ument of human progress.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. One who reads Ruskin is in a state of mind
analogous to that of a man who goes through a picture gallery, pausing now
to admire a face or a landscape for its own sake, and again to marvel at
the technical skill of the artist, without regard to his subject. For
Ruskin is a great literary artist and a great ethical teacher, and we
admire one page for its style, and the next for its message to humanity.
The best of his prose, which one may find in the descriptive passages of
_Praeterita_ and _Modern Painters_, is written in a richly ornate style,
with a wealth of figures and allusions, and at times a rhythmic, melodious
quality which makes it almost equal to poetry. Ruskin had a rare
sensitiveness to beauty in every form, and more, perhaps, than any other
writer in our language, he has helped us to see and appreciate the beauty
of the world around us.

As for Ruskin's ethical teaching, it appears in so many forms and in so
many different works that any summary must appear inadequate. For a full
half century he was "the apostle of beauty" in England, and the beauty for
which he pleaded was never sensuous or pagan, as in the Renaissance, but
always spiritual, appealing to the soul of man rather than to his eyes,
leading to better work and better living. In his economic essays Ruskin is
even more directly and positively ethical. To mitigate the evils of the
unreasonable competitive system under which we labor and sorrow; to bring
master and man together in mutual trust and helpfulness; to seek beauty,
truth, goodness as the chief ends of life, and, having found them, to make
our characters correspond; to share the best treasures of art and
literature with rich and poor alike; to labor always, and, whether we work
with hand or head, to do our work in praise of something that we love,--
this sums up Ruskin's purpose and message. And the best of it is that, like
Chaucer's country parson, he practiced his doctrine before he preached it.

MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888)

In the world of literature Arnold has occupied for many years an
authoritative position as critic and teacher, similar to that held by
Ruskin in the world of art. In his literary work two very different moods
are manifest. In his poetry he reflects the doubt of an age which witnessed
the conflict between science and revealed religion. Apparently he never
passed through any such decisive personal struggle as is reco