Encourage not merely book knowledge, but the personal pursuit of natural history, of field botany, of geology, of zoology. Give the young, fresh, unforgetting eye exercise and free scope upon the infinite diversity and combination of natural colours, forms, substances, surfaces, weights, and sizes. Give young students everything, in a word, that will educate their eye and ear, their touch, taste, and smell, their sense of muscular resistance. Encourage them to make models, preparations, and collections of natural objects. Above all, try to get hold of their affections, and make them put their hearts into their work.
But one main help is to be found in study; and by this we do not mean the mere reading, but the digging into and through, the energizing upon and mastering, the best books. Taking up a book and reading a chapter of lively, manly sense, is like taking a game at cricket or a run to the top of a hill. Exertion quickens your pulse, expands your lungs, makes your blood warmer and redder, fills your mouth with the pure waters of relish, strengthens and supples your legs: and though on your way to the top you may encounter rocks and baffling debris, just as you will find in serious and honest books difficulties and puzzles, still you are rewarded at the top by a wide view. You see as from a tower the end of all. You see the clouds, the bright lights and the everlasting hills on the far horizon. You come down from the hill a happier, a better, and a hungrier man, and of a better mind.
But, as we said, you must eat the book-you must crush it, and cut it with your teeth and swallow it; just as you must walk up, and not be carried up the hill, much less imagine you are there, or look upon a picture of what you would see were you up, however accurately or artistically done: no-you yourself must do both. He who has obtained any amount of knowledge is not truly wise unless he appropriates and can use it for his need.
- J. BROWN, M. D.
NOTES
① Opie, John, an eminent English painter. From being the son of a Cornish carpenter, who discouraged his taste for art, he rose to be Professor of Painting in the Royal Academy, London. Born 1761; died 1807.
② Dilettante, a superficial dabbler in art or science.
③ Sir Joshua Reynolds, an unrivalled English portrait painter. He was the first president of the Royal Academy of London. He was also the friend of Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, and of the leading literary men of his time. Born 1723; died 1792.
④ Etty, William, a distinguished English artist. Born. 1787; died 1849.
⑤ ?sthetics, the principles of taste; the theory or science of the beautiful in art. The word is derived from a Greek verb meaning "I feel."⑥ Wilkie, Sir David, a celebrated Scottish painter, well known by his works, The Village Politicians; The Rent Day; Blind Man"s Buff, &c. Born 1785; died 1841.
QUESTIONS
What question did the student ask Opie? What kind of student was he? What answer did Opie give him? What might many other artists have replied? What did Sir Joshua Reynolds say his friend"s picture wanted? What did Etty reply to students who asked him how to do things, and what things meant? What did all these answers point to as necessary to the painter? What is Genius? What is the office of Sense? What must be done to awaken genius and quicken sense? To what is reading a chapter of lively, manly sense compared? How must a book be read, that it may do good? He who has obtained any amount of knowledge is not truly wise unless-?