AN ANSWER.

THERE seems to me to be room for a difference of opinion in regard to the subject discussed by the author of "Literary Ruskinism" in the last Magenta. He objects to the manner of conducting recitations now followed at Harvard, and thinks the object should be to point out to us "the beauties of idea and expression." He likens the present system to that Mr. Ruskin prescribes for the cultivation of the artistic taste, and objects to this, both because it upsets our faith in our old ideas of art, and because, if I understand, it is a system.

If Mr. Ruskin's system accomplishes the first of these things, it is able to do some good at least; for, in all probability, our old ideas are wrong. And why should we not study art systematically? If I place a picture of Albert Durer's before an ignorant person, he will doubtless feel none of the beauty which is certainly there. Nor will my saying to him, "This is a beautiful picture," do good. We must all have education in art, as well as in everything else requiring knowledge and judgment; and, in my opinion, this education is best secured by the analytical system of Mr. Ruskin.

This, too, is the system that should be followed in teaching the classics. If the students in these days, as our author says they used to do, came to college, after four or five years of careful preparation, with a sufficient knowledge of the grammatical principles, the drill he objects to would be perhaps superfluous. But do they come so prepared? Most enter college with a knowledge of only the easiest works of all classical literature, such as Caesar, Virgil, Xenophon, and are here saddled with Aristophanes, Sophocles, and Horace. They have all they can do, with the help of their instructors, and other helps, to master the meaning of these. It will do little good for the instructor to point out the beauties in idea and expression. As to the beauty of ideas, any one who should put a decent amount of work upon Horace, and find no beauty in it, would, in my opinion, find none were it pointed out to him with ever so much care and repetition. And as to the beauty of expression, some of this must be seen in the anatomical dissection spoken of. But are we so in want of instruction in the beauty of expression of the old writers? Methinks I remember a classical course in my Freshman year, where it was considered that the "happy rendering of this" and the "humorous use of yap here" were quite sufficiently dwelt upon.

We must first learn to read the classics, and when we can read and write them well the beauties of thought and expression will come of themselves, without our having to grub for them, which spoils the whole effect.

The author, by the by, says, "This easy and familiar old pronunciation is done away with, in favor of a new and foreign-sounding style." Is it not well to change the wrong for the right? And does not it seem natural that the language of foreigners long dead should sound foreign?

W. T. W.