- tions to the world's progress, not by military achievement
or accumulation of wealth, but by the something better called culture. The glory of the Greeks lay not in their civil wars, but in the spirit brought to the defence of their country at Thermopylæ; not in the cost and use of their temples and statuary, but in the art that found expression in them; not in their commerce, but in the lofty views of their philosophers and the skill of their poets. Men admire that which ennobles, without thought of price or utility, and the world still demands liberal education. Literature and philosophy have much more in them for the average student than has yet been gained from them. The æsthetic side of literature is too often condemned or neglected. There is genuine education in all æsthetic power, even in the lower form of appreciation of the ludicrous, the power to observe fine distinctions of incongruity. We say a thing is perfectly ludicrous, perfectly grotesque, and thereby recognize the art idea, namely, perfection in execution. Man is always striving to attain the perfect in some form, and the art idea is one of the highest in the field of education. Art leans toward the side of feeling, but is none the less rich and valuable for that. Shakespeare furnishes some of the highest types of art in literature. The flow of his verse, the light beauty of his sonnets, the boldness and wonderful aptness of his metaphors, the skill of his development, the ever-varying types, the humor, the joys, the sorrows, the wisdom, the folly of men, the condensation of events and traits and experiences in individual types, the philosophical and prophetic insight, the artistic whole of his plays, constitute a rich field of education.
