A

and Business.

MAGNATE" has lately been making some remarks in disparagement of a college education as a preparation for business, which perhaps deserve more attention than they have received. He was addressing an assembly of newsboys, of whom few or none could expect to "go through college." It was entirely College natural and proper that he should emphasize the fact that, nevertheless, they might reasonably look forward to becoming useful and prosperous and even eminent citizens. But he went much farther. He told them that a college education was a distinct and grievous handicap, and that the boy who spent the four or five years before his legal majority in study was at a hopeless disadvantage, compared with the boy who spent them in actual work for pay.

Evidently, if this magnate be right, the oldfashioned boy who “worked his way through college" was all wrong in making the sacrifices that process entailed. And so are all the magnates who have endeavored to bring college within the reach of a greater number of youth. So numerous have they become in this country of late that to vilipend a college education amounts almost to "scandalum magnatum.” Very particularly is it a reproach to that particular magnate who built up the great business of which the dissenting magnate is now the administrative head, at the largest salary paid in the United States, and doubtless in the world. For Mr. Carnegie is so insensible of his own blessings in having been spared the drawback of a college education that he has created an endowment, at the amount of which his native island stands aghast, for the express purpose of enabling a greater number of Scottish youth to incur what his successor insists is a disadvantage.

Mr. Kipling has presented us, in a fiction of which this part seems to be pretty securely founded on fact, with a magnate of quite another way of thinking from that of the

magnate whose remarks we are taking for a text. "I made the same mistake myself of starting in too soon," said Harvey Cheyne to his rescued and regenerated son, regenerated, it is true, by "The Gospel of Work:" "I can't compete with the men who have been taught I can break them to little

pieces, yes, but I can't get back at 'em to hurt 'em where they live. You'll have to stow away the plain, common, sitdown-with-your-chin-on-your-elbows book

learning."

Here are two views of The Education of a Prince," or of a magnate! And the practice seems to be as diverse as the theory. A statistical inquiry, whether or not it would show that the multi-millionnaires are divided with an approach to evenness about the rearing of their young, would at any rate show that they were divided between those who thought it desirable that a boy should know nothing but his particular business, and those who considered it desirable that, in the lofty language of the late John Stuart Mill, he should "bring the light of general culture to illuminate the technicalities of a particular pursuit." In the nature of the case, there can be no Tiresias, who can be called as an expert witness on each side. But without doubt there are more untutored magnates who are willing to handicap their sons by giving them a “regular education" than there are magnates, themselves college bred, who save their children from that disadvantage. In fact, the college-bred man who does not desire a college education for his young is so rare as to be negligible. That may pretty safely be said of such an education which Bishop Warburton, in the House of Lords, said about high birth: "He never knew anyone to despise it who had it, and he never knew anyone to boast of it who had anything else to boast of." And whichever system. may most conduce to the getting of money, there can be little question which confession of faith comes with the better grace from a

The difference of view is ultimately a matter of standards, a question of what constitutes "success in life." The maker of the address referred to is untroubled by any doubts on that score. There is a frankness bordering on naïveté in the assumption that there is only one success, and that the commercial; and doubtless the assumption has always been popular that a man's life does, as a matter of fact, consist in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. Though it is seldom avowed so candidly, it has always formed the working hypothesis of the greater part of mankind:

At bona pars hominum, decepta cupidine falso, "Nil satis est" inquit, "quia tanti quantum habeas sis."

And Carlyle declares the practical "Hell of the English" to consist in "not making money." But it is doubtful whether the mercantile standard of success has ever so exclusively prevailed as in this country and at this time. In Horace's Rome and in Carlyle's England rank and birth constituted an effectual offset to mere money, and set up an additional and to some extent a competing standard. Ours is the most complete plutocracy in the world, as it would need to be to embolden a plutocrat to hold up his own success as the only one worth attaining. And yet all the philosophers, from Solomon to Emerson, have opposed and resisted that view. It was Emerson who said, and at a college commencement: "It is this domineering temper of the sensual world that creates the extreme need of the priests of science, and it is the office and right of the intellect to make and not take its estimate."

