our country and race, which are absolutely necessary to our national preservation, are not an educational care of all the great Universities of our land.

The lights of applied science are now upon the mountain tops; the waves and winds of error and fanaticism beat upon them! Who shall keep them? You teachers of applied science, you gentlemen of the professional schools, are the watchmen. Keep these vestal fires burning. And, on the night of December 31, 1899, as the clock of heaven rings out the old and rings in the new century, when from out the storm and darkness comes the voice of Liberty ringing abroad, "watchmen, what of the night?" we'll send the answer back to heaven," 12 o'clock and all is well."

P. S.: Much of the material of this lecture is I believe new; and much of the remainder can lay claim to whatever originality there is involved in "using old facts in new circumstances." I have extracted largely from the writings of Presidents Gilman, Eliot, and Laws, and Professors E. L. Youmans, W. T. Harris, Bain, and Herbert Spencer. My reason for not always giving them credit on the spot when using their ideas and language, was that, in dissecting these from their context, and adapting and fitting them into the context above, I have oftener misrepresented, than truthfully represented, what they intended to say.

In conclusion, it is perhaps proper to state that while in college, I read the entire Latin course (and part of the Greek) as laid down by our western universities. T. J. L.

ART, THE IDEAL OF ART AND THE UTILITY OF ART.

BY GEORGE C. BINGHAM, PROFESSOR OF DRAWING IN THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI.

(From the MISSOURI STATESMAN, March 7th, 1879.)

In consequence of a severe attack of pneumonia, which confined Prof. Bingham to his room, at his request the lecture was read by his friend Maj. Rollins, president of the board of curators. After a few preliminary and appropriate remarks by Dr. Laws, in which he referred to the fact that this was the first and only public recognition which had been given to the Fine Arts in the institution since its first organization, and expressing the wish that in the future good results would flow from it in the permanent establishment of a School of Design and of Art in the University, he introduced to the audience the reader of the lecture, who after expressing his very great regret for the cause which kept Gen. Bingham away from the meeting, proceeded to make some very complimentary remarks in reference to the high character of that gentleman as a citizen of Missouri, and one of the most eminent artists of our country. Evidences of his wonderful genius were to be seen in the capitol of the state, and indeed in many parts of the country wherever a taste for the fine arts had received any attention.

Maj. R. said it had been his good fortune to know Prof. Bingham for nearly forty-five years, since their young manhood, as intimate friends and companions, and he could say with entire truth that he had never known a purer or better man, one of whom any commonwealth might feel justly proud. Although no artist

hiraself, but having a great fondness for pictures, in the course of his extended remarks he commented freely upon some of the paintings before the audience, and others, also the productions of his genius, and which had won for him great distinction in the world of Art. He spoke of the great moral effect of all his works, and wherein a number of them so handsomely illustrated the character and habits of Western life, and others of them illustrated with inimitable skill, the free institutions under which we live; these monuments of his genius and artistic skill would live and be admired, when it may be the institutions themselves shall have perished. Maj. R. referred to a number of interesting facts in reference to the early history of this part of the state, and also told several anecdotes which were very much relished by his hearers.

In proceeding to read the lecture of Prof. Bingham, he said it was due to that gentleman to say that it had been hastily prepared in a few days, and had not been even recopied.

The subject of the lecture was "Art, the Ideal of Art, and the Utility of Art." It was read so that every one in the audience heard it distinctly, enjoyed it, and was greatly instructed by it. The lecture was written in the clear and strong style which marks all the productions of Prof. Bingham's pen, chaste and classical in all his allusions to ancient and modern art, and artists, and maintaining his position with an argument and logic which seemed unanswerable. The evening passed off most pleasantly, and we are gratified to see so much interest manifested in the subject of the Fine Arts by the young gentlemen and ladies of the University. [Mr. Bingham died in Kansas City, July 7, 1879, in the 69th year of his age. The following is his lecture:] Ladies, Gentlemen and Students of the University:

I have been requested by our worthy president to embody in a brief lecture, and present to you some of the views on Art which I have been led to entertain from many years of practice and experience and famili arity with the works of many of its most eminent professors. We are all naturally disposed to prefer that mode of expression by which we can communicate to others, most forcibly and clearly, the thought to which we are

prompted to give utterance.

Hence artists have gener

ally been averse to giving a mere verbal expression to ideas which they are able to present in a far more satisfactory manner, with the pencil or chisel. It is doubtless owing to this reluctance on their part that the literature of their profession is chiefly the product of theorists who can err in safety under the silence of those who alone have the ability to correct them. These theorists are often laboriously ambiguous even in their definition of Art.

Micheal Angelo, whose sublime and unrivaled productions, both in painting and sculpture, certainly entitle him to be regarded as good authority in all that related to Art, clearly and unhesitatingly designates it as "The imitation of nature."

The Oxford student, however, who ranks as the ablest and most popular writer upon the subject, undertakes to convince his readers that the imitation of nature so far from being Art, is not even the language of Art. He boldly goes still further and asserts that the more perfect the imitation the less it partakes of the character of genuine Art. He takes the position that Art to be genuine must be true, and that an imitation of nature so perfect as to produce an illusion, and thereby make us believe that a thing is what it really is not, gives expression to a falsehood, and cannot therefore be justly regarded as genuine Art, an essential quality of which is

truth.

Such logic may be convincing to the minds of those admirers who regard him as an oracle upon any sub. ject which he chooses to touch with his pen. But in all candor it seems to me to be merely on a par with that of a far less distinguished character, who, travelling with a companion along the banks of a river, undertook, for a

wager, to convince him that the side of the river on which they were journeying was really the other side. He did it by stating as his postulate that the river had two sides, and as the side opposite to them was one of these sides, the side on which they were traveling was necessarily the other side. Truth and such logic are not always in harmony.

The well known story of Zenxas and Appeles, two of the most famous painters of ancient Greece, has been handed down to us through the intervening ages. Being rivals and alike ambitious of distinction, a challenge passed between them for a trial of their skill. One painted a picture of grapes so perfect in its imitation of that luscious fruit, that the birds of the air flocked to partake of them as a servant was carrying the picture to the place of exhibition. The other merely painted upon his canvass a curtain, but so perfect was its resem blance to a real curtain, that his rival stretched forth his hand to remove it in order to get a view of the supposed picture beneath. Such an adherence to nature, and I may add to the truth of nature, constitutes what should properly be called the truth of Art; that Art only which belies nature is false Art.

These imitations are recorded in the literature of that classic period, as evidence of the excellence in Art by which it was characterized. We are loth to suppose in an age made illustrious by the highest civilization which the world had then attained, and surrounded by works of Art which coming ages will never surpass, great statesmen, scholars, artists, and literary men could have been so far mistaken in regard to the true nature of Art, as to recognize as an excellence therein, that which was really a defect.

About the close of the war of 1812 one of the great