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whose impulses have not been sufficiently matured to enable him to do so
with well-understood pur
pose, and with a distinct comprehension of the nature and extent of his requirements,
and who i~
not capable, to a very great degree, of self-direction in their attainment
- has still much to acquire
before he is prepared to go abroad.    All this, and more, he can as well,
if not better, obtain at
home.  Profusion of facility in the beginning, however more smooth and easy
may be made the
way of the learner thereby, may still, for that very reason, have very doubtful
tendencies.  There
are periods of childhood and youth in art to be passed through, in which
the strength and stamina
requisite to assume a position of manhood must be gradually attained, and
home is the place, above
all others, where it is best and most healthfully secured.  From the Nature
we have first learned
to love, and which has taught us to love art, and from our native land with
all its associations, we
should derive our impulses.    That early association and familiarity with
high artistic achievement,
and the most unlimited profusion of facility for study, do not necessarily
constitute the generating
elements of genius, may be profitably considered in the fact that Rome, to
which all youthful
artists look with such ardent longing, foster-mother as she has been of so
many men of exalted
genius in art, can not claim one among them all, and boast that "he
was a Roman."
  31. It is not alone in pictures and statues, stately domes and high achievements,
that either
the impulses or evidences of the existence and influence of taste for art
are to be discovered, but
in its broader and more general diffusion, germinating beneath the sheltering
influences of these
its loftier monuments, and scattering far and wide its seeds of usefulness.
 The gift comes to us as
blessed sunshine in the world's weary way; purifying in its influences, it
reaches the perfection of
all our resources of comfort as well as of our pleasures and consolations.
  In awakening mankind to a sense of the importance of its cultivation as
a requirement in popu-
lar education-in making its advantages accessible to all-it should be regarded
as a matter
touching the interest of every one.   It extends its aid to the philanthropist
in works of blessed
charity and mercy; it gives to the public teacher the means of developing
more perfectly the
resources of the youthful mind and of directing it in ways best suited to
its natural endowments-
developing light by such happy adaptation, where otherwise might exist but
darkness-an immor-
tal mind benighted by diversion of its capacities from their true direction.
  To teachers, above all others, we appeal in behalf of those under their
charge.     That which
we want most is the general introduction of drawing in our schools; not as
an accomplish-
ment for a few, but for all.  We want not drawing-masters to be sent for
at the last moment of
giving the finishing touches to fashionable education, by a course of "twelve
lessons of an hour
each;" but we want our children, of all classes, to be indulged in the
inclination that God has