tury civilization. In him we
find a rare combination of genius, culture, and refinement, blended
with a tender concern for all earth's unfortunates. He is at once
artist, philosopher, and philanthropist; but he is more than these;
there is much of the austere religious reformer, giving a serious
gravity to all the utterances of the glad-souled artist, a mingling of
the spirit of a Savonarola with the imagination of a Turner.

John Ruskin, more than any other man of our time in like station of
life, stands for the civilization which we believe is destined to
glorify the coming century, for in his life all thought of ease, fame,
and preferment,--all consideration of self,--is overmastered by his
love for others. Endowed by nature with the imagination of a poet, the
eyes of an artist, the brain of a philosopher, the soul of a prophet,
and the heart of a man, he has conscientiously employed all his gifts
as a sacred trust given to him that he might bless and enlighten his
day, and ennoble his civilization for all time.

He was born amid affluence, and received the best educational
advantages the age afforded. After graduating from Oxford in 1842, he
studied painting under Copley Fielding and J. D. Harding. Subsequently
he spent some time in Italy, finishing his art education in the land
of earth's greatest painters.

While in college he composed many poems, but on leaving the university
he turned his attention to art and prose composition. His "Modern
Painters" was justly hailed as one of the noblest works of the
century, and instantly placed its author in the ranks of the foremost
art critics of the world.

Few if any of his admirers will agree with all his critical views. He
not infrequently falls into those errors which we naturally expect to
find in a man of intense feeling, of strong conviction, and of vivid
imagination. If a positive idea takes possession of his mind, it is
liable to give a strong bias to his thought, and in a degree
interferes with that nice sense of proportion so essential to a great
critic. On more than one occasion Mr. Ruskin has frankly admitted that
his views and opinions were erroneous owing to being based on a
partial appearance or influenced by pernicious ideas. A notable
illustration of his thought being biassed by preconceived ideas is
found in the religious opinions put forward in the early edition of
parts I and II of "Modern Painters." And in a preface written in 1871
for a revised