in the mind of the instructor whether the more vitalizing reaction has taken place upon the freshmen or upon the faculty, who, because of recent discussions of college aims, have felt the necessity of increased vigilance and objectivity both in the classroom and in the social and religious life of the campus. The result would probably be the same in either case, and would be most successful with both processes at work.

Compensation

My bare walls shut me in. No art adorns
Nor music thrills within my poor retreat-
I cannot entertain the proud elite;

Who sees my poverty but laughs and scorns
And straightway leaves me to my bed of thorns.
Withdrawing here from cruel, throbbing street,
To find a solitude that is complete,

I sleep and dream and wake to lonely morns.

But, oh, the pearls of thought I garner here,
The visions beauteous I often see-

What harmonies drift here from realms divine!
While choicest spirits' company is near,

Inhibited by no moron debris,

And all the best is most supremely mine.

-VINCENT JONES, Los Angeles, Calif.

HEWITT B. VINNEDGE, HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE, STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE,

I

MAYVILLE, NORTH DAKOTA

HAVE called this paper an apology for art, not because I believe that art is something for which excuses should be made, not because it is something that must crave pardon instantly for its very existence, but because it has been unfortunately misrepresented and much underrated, and so needs an apology, in the sense of an explanation, a vindication, and a placement in true alignment. I shall try to show that art is not that shadowy and ethereal thing, rarefied and detached from normal life, that it is often thought to be; that it is, and must of necessity be, an integral part in the well-rounded life of an individual, a community, a state; that it is an essential industry differing in no striking degree from other crafts and businesses; that an intelligent and appreciative interest in things artistic is emphatically not a characteristic which should be kept hidden from the eyes of a supposedly philistine world; that a person having such an interest need have no just fear that his acquaintances will consider him lacking in the qualities of a "he-man" or a "she-woman."

The mistaken notion that an artist is a being apart, a member of a select company or a chosen people, is an entirely modern one; it is not historically correct. One reads many jokes and sees many cartoons about the rakish-looking artist, with the uncut and shaggy hair and the long and flowing tie, who lives the so-called Bohemian life, mingles only with his allegedly superior group, and makes a strenuous effort to break all the conventions. Such an individual is not a genuine artist; he is a poseur, busily at work striking one startling gesture after another. As a matter of fact, he is so busy gesturing that he has no time for the serious business of art. Your true artist may, of course, have a certain amount of carelessness about his personal appearance, because he is

probably rather busy; but he is likely to frequent as good a barber and as good a haberdasher as is the office clerk or the traveling salesman. He is too busy and too interested in his work to do anything else. He cannot afford to spend the amount of time needed by the poseur to keep the flowing locks in the expected artistic abandon or to deposit the correct amount of grease spots upon the long Windsor tie and the outlandish costume. Such things are non-essentials with him-details about which he cannot bother. He is a workman, busy in doing his own work the best that he can. other words, he is an individual, working away at his trade. He is not a mere type, striving to make himself conform to a preconceived notion. Thus he is actually far less conventional than the poseur who is forever hedged about with the conventions of trying to appear unconventional.

It is partly because of the ridiculous appearance and manners of the quack artist that art has gained an unsavory reputation with so many intelligent persons of modern times; for the quack, being what is popularly known as a nut, has forged into public attention, and has given a bad name to art in general. Persons have come to believe that all artists must be like that, too, and the man or woman of common sense thinks: "That fellow's a freak. His work must be freakish and nutty, too. I'll have nothing to do with it. Leave art to other nuts. I'll stick to good common sense." And we can scarcely blame these sensible people for their attitude. They are not altogether at fault for their judgment. But their position is a false one, none the less. When the quacks and charlatans in the medical profession are shown up, there is a proportional reaction against the entire profession; but it would be a mistake for this reason (would it not?) to relegate all physicians and their work to the limbo of arrant bunkum. The profession would soon decline and finally vanish.

That is exactly what has been happening, I am inclined to think, in the case of art. The adverse attitude, whether of indifference or of outright hostility, is largely the cause,

I believe, for the relatively lower state of art at the moment than that which it has often enjoyed in the past. For an artist cannot rise above his age. He is essentially the epitome and the expression of his age and people. And if his age and people have a rather low opinion of art, his work will be of a rather low order. I am more and more convinced that there can be no great art apart from a great demand. The attitude of society unites with the skill of the artist, and the offspring of this union is great art. There cannot be great art when one of these two "parents" is absent.

In the middle ages and in the Renaissance there was great art. Then the artist was no rarefied being, aloof from his fellows. On the contrary he had no amenities; he enjoyed neither distinction nor position. He was recognized merely as a craftsman who could manufacture a product that was in general demand. He belonged to the bricklayers' union, the stonemasons' union, or the mediæval equivalent of such organizations. In mediæval times the fundamental center of interest was the Church. The painter, the sculptor, the architect, or the musician was regarded as a laborer with a greater or less degree of skill for administering to and satisfying that interest. He turned out a product no less in demand than the automobile manufacturer produces today. Consequently there was a great art business, as there is today a great motor-car business. And the mediæval or Renaissance artist expressed accurately the mental attitude of his time. He could not help expressing its attitude, for he was filling its demands and answering its problems. That is why the fine arts can best express the psychology of a given community or age; for if they are good art, they are the epitome of the age. That is why we say that art is the cultural expression of a race; not because it is some sort of highbrow addition to a race, but because it reflects the race's mentality in the most accurate, and therefore the most cultivated, manner; for cultivation is only another word for painstaking care.

I have mentioned the sculptor, the painter, and other artists, and this leads me to a discussion as to what fields of human activity are embraced within the term fine arts, and even to attempt a definition of art. Immediately I get on dangerous ground, for art has been one of the most defined and, I think, most misdefined things in all history. I shall not attempt to go it alone. Before I have the effrontery to advance an art theory of my own, I shall give, in brief, that of a very competent and scholarly art critic, Mr. Ernest H. Wilkins of the University of Chicago. Mr. Wilkins' creed of art consists of six parts, based upon a common element: 1. The first condition for the production of art is the presence in the artist of intellectual-emotional energy.

2. While the artist has the surplus of that energy there must come to him some compelling impression.

3. The process of art production is the release of the surplus intellectual-emotional energy through the rendering of a certain impression.

4. If the work of art is to be great, the store of surplus energy must be large, and the impression one of wide human appeal, and the rendering loyal.

5. The work of art is an inexhaustible reservoir of intellectual-emotional energy, from which we may draw. 6. The work of art has also the power to make us more readily able to perceive impressions, such as that rendered by the artist.

He embodies within his creed the five conventional fine arts, and classifies them thus:

Mr. Wilkins's definition is a workable one and a relatively simple one. It is, perhaps, presumptuous of me to advance one of my own after submitting his. But I feel that there