LITERARY RUSKINISM.

MR. JOHN RUSKIN has been spending the greater portion of his life in endeavoring to free the world from an old idea, that works of art should be admired for their own apparent power, for the force with which they strike the observer. In place of this notion, he has labored to introduce a taste for art measured by definite rules and lines.

He would have us dissect each picture; and, if we find a superfluous line or a bit of avoidable coloring, class any painting in which it may appear among the works of base and degraded artists, without regard to its general effect and the impression it produces upon us.

The immense culture requisite to become master of the Ruskin mode of thought may at first appear a desirable objective point. But reflection cannot fail to show that, where one attains the desired end, a hundred advance on the path only so far as to upset their faith in their old ideas of art. These substitute in its place such a doubt of their power to appreciate works of true genius, and such a fear lest their ignorance of some technical point may lead them into some un-Ruskinian expression of admiration, that the pleasure which they feel in contemplating masterpieces is greatly blunted, if not totally destroyed.

This principle holds good in more than one branch of education. Modern improvement, not content with overthrowing the old prejudices of the art-world, has crept in among us in another form, and has, almost unnoticed, taken control of our classical education.

It is not long since classical instruction here rested on a basis entirely different from the present. The works of the grand old thinkers of Greece and Rome were read, not as etymological and grammatical puzzles, but for their beauties of idea and of expression. The student was not asked to rack his brains and search the grammar for the peculiar technical reason for an uncommon use of a subjunctive, or to give a long dissertation on the ground of a Grecian author's choice of the infinitive with av instead of the optative. It was supposed that the average student had sufficient general knowledge of grammatical principles, after four or five years of careful preparation, to dispense with comments and questions on the syntax of ordinary sentences; and was able, if not invariably to have every grammatical term at his tongue's end, at least to have enough familiarity with the fundamental principles of the language in question to apprehend the meaning of a sentence, without dissecting it with the critical care of an anatomist.

The classic literature of antiquity was read for itself. The student could then realize the true beauties of the work in his hands; and a knowledge of construction would come of itself from familiarity with the pages of the model writers of old. One did not read Latin and Greek with the view of becoming a pedagogue. One read them with enthusiasm and pleasure, as they should be read, as a means of elegant culture; and the student of those days graduated with a lively admiration, if not a decided taste and love, for those grand old pages which had been opened to him in the halls of Alma Mater.

Of late, however, the system has been gradually changing. Literary Ruskins have begun to turn their attention to the education of the classic world, to revolutionize the old system of reading and enjoying works of ancient genius, to replace it by their new method of parsing and dissecting them.

The easy and familiar old pronunciation is done away with, in favor of a new, foreign-sounding style. The pages of the old writers seem no longer to be regarded as mines of beautiful and lofty thought, of fascinating and exciting story, but rather as quarries whence to pry unheard-of subjunctives and rare optatives.

But these men forget that the principles, which serve so admirably to guide the researches of finished scholars and learned men of leisure, are hardly as applicable to the student. They forget that the critical care with which they search the intricacies of works, to themselves familiar, is hardly appreciable, and certainly not enjoyable, to the student who for the first time opens these pages. They do not remember the good old-fashioned education which gave them their fondness for the life they now pursue, but only call to mind their new theories, and apply them practically to the rising generations of students.

As long as these things are so, the student may study conscientiously, but his study will be a task. He may pore over the pages of his classics in the prescribed manner, but he will rise from his labor with no notion of the grandeur of the work which he has read, - only with a vague idea of disconnected subjunctives and confused optatives floating through his troubled and wearied brain.

B. W.