadcast with credit to their creator.

For two hours he placed on his easel drawing after drawing, and without a word convinced every student in the room that great art can be expressed in a poster. The posters showed that this master not only understood the subject, but that in every line, as in the manner of handling, he expressed the brutality of this horrible war. When the students thought they had seen all he had to show, what was their surprise when he placed many exquisite pastels on the same easel on which he had ex

hibited the posters, handled with that exquisite touch and delicacy of line that is necessary in pastel portraiture of children.

But did these pastels express more of what is truly great art than some of those wonderful posters, which rested in the category of commercial art? Thus the students returned to their work with broader views of their careers, as well as of the significance of art in human life. They understood that as long as their ideals were expressed in a truthful and clean way,

their esthetic ideal would not suffer, and that they would find many channels in the commercial world where they could make a living, and at the same time direct the mind of the public to higher appreciation of the fine arts.

Some of these students were very agreeably agreeably surprised before leaving France. One soldier received a position at the head of one of the largest "commercial" art firms in Paris. Five other illustrators were given work by French publishing companies. This

practical appreciation of the work of these men and of the school was highly gratifying; but it makes us ask, now that the school is closed, is it not time that we in America weigh our duty toward our art students, now returned home to an apparently unresponsive country? When will the American Government and American business men realize, as in France, that the artist is essential to the national life, whether in the industrial, commercial, educational, or religious field?

Our soldier art-students worked hard, early and late, and to good effect. As servants of the American Government their output is the property of the nation; their landscapes and portraits, architectural drawings, sculptures, etchings, and wood-engravings have been packed up and sent over to America. Will this material and these

A

T bottom, the objection of the vers-librist to metrical verse is like the animosity aroused in most people by the organ-grinder who essays to subdue the emotions of the passing throng on a snowy Christmas eve with "Home, Sweet Home." It is a beautiful melody, but what right has the organ-grinder to appropriate it to his personal advantage? The vers-librist insists upon every poet's originating his own tune, instead of borrowing one that has been effective on other occasions.

It seems to have been overlooked that prose, too, is in danger of lapsing as frequently as verse into hurdy-gurdyism. If free verse, why not free prose? One may say, in general, that when a man is caught intentionally writing or speaking prose rhythmically, it behooves the gentle reader to beware. has ulterior motives.

He

raise iconoclastic hands against meter. Rhythm is different. There you approach holy ground. If free verse is not metrical, it is more abundantly rhythmical than conventional verse. What, in fact, distinguishes it from its more respectable cousin is its freedom from the shackles that limit rhythmical complexity, rhyme, and meter. But one would err grossly if one were to assume that prose, the limit, as mathematicians would say, toward which free verse approaches, is rhythmless. On the contrary, the most recent investigations have demonstrated that this is the most rhythmical-that is, the most variously rhythmical of all the forms of writing.

The inquiry into the part rhythm plays in prose style was started by Aristotle, and followed up rather gropingly by a few other classical rhetoricians. Cicero, who knew a thing or two about the subtle art of persuasion, paid considerable attention to the subject and laid down a few arbitrary rules for the guidance of his successors. Since those days the matter has been glanced at casually now and then, as by Bishop Hurd in his comments upon Addison's style, though only in recent days has there been a really determined effort to clear up the whole subject in a scientific manner. There is, we may now say with assurance, no doubt that rhythm is omnipresent in prose; or, as the verslibrist would say, the opportunities for camouflaging with the aid of rhythm are more numerous in prose than in

verse.

Great honor is due Professor Saintsbury, one of the late investigators, for his Columbus-like daring in launching out upon the ocean of English prose in quest of "feet" with Greek names, which he conceives to be the essence of rhythm. We remember how elusive a task the Latin professor set us in our college days when he ordered us to find "sapphics," "alcaics," "choriambs," and the rest, which he affirmed the poet had certainly placed in his poem. Professor Saintsbury had no such assurance, yet he sought, and found, feet in all the masters of English prose from Alfred to Stevenson, employing the crude, but handy, instrument of the college student, scansion. A wonderful assort

ment of feet it is that Professor Saintsbury displays as the result of his thrilling voyage "iambs," "trochees," "anapæsts," "molossi," "pæons," and everything else that has a Greek name. It is a highly entertaining concert he treats us to, marred only by the suspicion that it would be impossible to find any prose that would not by the scanning test prove to be crowded with feet. For, obviously, one cannot read on forever without accenting something and stopping here and there. Feet are inevitable, and as there is no aristocracy of feet, one being just as good as another in Professor Saintsbury's view, all distinction between more and less rhythmical prose disappears. He might have taken any dusty old legal document or any succession of sounds; he might have listened to the dripping rain, and have heard the same "dactyls," "spondees," "iambs," and all the other feet; for the faculty of rhythmization is in the ear, and will shape the most monotonous material into rhythmical systems.

Professor Patterson has attacked the problem in more scientific fashion. He has employed a dozen other witnesses besides himself, has made use of timeregistering and voice-photographing apparatus, statistical analysis and a seemingly professional musical personal equipment. While Professor Saintsbury left everything to the decision of his own ear, Professor Patterson leaves it to the chronoscope, the phonograph, the camera, and the drum. That is, he says he does. Actually, he might as well have thrown away that part of his book that describes his experiments, instead of putting it in a confused appendix, where nobody will ever look at it until the next PH.D. candidate in this

field turns up. The admirable discussion in the body of his book would have stood, as it does, independently. Syncopation, acceleration, sense of swing, are undoubtedly psychological factors that condition the phenomenon of prose rhythm. It remains true, nevertheless, that rhythmical effects which require an ear laboriously drilled in Greek prosody or the excessive refinements of laboratory machinery to detect are not those that are felt by readers of prose.