ART-ITS RELATION TO EDUCATION AND THE INDUSTRIES.

BY CONRAD DIEHL, PROFESSOR OF ART IN THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI.

Art is the means for the embodiment or the consummation of the inspirations of man's creative powers. These inspirations either elevate the mind above coarse matter, or they enable us to make matter subserve our wants and purposes. The first of these are esthetical,

the last utilitarian.

We can hardly assume that the man who was the fist to conceive and apply the wedge, the screw, the lever, the steam-engine, was less inspired, or exalted, thai the man who produced the first soap or gunpowder; or he who sprung the first arch or spanned the first river; made the first plow, wagon or ship; substituted the alphabet for the hieroglyphics or made the first printingress, lithograph or light-picture; chiselled the first status covered the first canvas, wrote the first poem, or composd the first symphony. The inspiration, in either case, ust have been genuine, though of differing intensity and uration.

The work uses the word Art as something specific, and ignores the fact that Art is a generic term which

embraces the fine and Mechanical Arts-Architecture, Engineering, Warfare, &c. All these have two things in common: their basis is Form; their expression FormLanguage or the utterance of Nature.

It is the common acceptation in our country that Art is a hot house plant, only capable of cultivation among nations that have reached the highest stage of their development, whilst, virtually, it has been the chief means to attain to it. This presumption can easily be accounted for, in that we receive the products of what we term Art, at second hand from abroad; and even this foreign supply does not fail to stamp its impress on our home-products of industrial manufacture;-this, simply, because all other things being equal-that article which bears the stamp of this priestess, who ministers to the innate sense of the beautiful in man, determines our choice, even at expense and sacrifice. Not only are the objects of use products of Art, but even the instruments and implements by which they were made: every devise to arm or supplement the hand or eye; for At stands in contradistinction to Nature, and as Nature is one, so must Art be one.

Products of Utilitrian Art, that are devoir of beauty, are at best but useful crudities. Beary is ever the inseparable attendant on their pertcting. Look at the graceful plow of our day, whch can be handled with more ease by a half-grown boy and horse, than could the cumbersome, unwieldy implement of yore, by two men and a yoke ofoxen. Let us look nearer: compare the first steam-egine, steamboat or locomotive with the marvels of our day; "but," will be interposed, "these are resits of mechanical improvement;"-granted. What does mechanical improvement mean? It means a narer approach to

Nature: an epytomizing of its organic structure to a conformation with Nature, by utilizing and adapting the lessons learnt in nature. Beauty and fitness are inseparable; for when the attempt is made to beautify at the expense of the useful, Art proper ceases, and Artifice, i. e., desception, fraud-that vilest of all substitutes for the true and the beautiful-asserts itself: Artifice is Artshoddyism.

In order that the Arts may become indigenous in our country, it is the mission of our race of teachers to bring out the minds of the rising generation into sympathy with nature. They must be like priests and priestesses: ever celebrate the nuptials of the useful and the beautiful, by teaching in connection with every subject: Natural Science, geography, &c., form-reading and writing, parrallel with the course of instruction in wordreading and writing.

Another argument that may be made, is the plea that the American people have not yet reached that stage of opulence, that will admit of giving attention to anything beyond the material necessaries of existence. The prodigality with which capital is squandered in manias, such as horse-racing, yachting, walking matches; the building of cracker-castles, betting, gambling, and other shoddy-extravagances, render this plea exceedingly weak. The sums annually expended in vulgar, ostentatious display, in the shape of dress, furniture, &c., would besides securing the most elegant and tasty wearing-apparel, interior appointments, &c., go far to beautify our cities and towns if invested in landscape-gardening, and monuments, besides insuring for those who are able and willing, more substantial satisfaction and enjoyment of their investment.

The youth of our land squander their patrimony in

demoralizing indulgences, in large part, because the cul tivating influences of true Art and Taste have never lifted their souls to an appreciation of something better.

The encouragement of Art has a conservative influence to save us from the evils of prodigality and wastefulness, and to utilize, in its highest form, the untold wealth of our natural resources.

The productive, social, and political prosperity of a nation has ever been determined by the standard of its educational system, and the extent to which educational interests have been made popular. In most of the European states a department is established to define and enforce a course of study in every pursuit, whilst in America, on the contrary, the people themselves have the government of this matter in their own hands. Here the citizens elect men from their own midst, to whom they entrust the sacred charge of supervising their educational interests; thus giving into their hands the future development of national prosperity and the maintenance of liberty

The School Directors assume the guardianship over our children, and to their guidance alone, must we look for a redemption from the abuses perpetrated by our national, state and city officials. No position is more honorable than that of Director and Guardian of Public Schools, and no office implies a tender of greater confidence and trust, nor can such be accompanied by greater responsibilities, not even that of chief magistrate of a city, state, or nation.

In our internal development, a great want has made itself felt for years, the true cause of which has not been seriously traced, and hence has not been appreciated.

The causes of the American revolution, the outrageous acts on the part of Great Britain: "Navigation

Law," "Restrictions on Colonial Manufactures," "Stamp Act," and "Tea Fraud," to tax the Colonies, were but slight items when compared with the tax and dependence which we voluntarily impose upon ourselves, not alone in our relations to England, but to the entire European continent.

Europe imports from us cotton, grain, dried,smoked, salt and fresh meats; England returns to us hardware, stoneware and textile fabrics; France and Bohemia, glassware; Germany, woodenware; and all of them products of industrial and aesthetical Art.

The State of Missouri alone, can furnish the American market with iron ore of a superior quality; the best clay for all kinds of manufacture is found all over this continent; the Chrystal City Glass Company has recently proved that the material abounding in the United States for its manufacture, is not inferior to that found in Europe.

The argument is not unfrequently made, that despite the heavy premium we pay on European manufactures, we are still the gainers, because we cannot compete with them in point of cheapness. The inference we must however draw, is simply this: we cannot compete, because we are not educated from childhood to convert raw material to our uses (that process which has been so pointedly styled "raw produce mixed with brains,") owing to our one-sided or literary education, and the total exclusion of manual preparation. Thus we pay tribute to skilled labor alone, and use our excellent raw material principally in such manufactures as require but little skill, and for whose importation we cannot afford to pay the cost of transportation.

If the basis of our National Economy were philanthropy towards Europe, we should do well to continue