icable to all men; and, so far as it
depends on extended comparison, is unattainable by men employed in
narrow fields of life. We shall not succeed in making a peasant's
opinion good evidence on the merits of the Elgin and Lycian marbles; nor
is it necessary to dictate to him in his garden the preference of
gillyflower or of rose; yet I believe we may make art a means of giving
him helpful and happy pleasure, and of gaining for him serviceable
knowledge.

155. Thus, in our simplest codes of school instruction, I hope some day
to see local natural history assume a principal place, so that our
peasant children may be taught the nature and uses of the herbs that
grow in their meadows, and may take interest in observing and
cherishing, rather than in hunting or killing, the harmless animals of
their country. Supposing it determined that this local natural history
should be taught, drawing ought to be used to fix the attention, and
test, while it aided, the memory. "Draw such and such a flower in
outline, with its bell towards you. Draw it with its side towards you.
Paint the spots upon it. Draw a duck's head--her foot. Now a robin's--a
thrush's--now the spots upon the thrush's breast." These are the kinds
of tasks which it seems to me should be set to the young peasant
student. Surely the occupation would no more be thought contemptible
which was thus subservient to knowledge and to compassion; and perhaps
we should find in process of time that the Italian connexion of art with
_diletto_, or delight, was both consistent with, and even mainly
consequent upon, a pure Greek connexion of art with _arete_, or virtue.

156. It may perhaps be thought that the power of representing in any
sufficient manner natural objects such as those above instanced would be
of too difficult attainment to be aimed at in elementary instruction.
But I have had practical proof that it is not so. From workmen who had
little time to spare, and that only after they were jaded by the day's
labour, I have obtained, in the course of three or four months from
their first taking a pencil in hand, perfectly useful, and in many
respects admirable, drawings of natural objects. It is, however,
necessary, in order to secure this result, that the student's aim should
be absolutely restricted to the representation of visible fact. All more
varied or elevated practice must be deferred until the powers of true
sight and just representation are acquired in simpl