Turning from music to colour, there are of course those who are colour-blind, and there are many intermediate stages between total colour-blindness and a full sensitiveness to all the colours upon the spectrum-band. But the majority of people unquestionably have a certain appreciation of colour, even though it be slight or latent, and experience has shown that it can be increased and refined by education. Almost every artist realizes this. He knows from experience that the pictures he has seen and admired in which colour plays an important part have had an educative influence upon him. He knows that his study of nature has had a similar influence, and it cannot for a moment be denied that as a rule those persons who are brought up in artistic surroundings become more sensitive to colour and are less satisfied with the crude combinations which are sufficient to please the uneducated.
In America the education of the colour sense in children has been much more systematized than it has here. There are several excellent handbooks upon the subject, and the
84
