a chair in all the colleges for the development of the dramatic instinct. Upon this instinct, he held, success in every walk of life depends. The teacher cannot teach unless he sees as the student sees; the preacher cannot preach without the power of putting himself in another man's place; the merchant succeeds on account of the ability to read the wishes and needs of his customers. And so it is throughout all human experience and endeavor: an instinctive knowledge of human nature is the basis of success. All men are great in proportion to their ability to get outside of themselves.

A proper conception of dramatic instinct must be gained apart from the stage. Many of the exhibitions upon the stage are devoid of anything essentially dramatic. If the stage were a place for the pure and noble representation of dramatic instinct, there would be few who would have any objection to it. The men with the strongest dramatic instinct whom it has been my privilege to meet or hear have not been actors, such men as Beecher and Gough.

Dramatic instinct should be trained because it is a part of the imagination, because it gives us practical steps towards the development of the imagination, because it is the means of securing discipline and power over feeling. Dramatic instinct should be trained because it is the insight of one mind into another. The man who has killed his dramatic instinct has become unsympathetic, and can never appreciate any one's point of view but his Dramatic instinct endows us with broad conceptions of the idiosyncrasies, beliefs, and convictions of men. It trains us to unconscious reasoning, to a deep insight into the motives of man. It is universally felt that one's power to "other himself" is the measure of the greatness of his personality. All sympathy, all union of ourselves with the ideals and struggles of our race, are traceable to imagination and dramatic instinct.

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★ The relation of imagination to dramatic instinct has not been sufficiently appreciated. Many years ago the editor of the "North American Review" published published a symposium from various actors upon the nature of dramatic instinct. It is curious to note that nearly all these said that dramatic instinct had two elements,

imagination and sympathy. Imagination affords insight into character; sympathy enables us to identify ourselves with it. Thus, imagination and dramatic instinct are essentially united. The little child who is imaginative always shows it by dramatic actions in his play

While imagination and dramatic instinct may be separated in conception, while the difference in their actions may be distin

higher actions. Together they form the chief elements of altruism. They redeem the mind from narrowness and selfishness; they enable the individual to appreciate the point of view, the feelings, motives, and characters of his fellow-men; they open his eyes to read the various languages of human art; they enable him to commune with his kind on a higher plane than that of commonplace facts; they lift him into communion with the art and spirit of every age and nation. Without their development man is excluded from the highest enjoyment, the highest communion with his kind, and from the highest success in every walk of life.

One of the chief needs of the education of our time is a practical method for the development of the imagination and the dramatic instinct, a method which will prevent their abuse, bring the mind into direct contact with the greatest products of the imagination, and train students to appreciate the highest literature and art. There are many methods of studying and training these powers, but the one here to be indicated has proved successful through many years of experience, and is essentially the same as that adopted in the schools of the Greeks, whose development of the artistic nature is universally considered to have been the highest ever known.

The best method of developing the imagination is by the study of Nature and poetic expression. A sympathetic love of the beautiful in Nature is characteristic of noble imagination. Even in the study of art there must ever be a comparison with Nature. George F. Watts once said, "People must be trained to a higher appreciation of art by being led to see what a great artist Nature is."

The influence of Nature in the education of the human mind cannot be over-estimated. Wordsworth has taught us to realize the power of Nature to stimulate and unfold the energies of the soul. All art proceeds from wonder. A sympathetic observation of life has been instrumental in every age in stimulating the mental and artistic faculties.

Nature alone, however, is inadequate to secure the full power of imagination. Thousands have grown up in the midst of the greatest beauty of Nature with low and sensuous ideals, and without having their sense of beauty awakened. Art is therefore needed to show us Nature's subtleties, to give us a right attitude of mind towards her, and to awaken sympathetic attention to her revelations.

What form of art should be studied? Every form as far as possible; for each art is a distinct language, which expresses some aspect of the human soul and realizes some truth apprehended in no other way. Music and poetry are arts in time," and can reveal the sequence of ideas and the movement of life; but painting works in space, and is confined to the intense realization of one moment. It is intensive, where other arts are extensive. Both are needed for adequate expression.

Any one of these arts even poetry, the highest of all, and the most capable of being used as a means of developing the imagination—may, when studied alone, cause the student to become one-sided. The painter who never studies anything but his own art becomes superficial. The poet who fails to see the depth and force in plastic and pictorial art becomes merely literary. Painters condemn a picture which is too "literary, - this use of the word indicating those who merely write, who merely look at Nature as a means of literary description. On the other hand, the painter who never studies books or other arts almost ceases to think; some have even gone so far as to say "the painter has no business to think at all."

Every great art is a special language of the human spirit, and he who desires to awaken his artistic nature will learn to read all these languages. The possession of merely literary and artistic knowledge does not imply culture; for this results from the

harmonious activity of all the faculties of the mind. It is dependent upon appreciation, upon insight into art and poetry, upon sympathy with the ideals of humanity.

Too much cannot be said in favor of the erection of beautiful public buildings, and of museums of art. It is to be hoped that the time is not far distant when every village will have its art collections, when every school-room and every home will be filled with objects of art.

Art which has to do with imagination is called poetry; and while poetry belongs to painting, sculpture, music, and architecture, its chief expression is in certain forms of literary composition. A love of poetic literature has nearly always preceded a desire for other forms of art. It is always associated with a love of the beautiful in Nature; its greatest masterpieces can become the possession of all, and hence it must serve as the chief means of educating the imagination.

Again, poetry is fullest of imaginative life and energy. In every poem there are possibilities of innumerable paintings, if only the artistic nature can intensely realize each successive picture. Its materials are the simple words of common minds; its form or body is simply an orderly, or rhythmic arrangement of human speech.

Taking for granted, then, that literature will best educate the imagination, the question arises, What methods of studying it are best adapted to exercise this faculty?

Until comparatively recent times, the highest culture was supposed to be embodied in the Greek and Latin languages. The study of these constituted for centuries the chief means of literary training. But the great discoveries in every field of scientific investigation, during the present century, have led many to doubt the power of Greek and Latin to furnish the broadest possible education. With this tendency to doubt the advantage of studying these languages, there has grown up also a neglect of all literary culture. At the present time, a majority of the studies in all grades of schools concern themselves chiefly with the acquisition of knowledge.

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The too exclusive study of science, however, is in turn slowly leading to the realization of the inadequacy of facts to develop the whole man harmoniously and completely. Slowly but surely our leading educators are coming to feel that science alone is insufficient for the complete development of the whole man. A great scientist of our age, Charles Darwin, has said: "I used to sit for hours reading the historical plays of Shakespeare, generally in an old window in the thick walls of the school. I read also other poetry, such as Thomson's 'Seasons,' and the recently published poems of Byron and Scott. I mention this, because later in life I wholly lost, to my great regret, all pleasure from poetry of any kind, including Shakespeare.

In another part of the biography from which this extract is taken, he adds: "Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley-gave me great pleasure; and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great, delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for pictures or music. Music generally sets me thinking too energetically on what I have been at work upon, instead of giving me pleasure. . . . My mind seems to have become a machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts; but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. . . . If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature." 1

1 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, i. 30, 81.