by which the steps and conclusions of thought are formulated and expressed.  Thought proceeds, where it is precise and logical, by words; unless a man’s vocabulary is wide, unless his understanding of the language is exact, his thoughts must inevitably be vague and muddled.  Moreover, he will be unable to transmit his thoughts clearly and readily to others.  The most important tool for the carrying on of life is- language; the slovenliness and inadequacy of the average man’s speech is a sad commentary on our boasted educational system.

(3) Wide information and a trained mind must be supplemented by a sound taste. To love excellence everywhere, to appreciate the good and the beautiful in every phase of life, should be the third, and possibly most important, aim of cultural education.  It is, at least, the prime function of art.  Art informs us of life, its pursuit trains in precision and judgment; but above all, it opens our eyes to beauty.  The man who is versed in the work of the masters can never after be content with the ugliness and squalor that our industrial civilization continually tends to increase.  He has caught the vision of beauty, and must strive to shape his environment toward that high ideal.  The artist sees what we had not learned to see; by isolating and perfecting this bit of the ideal, he directs our attention to it and teaches us to love it.  No one can feel the spell of a landscape by Corot or Innes without delighting more deeply in such scenes in the outdoor world; no one can live long in the atmosphere of Greek art without longing for such a body and such a poise of spirit.  We are not accustomed to look at nature, or at man, with observing eyes, to see the richness of color in sun-kissed meadows or humming city streets, the infinite variations of light and shade, the depth of distance, the charm of line and composition.  The picturesque is everywhere about us, undiscerned and unloved.  So us the marvelous varieties in human character and circumstance, the humor and dignity and pathos of life.  Literature and art, by revealing to us unsuspected possibilities of beauty, breed a healthy discontent with ugliness and urge us on to its banishment.  The ultimate aim of art should be to make life beautiful in every nook and corner, to elevate the humdrum working days of common men by fair and sunny surroundings, to make manners gentle and gracious, speech melodious and refined, homes, pleasant and restful.

But art has a further function.  However beautiful and harmonious our lives, they are at best confined within narrow boundaries; and the lover of beauty will always rejoice in the glimpses which art affords into an ideal realm beyond his daily horizon.  He will gaze eagerly at the masterpieces of color and form that he cannot have forever about him, he will enrich his imagination with the great scenes of drama, he will solace his soul with the cadenced lines of poetry and the melody of music, he will live with