ing either self-taught or conventional is
exclusiveness; in one case the personal bias is too marked, in the other
the temporary aspect appeals too strongly. In the education of taste it
is needful that the child should "eat butter and honey," not only so as
to refuse the evil and choose the good, but also to judge between good
and good, and to know butter from honey and honey from butter. This is
the principal end of the study of art in early education. The _doing_ is
very elementary, but the principles of discernment are something for
life, feeding the springs of choice and delight, and making sure that
they shall run clear and untroubled.

Teaching concerning art which can be given to girls has to be approached
with a sense of responsibility from conviction of the importance of its
bearing on character as a whole. Let anyone who has tried it pass in
review a number of girls as they grow up, and judge whether their
instinct in art does not give a key to their character, always supposing
that they have some inclination to reflect on matters of beauty, for
there are some who are candidly indifferent to beauty if they can have
excitement. They have probably been spoiled as children and find it hard
to recover. Excitement has worn the senses so that their report grows
dull and feeble. Imagination runs on other lines and requires
stimulants; there is no stillness of mind in which the perception of
beauty and harmony and fitness can grow up.

There are others--may they be few--in whose minds there is little room for
anything but success. Utilitarians in social life, their determination
is to get on, and this spirit pervades all they do; it has the making of
the hardest-grained worldliness: to these art has nothing to say. But
there are others to whom it has a definite message, and their response
to it corresponds to various schools or stages of art. There are some
who are daring and explicit in their taste; they resent the curb, and
rush into what is extravagant with a very feeble protest against it from
within themselves. Beside them are simpler minds, merely exuberant, for
whom there can never be enough light or colour in their picture of life.
If they are gifted with enough intelligence to steady their joyful
constitution of mind, these will often develop a taste that is fine and
true. In the background of the group are generally a few silent members
of sensitive temperament and deeper intuition, who see with marvellous