I

T is the opinion of Mr. Bernard Shaw, as expressed in a characteristic preface to a late volume of his plays, that the nature of the English people has, within the past ten years, undergone certain conspicuous modifications. Setting aside possible exaggeration in the setting forth of his views, what Mr. Shaw says on the subject has a Practical Edu- considerable significance, especially Romanticism. owing to the larger inferences which he draws from his premises. It is, furthermore, an interest which can perfectly extend to Americans, since the signs noted

cation and

have had occasion to discover among ourselves. And indeed others have already discovered them. It was said of us more than once, in connection with recent national events, that we were capable of manifesting an excitability which was more akin to what we commonly prefer to ascribe to certain Continental peoples than it was to the standard traits of our own stock. Such excitability— "Theatricality" is his own word for it—Mr. Shaw believes to have been steadily mounting in force among the English, usually so solid and stolid; and this he ascribes to the pronounced romanticism of taste developed among them by the literature, the books and plays, of the past five years; a taste which has caused them to lose their true sense of the realities, with all the steadying effects thereof.

It will not be disputed that the special style of literature in vogue during a period leaves its impress upon it, nor will it be gainsaid that the demands and tastes of the period in turn determine the essential nature of its literary supply. We are hearing it said on all sides now that popular education accounts for the love of the novel of adventure. Popular education creates an enlarged reading public, but one which does not wish to have the realities of life laid before it; which, indeed, in many cases, reads, or goes to the play, just to escape reality. If one accept this explanation of certain present phenomena it is only going a step farther to find in all democratically organized, popularly educated societies an inherent inclination toward romanticism. As no countries have carried the modern experiment so far as the Englishspeaking countries, we ought not to be surprised to see a strong bent toward the romantic attitude showing itself, in many directions, in an English or American public; the romantic attitude here meaning any attitude betraying absence of a full perception of the realities, or disinclination to look at them.

Out of all this we seem to draw three propositions: that democracy appears to presuppose a certain sort of popular education, that without that education there would be no democracy, and yet that that education is calculated to destroy the sense of the realities. Now how is this? The very plea made for the education which, more and more, is prevailing against the classical education, is just this-that it cultivates the true perception of

T is proverbed that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Truly, at certain times and in certain moods and at the sight of certain things I think quite the contrary, and hold that great knowledge is a mischiefmaker, unless it be mated with great judgment- not by any means an every-day combination. Mark you, this pronouncement must be taken cautiously; because it is the artist's privilege, almost his duty, to exaggerate-whether in terms of poetry, music, painting, sculpture, or architecture. The fundamental principles that underlie the many creative arts are more or less the same though their expression be different; and the designing of a poem, an opera, a picture, a relief, or a building exacts obedience to the same general principles, and calls for the same enthusiasm, and demands the same sweet vision, though the special faculties required for their several productions may vary greatly.

Yes, we must protect our intellects to-day if we are to create; if we are to see beautifully and with our own eyes; otherwise unwittingly the clear vision will be filmed with reminiscences, and perhaps even clogged by noxious images. In relatively primitive times the atmosphere was clearer, less clouded by tradition, and creative men gazed with their own frank, naive eyes at obvious nature, and expressed themselves in sincerer, fresher terms-not from virtue, but from circumstance.

But, you will say in response, my pupils, that these same men saw with others' eyes when they could, and culied the fruits of others' toil when they might. Yes, the smaller men did, and they are forgotten; and the greater did, too, but in a less degree, and they are still a glory. But there was much less to cull, and the habit of mind was much less archæological, less scientifically classic. Anything like modern exactness would have irked and cramped them. Study of the past never seems entirely to have sterilized the most scrupulous disciples of antiquity, even men of the Vignola type.

Let me repeat the words just written, "in a less degree." In this matter of degree lies the whole problem. How much Precedent? How much Nature? How much Personality? These questions have been asked and re-asked, answered and re-answered, till one would think that all men must be agreed. And so I believe most sensible men are agreed, notwithstanding their philippics pro

or con.

Accumulated experience makes law. However discouragingly little experience counts in the development of conduct, in the evolution of the fine arts it counts for everything. Those protagonists of tradition, the academicians, the conservatives, or whatever else we may call them, are far too prone to accuse those who cry for fresh air, for a breath of life, for the vital spark, of being partisans of anarchy. Why they should do so seems inexplicable. That there are anarchists in art is indubitable (and of these we shall speak hereafter), just as there are in the body politic; but your truly creative man, even though he pant for the inspiring draughts of life, has undoubted respect for past achievement. It is on accumulated knowledge that he rears his fabric; it is past experience that gives this fabric stability, but it is his personality, his own distinct vision, added to precedent, that gives it interest and long life.

