necessity, for all sides of our nature must be developed if
life is to have full meaning and come to its maturity. The influence of
applied esthetics is more vital because it is unconsciously absorbed
through constant association. Imagine surroundings where everything
which did not have a distinct use were eliminated and where everything
else was distinctly fitted to its use. If this were put into practice in
the usual household, a certain simplicity would be the result, to say
the least. Most things with which we surround ourselves are neither
useful nor beautiful. They are either so absurdly over-ornamented as to
have their usefulness completely impaired, or else they are the usual
mechanical device equally complicated and hideous. Ornament is usually
an anomaly, added to cover structural defect. If the relation of the
parts to the whole is perfect, beauty is there. But being accustomed to
the over-ornamented and wholly mechanical, we do not resent their
presence. For what, indeed, is habit not responsible? Even such innocent
objects as pictures hang on our walls until they are scarcely noticed by
us. Why not change them to suit our moods? Why not, indeed? There are so
many of them, in the first place--and one remembers the time and
trouble, even the family dissension which it took to hang them. But no
one cares much, no one is alive enough to care much--the economic
struggle which deadens our other senses is responsible for this also.

No unit of the social body can disentangle itself from existing
conditions. Each is affected by all its influences. Some are more, some
less, some are so much a part that they are not conscious. These last
also suffer, but without knowing why. Vital education would show them.
But the factory system pervades the school and art school as well as the
factory.

What if the underlying force of education were spontaneous expression,
instead of the limited method or system? The cry of the teacher is
always, "It is very well to be spontaneous, but we must deal with the
child _en masse_." The remedy for that is simple, because there is no
real necessity to deal with children _en masse_. It is so much easier to
apply the same system to each varied unit of a mass than to discover and
help the individual expression of each. The basis of vital art, of vital
education, is self-expression; from it and through it comes
self-control. Self-repression is as socially uneconomic as jails and
standing arm