قراءة كتاب The Scrap Book. Volume 1, No. 2 April 1906
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make our own the ideal realms of truth and beauty and excellence which far more than material victories constitute the true greatness of nations.
Pedagogic methods might be employed to stimulate American culture. President Schurman suggests that in the common schools greater emphasis be laid upon art and literature. There remains, however, as he points out, something greater than the intellectuality of the Greeks, and that is the ethical consciousness of the Hebrews.
Noble and exalted and priceless as reason and culture are, there is a still higher end of life both for individuals and nations. That end, indeed, was very inadequately conceived by the Greeks. In the creative play of reason and imagination, in their marvelous productions of speculation, science, and art, in their exaltation of mind above sense and of spirit above matter, in their conception of a harmonious development of all the rich and varied powers of man—in all these the Greeks have left to mankind a legacy as priceless as it is to-day vital and forever imperishable.
But the Greeks, even the Greek philosophers, even the "divine Plato," have not given us enough to live by. It was the Jews, the outcast, oppressed, and much-suffering Jews, who first sounded the depths of human life, discovered that the essential being of a man resides in his moral personality, and rose to the conception of a just and merciful Providence who rules in righteousness the affairs of nations and the hearts and wills of men.
If even our literary men now tell us that conduct is three-fourths of life, it is because Hebraism and the Christianity which sprang from Hebraism have stamped this idea ineffaceably upon the conscience of mankind. The selfishness and sensuality in us may revolt against the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, but the still small voice of conscience in us recognizes their authority and acknowledges that if they had might as they have right, they would absolutely govern the world. The most, the best, of greatness is goodness. The greatest man on earth is the man of pure heart and of clean hands.
NOTABLE NEGLECT OF INDUSTRIAL ARTS.
A Plea for Arts and Crafts as the Logical
Basis of a National Development
of the Fine Arts.
In line with President Schurman's criticism of American culture is the plea by Charles de Kay, the New York art critic, for more attention to the industrial arts. His argument is that out of the arts and crafts the fine arts naturally develop; that out of the artist-artisan comes the highest class of artist, as, for example, Augustus Saint Gaudens, who began as a cameo cutter. To ignore the industrial arts is, so to speak, to leave out of count that solid middle class upon which alone the aristocracy of art can safely rest. Writing in the New York Times, Mr. de Kay says:
Plainly enough there is a field scarcely plowed at all in the arts and crafts. These arts in the Middle Ages, and latterly in Japan and India, absorbed and absorb the energies of the cleverest hands and brightest minds; but in America and England to-day are neglected for the fine arts, because the rare prizes in the latter, whether of fame or of wealth, dazzle the imagination.
Fashion rather than taste has set easel paintings so absolutely in the forefront that with most people this represents art in its entirety, and though the appreciation of the minor arts of Japan has opened the eyes and enlisted the sympathies of thousands, this one-sided view of art holds on; so encouragement of native arts and crafts is slack and uncertain.
Yet a democracy like ours, while the most difficult of all communities to rouse to a vivid sympathy with the industrial arts, owing to cheap processes and the influence exerted by traditions that began in aristocratic lands, is of all others that community where they are needed most.
The huge engine of the public schools is forever milling over the raw material of the Union, educating the native children, assimilating to the commonwealth the young people of immigrant stocks. The higher education of taste and refinement ought to go hand in hand, but it is sadly deficient.
No one should expect that the public-school system could add this to a task already appalling for its size and complexity. It can be coped with only by organizations apart from the existing schools, which might attempt for the youthful artisan what the art schools attempt for the training of architects, sculptors, and painters.
It is the fate of democracies to waste energy and attack each problem by the wrong side. Commend us to a democracy to put the cart before the horse every time! In the arts we have been doing this imbecile trick steadily, persistently, for a hundred years, trying to foster the fine arts while our minor arts and crafts are too contemptible for criticism.
Is it not about time to show that even a democracy can learn something? Certainly if we can convince this community that the most crying need is a thorough regeneration of the industrial arts, the object will be attained. For though democracies are often clumsy, when they once strike the right path they rush forward to the highest places with a speed and an irresistible force no other communities attain.
BELGIAN DRAMATIST CRITICIZES NEW YORK.
Money, Bustle, and Noise Are the Principal
Things Named as Characteristic
of Our Young Nation.
Maurice Maeterlinck, the Belgian dramatist and mystic philosopher, is by no means dull in his appreciation of practical conditions. People who know him say that he is not in the least lackadaisical or spiritually remote, but is simple and frank and full of interest in every-day occurrences. A short time ago he was asked to express his opinion of America. He replied—to quote from the Theater Magazine:
I should be afraid to live in a city like New York. I understand that money, bustle, and noise are its chief characteristics. Money is useful, of course, but it is not everything. Bustle and noise, also, are necessary adjuncts of human industry. But they do not add to man's comfort nor satisfy his soul's cravings.
America is too young a nation to seek the beautiful. That may come when you Americans grow weary of being rich. Then you will, as a nation, cultivate art and letters, and—who knows?—one day you will surpass the Old World in the splendor of your buildings, the genius of your authors. You are a great people, but your highest powers are still slumbering.
At present you are too busily occupied in assimilating the foreigner, too busily engaged in affairs purely material, to leave either time or taste for either the beautiful or the occult. When America does take to beautifying her own home she will astonish the world.
WHAT "PUNCH" HAS MEANT TO ENGLAND.
London's Famous Funny Paper is Really
Funny to Those Who Know How
to Appreciate Its Jokes.
Sir Francis C. Burnand has resigned the editorship of London Punch after a service of twenty-three years. It is hard to think of him as old, but, being in his seventieth year, doubtless he had begun to find the cares of his position somewhat irksome.
Eminent as was his fitness for the editorship he held so long, he started out in life with no notion of becoming a humorist. Amateur dramatic performances took much of his time at Cambridge. After leaving the university, he became a barrister. Converted to the Roman church, he studied for the priesthood, but abandoned this prospective future in order to devote himself to the stage. Though he did not become an actor, he wrote many stage pieces—plays, librettos, etc.; at the same time he was writing jokes for the humorous papers, and when he was