II

Do you remember that in passing a somewhat stately edifice the other day one of you admired it, and that I rejoined: “No, what you admire is the prototype, with which you are not familiar. The sculptor has made the façade interesting through the personal expression of his art, but here are the same old shopworn members, copied shafts and capitals and ornaments, copied as the originators of these things never dreamed of copying, though the range of their decorative vocabulary was limited. Similarity there was, indeed, between one production and another— the similarity that constitutes an epoch's style, but not identity." The great Designer fashions many trees, but no two are alike. He casts many hills in many moulds, and there is no coincidence of profile; nor do the fresh streams from the wooded slopes wind in the meadows identically.

Ah, these columns and entablatures, into what abysses have they not cast us! Their very beauty constitutes their danger-but still more beautiful are they when designed by an inventive artist, and no other is worthy of the name. What opportunities to fill the bell-shaped form of the Corinthian cap with lovely creations inspired by the animal or vegetable world! What chance to swirl the hand in volutes above the Ionic shaft! What temptations to flute, to polish, to garland with arabesque, flowers, ivy, or the sombre laurel! If we must have columns, let us have them in their place and properly designed. We should lead the shaft, and not let the shaft lead us. We should not see in our dreams primarily, a columned portico—and a stale one at that—and secondarily a building behind it for under these conditions the building might not fulfil its function; certain rooms might be dark where light is needed, and cramped where space is requisite. This may seem an exaggerated statement, but, really, certain architectural minds would seem to operate and design in this fashion, if we may judge from what we see.

Perhaps you remember the wonderful casts in the great hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If not, go and see them. Study the marvellous Florentine things, the shrines, pulpits, and doorways, for in them is the very perfection of Form, and Law controlling Invention. Oh, the beauty of these capitals, the fertility of the imagination! Oh, the lovely garlands, the refinement of the geometrical ornament! Over all preside, together, Precedent and Fancy. And why are these things reproduced in gesso, and placed so that those may see them who cannot see the originals? Why are they placed there as examples? Do you think that Majano's pulpit would have been exhibited as an extraordinary model had the ornament been copied verbatim from a precursor, even though the architectural plan were varied? The answer to these questions is simple enough. These works are held up as enduring types because they are the creations of artists, and, as before observed, the artist is not a copyist; he invents, and, while inventing, respects and assimilates that which other artists have done before him.

III

BUT suppose a man has not the inventive faculty, and suppose he says to himself

'Whatever I may do will not be so good as what has been done before by eminent men." Or, yet again, suppose that he asseverates that a good copy is better than a bad original—and with such asseverations we are all familiar. Let us answer these questions seriatim, and perhaps by asking another in return. If he be devoid of inventive faculty might it not be just as well for him to follow a calling that does not cry aloud for inven tion? There are many such vocations and far more lucrative than that of the fine arts. Or, such a man can become the pliable assistant of a creative genius, as many do, to their own and the master's and the nation's advantage. Only we cannot call them artists. Again, a man must renounce all title to that appellation who succumbs before the attempt to create is made, because he fears the preponderating excellence of some preceding work. For the artist must give expression to his feelings, he must feel that he has a message to convey. He may, and perhaps ought, to feel before he is delivered of it that it will be paramount above the creations of Phidias, Apelles, Michelangelo, or Bramante. If he entertain that high opinion of his work afterward, that is another question; but before he must believe in his inspiration, he must be of high spirit. Where would our sanctioned chefs-d'œuvre be had, for instance, a timid Giotto said: “I will not trace the serene Mother of Heaven with the divine Child, because Cimabue did these things well, and I can do no better?" Or a faint-hearted Ghirlandajo had renounced his monumental frescoes, because a great Massaccio had frescoed monumentally before? Or a timid Michelangelo had abandoned his heroic composition in the Sistine, because an ardent Signorelli had painted similar things in Orvieto? Or a craven Bramante had followed slavishly the classicism of a strong Brunelleschi, not trying to create in his own graceful way? Suppose that a Keats had refused to compose his inspired Ode to a Nightingale, because Milton had written a sonnet to the night-warbler, or that Wordsworth had foregone his Skylark because Shelley had written his immortal song? Suppose such calamities had been brought to pass, what losers we should have been! Again, to those who hold that a good copy is better than a poor original we say "possibly," and "in some cases"; but in the admission and practice of such a tenet we must