to a sketch which has fully realised the poetry of the
subject. The clear-measured drawings and details
of ' Chancel Screen, Gresford Church, Denbighshire,'
by Mr. Henry Beswick, and of ' A Bay of the Cloisters,
Lincoln Cathedral,' by Messrs. W. Shanks and A. N.
Prentice, are eminently useful to the student and the
architect, while details of parts of buildings not obtain-
able in photographs, such as those given by Mr. Wash-
ington Browne in Plate 3, by Mr. Prentice in Plate 8,
and by Mr. John A. Campbell in Plate 21, form very
acceptable contributions. On the other hand, the
pencil sketches of Dryburgh Abbey and of Lincoln
Cathedral, the tinted sketches of Gateway to St.
John's College, Cambridge, and of Bargello Palace,
Florence — excellent in themselves, and playing an
important part in the training of their contributors —
add nothing to the information to be obtained from
ordinary photographs of these subjects.
Plates 33 and 34 contain measured drawings by Mr.
Larmont D. Penman of modern work, the subject
being St. Vincent Street U. P. Church, Glasgow,
designed by the late Alexander Thomson. The Asso-
ciation does well in recognising the importance to
its members of a careful study of the best modern
examjiles of architecture, and the influence of the
subject here illustrated, in which an antique style
has been moulded in a masterly way to meet
modern requirements, cannot but be beneficial to
all who will take the trouble to examine it thought-
fully.
BROADENING THE BASE.
MANY people feel that, while art is elevating and inspiring, the discussion of it is often vague and dreary. There are perceptions and infer- ences which it is difficult to fix in language; the more refined they are, the greater the difficulty; their full analysis and expression must be left to the learned. But there are some general and rather obvious impressions upon which a non-professional lover of art may venture, perhaps, to make some notes. The chief necessity, as it appears to me, is to extend the influence of art; for its mission cannot be accomplished while the knowledge and feeling of it are confined to a small circle. Esoteric doctrines, whether in art, philosophy, or religion, are sterile. Tlie tlluminati, before they can carry any consider- able numbers with them, must speak a language ' understanded of the people'; and that means either they must lower their tone and standard, or bring mankind up, as nearly as possible, to their own level of perception and judgment. Now the ideals of beauty in form, colour, and expression are not to be let down, any more than moral or spiritual truth is to be degraded; there is no com- promise possible between those ideals and tl'e plaus- ible, meretricious, imperfect imitations or substitutes which pass for art, and which, it must be admitted, attract the un instructed more strongly than the pure line, chastened colour, and mastery of expres- sion which the artist of imaginative power employs. The difficulty appears at first insurmountable, but it must be faced. The question is, how can the popular standard and the general power of appre- ciation be raised .? There are two efficient asencies: general public instruction of the young in drawing, and free galleries of art. Drawing in all schools, public and private, is the first important agency. It does not matter that it is taught at the beginning by men considerably less accomplislied than Titian. The mere habit of daily attention to outline, followed by the completer notions of foi-m that come as the pupil progresses, will affect that pupiFs perception and judgment all his life. Grant that much of his time is given to semi-mathematical work, and to the copying of utensils and other simple objects, or that his in- struction is better calculated to make him an artisan than an artist, still he will have gained a power no uninstructed man ever acquires, — the power to detach mentally the various parts of a composition, to compare the truth of those parts with his own experience of the objects depicted, their relation to each other, and finally to judge of the general trutli, naturalness, and effect of the whole. It may perhaps add some interest to a dry dis- cussion to show the experience on which these views ai'e founded. When drawing was first introduced into the public schools of Boston, the teacher, who was not in the highest sense an artist, gave a rather literal or mechanical turn to the instruction. I cannot say even that his lines and proportions were always absolutely without fault; but he was a man of fine taste, and of ability and energy, with a singular power of inspiring enthusiasm; and as the system was on trial, with a public generally in- credulous of its utility, it was desirable, and even imperative, to hold up the utilitarian view, — to show what an incomparable advantage it would be to the future mechanics of the city to be able to draught their own work, and by and by to make ornamental designs. For this reason the School
