rofession, this subject is considered of high
importance, and the student in America is learning to express himself in
a language that can be understood.

In architecture it is often necessary, in order to understand the
description of a building, to indicate in a few lines not only the
general plan and elevation, but also its position in perspective in a
landscape or street. Few architects can do this if called upon at a
moment's notice in a Parliamentary committee room. And yet it is a
necessary part of the language of an architect.[6]

These remarks apply with great force to books of travel, where an author
should be able to take part in the drawing of his illustrations, at
least to the extent of being able to explain his meaning and ensure
topographical accuracy.

A curious experiment was made lately with some students in an Art
school, to prove the fallacy of the accepted system of describing
landscapes, buildings, and the like in words. A page or two from one of
the Waverley novels (a description of a castle and the heights of
mountainous land, with a river winding in the valley towards the sea,
and clusters of houses and trees on the right hand) was read slowly and
repeated before a number of students, three of whom, standing apart from
each other by pre-arrangement, proceeded to indicate on blackboards
before an audience the leading lines of the picture as the words had
presented it to their minds. It is needless to say that the results,
highly skilful in one case, were all different, and _all wrong_; and
that in particular the horizon line of the sea (so easy to indicate with
any clue, and so important to the composition) was hopelessly out of
place. Thus we describe day by day, and the pictures formed in the mind
are erroneous, for the imagination of the reader is at work at once, and
requires simple guidance. The exhibition was, I need hardly say, highly
stimulating and suggestive.

Many arguments might be used for the substitution of pictorial for
verbal methods of expression, which apply to books as well as
periodicals. Two may be mentioned of a purely topical kind.

1. In June, 1893, when the strife of political parties ran high in
England, and anything like a _rapprochement_ between their leaders
seemed impossible, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Balfour were seen in apparently
friendly conversation behind the Speaker's chair in the House of
Commons. A newspaper reporter in one of the galleries, observing the