as the pursuance of such a course cultivates mannerisms and usually smothers individuality. We ought not to understand, however, that for these reasons reading should be looked upon as of little consequence to the writer. On the contrary, the student of composition should read some good literature every day. Like conversation, it is always stimulating. Furthermore, because it is the work of the most talented minds who have wrought in the art in which we are interested, it develops high standards of taste. But probably more important than either of these is the fact that it acquaints us with many means of producing effects. As a result, whenever we are in doubt we are prepared to seek the good counsel of one who has proved his ability. Without stooping to the level of slavish imitation, we can learn whether some of the means which he has employed might not lend themselves to the production of the effects we seek. Furthermore, whether or not we ever make conscious use of our reading in this way, we may always read in the sure faith that, if we steadily practice writing, our reading will some time begin to have a quiet influence, and that from that day forth "the echo of the written word" will not forsake us. Standards of movement, of emphasis, and of sound will have established themselves firmly.

This attitude of open-mindedness, moreover, prepares us to gain the full effect of our study and our classroom instruction. Writing cannot be learned by mastering rules. It requires the acquisition of a large fund of knowledge through the study of a comparatively small body of principles, and the application of them to an almost countless number of differing concrete cases. Such procedure, it may be seen, necessitates the intelligent interpretation of all instruction. Suggestions must not be accepted with blind enthusiasm as if they would be fruitful without action on the part of the recipient. He must be alert and discriminating. He must learn when to accept, when to reject; when to follow instinctive feeling, when to apply the advice which he has received. Instruction, he must remember, is for the intelligent. What Newman has aptly said about

learning Latin composition sums up fittingly this attit open-mindedness, as well as the whole attitude of the craft

"The great moral I would impress upon you is this, t learning to write Latin, as in all learning, you must not to books, but only make use of them; not hang like a weight upon your teacher, but catch some of his life; 1 what is given you, not as a formula, but as a pattern to and as a capital to improve; throw your heart and min what you are about, and thus unite the separate adva of being tutored and of being self-taught, self-taugh without oddities, and tutorized, yet without conventionalit

All that has just been said about the writer's attitude to his work implies that writing is an art. And such is the Writing is an art, and it must be studied as an art. In fac are not ready to turn our attention to the actual study and tice of writing until this conception has become clearly in our minds. Now it does not follow that composition is looked upon as a fanciful, impractical kind of study about w frivolous people become wildly ecstatic; nor is it to be comp solely with the drawing and painting taught in the ordi

art school." It is an art among those arts with whic of us are more or less familiar, such as weaving, cabinet-ma drawing, architecture, painting, sculpture, and music; in respect wholly like any of these, yet similar to all of them in n essentials. If, then, we have permitted ourselves to use the "art" without giving much thought to what it means, we o to pause and ask ourselves what significance the term r bears. Or, if we have said, " Certainly, composition is an yet have said it in such a perfunctory way that the words remained lifeless, we ought to strive anew to appreciate meaning in the declaration.

1 The Idea of a University, Part II, Chap. IV, §3.

A. THE NATURE OF ART

What, then, is the real nature of art? Art is the application of skill or taste according to " regular and disciplined " methods. It does not include what we ordinarily call nature; that is, the things which are produced apart from the ingenuity of man. It is not science; that is, mere classified knowledge. Furthermore, it is not manufacture in the present-day use of that term; that is, construction with machinelike uniformity. It always requires the individuality of the worker, it expresses the joy he finds in his work, and it implies premeditation or design. Moreover, the worker's design must conform to certain established laws. Thus architecture, though it may express any kind of individual or race temperament, is always in some degree symmetrical; painting and drawing, regardless of the will of the painter or draftsman, must have correctness of perspective; and music must have correctness of time. Furthermore, each one of these arts has very definite limitations. Some subjectmatter, for example, that is easily expressed in music cannot be expressed in painting or drawing, or even in the harmony, proportion, contrasts, and intervals of architecture. All the arts are expressions of the individual, yet each has bounds beyond which the individual cannot hope to pass. These limitations go far in establishing the fixed principles in accordance with which he must express himself.

