places where Rebekah was met;--where Rachel,--where
Zipporah,--and she who was asked for water under Mount Grerizim by a
Stranger, weary, who had nothing to draw with.

119. And truly, when our mountain springs are set apart in vale or
craggy glen, or glade of wood green through the drought of summer, far
from cities, then it is best to let them stay in their own happy peace;
but if near towns, and liable therefore to be defiled by common usage,
we could not use the loveliest art more worthily than by sheltering the
spring and its first pools with precious marbles: nor ought anything to
be esteemed more important, as a means of healthy education, than the
care to keep the streams of it afterwards, to as great a distance as
possible, pure, full of fish, and easily accessible to children. There
used to be, thirty years ago, a little rivulet of the Wandel, about an
inch deep, which ran over the carriage-road and under a foot-bridge just
under the last chalk hill near Croydon. Alas! men came and went; and it
did _not_ go on for ever. It has long since been bricked over by the
parish authorities; but there was more education in that stream with its
minnows than you could get out of a thousand pounds spent yearly in the
parish schools, even though you were to spend every farthing of it in
teaching the nature of oxygen and hydrogen, and the names, and rate per
minute, of all the rivers in Asia and America.

120. Well, the gist of this matter lies here then. Suppose we want a
school of pottery again in England, all we poor artists are ready to do
the best we can, to show you how pretty a line may be that is twisted
first to one side, and then to the other; and how a plain household-blue
will make a pattern on white; and how ideal art may be got out of the
spaniel's colours of black and tan. But I tell you beforehand, all that
we can do will be utterly useless, unless you teach your peasant to say
grace, not only before meat, but before drink; and having provided him
with Greek cups and platters, provide him also with something that is
not poisoned to put into them.

121. There cannot be any need that I should trace for you the conditions
of art that are directly founded on serviceableness of dress, and of
armour; but it is my duty to affirm to you, in the most positive manner,
that after recovering, for the poor, wholesomeness of food, your next
step towards founding schools of art in England must be in recovering,
for