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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
If the training I plead for were general, the advantages accruing to society would be—an improved public taste, demanding better goods, a constant rise in the standard andvalue of our decorative manufactures, until salesmenshould tempt us by saying that their wares were of domestic make, instead of relying upon the magic word “imported” to make a sale, and upon the popular belief in the efficacy of a sea voyage to render any goods desirable.
It would mean beauty in the place of ugliness; a large crop of ideas—the most profitable crop that can be raised—and an army of artist artisans in the place of bungling amateurs. Probably the most important advantage to the individual in this study is in learning to see and discriminate. We are all more or less blind—principally more.
I know a bright college girl who was taken through a garden last summer. The owner pointed out his fine strawberries, peas, lettuce, etc., all of which were duly admired. At length they came to a long row of bean vines trained to grow in decorous stripes on the garden fence. “ Oh,” said this educated young person, “ what a great quantity of morning glories you are raising this year!”
She literally did not know beans. The next day, however, when she saw the gardener transplanting some tobacco plants, she capped the climax by saying, “ Well,
I do know cabbages if I don’t know beans!” Truly we have eyes, but we see not.
We learn to see things by modeling and drawing them—especially with the idea of using them in design. We learn to discriminate between the fundamental characteristics and the details—the important and the unimportant—a most valuable accomplishment in every department of life. The imagination is quickened and the invent ive genius developed by the possibilities of design everywhere suggested if we have but learned to look for them. We learn the adaptation of means to ends, and gain a new perception of beauty in common things.
The best way to attain general culture is to study a specialty—making it a baseline from which to branch out to take measurements and compute values.
No study could be better for this purpose than applied art. It is educating and refining—it is also the means of earning a living. It is thoroughly practical and equally ideal. Beauty and utility meet there on common ground. It broadens our outlook in every direction. It touches our life in the most constant and intimate way.
It makes life and the individual more interesting, for a person is interesting in proportion as he is interested in living, in learning, in doing; in proportion as he irradiates facts, ideas and enthusiasm.
In our day and generation subtraction and division are lost arts. We only remember how to add and multiply our needs, our luxuries, our duties. I would add, therefore, to our manifold requirements a general comprehension, at least, of the principles of applied art, believing that it would be of infinite advantage to every one of us and a source of unmeasured wealth to the nation.
Metaphysicians assure us that every deed, yes, every thought, is eternal and ineffaceable. Then let the product of our hands and the thoughts of our hearts make for beauty and for harmony evermore.