B. COMPOSITION AS AN ART

Writing is like these arts in many essential respects. To begin with, it has, like them, many limitations; that is, it expresses some kinds of subject-matter much more naturally than others. For example, some effects that can be produced easily in architecture, the impression of mass or of height or depth, can be produced in words only with the utmost difficulty, and even then with indifferent success. Writing, likewise, involves individuality. The attainments of the writer,

no less than the attainments of the architect, the pain sculptor, or the musician, depend in large part upon his ability and his native or acquired freshness of outloo life. Again, writing requires premeditation or design. I words, the writer cannot put down on paper everything he about, in the order in which it comes to his mind, and 1 be convincing. He must have due regard for everythir is suggested by the terms selection, order, arrangemen this ordering must be done according to established pri In truth, composition is so much like these other arts th the universal testimony of writers that they perfect their edge of their own subject by studying the work of arti gaged in other fields. Furthermore, many authors, Thackeray, Victor Hugo, Rossetti, William Morris Ruskin, have testified to this close relation by dividin time between writing and one of the other arts. If oth dence of the close relationship were necessary, it could be found in the body of critical terms such as mass, motif, ment, harmony, symmetry, tone, color, rhythm, perspectiv point of view, that are common to nearly all the fields of a endeavor.

n

A further basis of comparison valuable for the stud writing lies in the division of arts into fine and instru or useful. A fine art "is the expression of man's deli nature and his sympathy with human joys and sufferi ". . . fine art, as such, has no practical end whatever. pleasures which it affords are disinterested pleasur creates for us an object for delighted contemplation, n more. Its divorce from the world of action is absolu Thus the beautiful picture, the perfect statue, and the enra ing symphony are fine art. Our pleasure in them is direc

1 J. A. Symonds, Essays Speculative and Suggestive, p. 98. Charles Sc Sons.

2 Bliss Perry, The Study of Prose Fiction, p. 208. Houghton Mifflin Co If you are interested in further definition, read what Sidney Colvin has sai "Fine Art" in the Encyclopædia Britannica.

see or hear, and our emotional lives are nourished. On the other hand, an instrumental or useful art, though expressing some degree of the worker's delight in his work, and affording some immediate pleasure to the beholder, interests man chiefly because it enables him to satisfy other more practical wants; it creates enjoyment because it is serviceable. Thus the convenient office building, the lighthouse tower, and the graceful, powerful locomotive are specimens of instrumental art. To be sure,

this, too, may sometimes be beautiful; it may make some immediate appeal to one's æsthetic sense. But its beauty is only an incidental. It appeals primarily to reason; its beauty is the beauty of fitness.

This division is a convenient one in the field of writing. As we shall have occasion to observe many times, it is not perfect; few classifications are. There will be overlapping, and there will be lines that are not very definite, just as there is uncertain ground when we try to mark off epochs in history or to distinguish plants from animals. Nevertheless, the division will serve us better than any other we can make. It is not difficult to see that a beautiful poem, a perfectly designed short story, a well-constructed play, a sublimely conceived novel, or an intimate personal essay belongs in the field of fine art; and it is no more difficult to see that a textbook on chemistry or physics, a report on the ravages of the brown-tailed moth, a petition to a college faculty, a letter of application for a position, or a newspaper account of a railroad wreck is instrumental art. To be sure, we cannot apply the term fine directly to writing as we apply it to art generally; but that impossibility is due merely to an unfortunate limitation of the English language. We could express ourselves more accurately if the language contained a word that was exactly the equivalent in meaning of fine + artistic. Inasmuch as it does not, we must content ourselves to use the nearest equivalent. This is aesthetic. Whenever, therefore, it is necessary to refer to the two great divisions of writing, we shall not go far wrong if we call them aesthetic and instrumental.