poetry are inadequate, Vocal Expression will make us realize the inadequacy of any given translation, and also furnish assistance to the exercise of translation.

To illustrate this, I have endeavored to translate anew the "Erlkönig” of Goethe. It is a most dramatic lyric, or ballad, and well suited for recitation; the variety of emotions, the subjectivity and objectivity, the intensity of feeling, all should be given. It is also a most difficult poem to translate. The translation is here given merely as an illustration of the method, and placed opposite the original (see pp. 44, 45). The same is true, also, of the translation of the little poem (p. 37) from the French of Du Maurier.

SOME men are so anxious to be natural that they confound naturalness with tameness. Naturalness means strength, means potency, means vigor of soul, means all-sided manifestation of power. Besides, all art must be truthful; but as art is interpretative, it must accentuate the truthfulness, - it must enlarge subtleties. The size of a portrait does not determine its fidelity; a very large picture may be as faithful a portrait as a smaller one. Naturalness means a true balance, a true proportion, a true, harmonious blending of the fundamental elements of nature.

Art

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SCIENCE comes from a word meaning "to know," and shows man's understanding of the laws of nature. goes farther, and implies an assimilation and enjoyment of the life of nature, participation in her creative energy. It means a sharing in the processes of great creating nature. It means doing, not in the dry sense of duty, but in the sense of an exuberance of life, versal, playing into an individual embodiment. Art and religion are founded in the power of man, not only to know and understand, but to enjoy, to do, and to become.

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THE Greeks expressed more beauty in a jug than we do in our public monuments.

THE EDUCATION OF THE PUBLIC READER.1

OO often the egotism and a certain sort of vanity which lead young men and women to choose public reading as a profession, prevent them from correctly appreciating the value of the education they do not already possess. It is because, in so many cases, the aspirant places himself before the public thus impatiently that people have come to believe in some instances that elocution is a sort of fungus growth, like an extra hump, or other deformity, not at all incompatible with an uncultivated, undisciplined mind. And until this matter is properly understood, until it is known to be as necessary to prepare for the study of public reading by a good education as it is for the study of law or medicine, — public reading will not occupy the position it deserves.

First of all, the public reader must have something to express before he can express it. Not only must he repeat the words of the author, but his mind must be sufficiently refined and responsive to think the author's thoughts and sympathize with the author's ideals. In no other profession is there such need of a well-rounded development. The study of books, men, art, nature, and especially any study or line of thought which will develop the imagination, is necessary to this end. Then, too, there is the technical training, — the freeing and controlling the voice and body so that they become not only willing, but able, servants of the soul. This is absolutely necessary. Without it the worker in our art would be as powerless as the violinist without his violin. On the other hand, the most perfectly flexible and expressive body and voice, without the appreciation and understanding of truth and beauty in the soul within, would be like the violin without the violinist.

And yet the young aspirant is not to blame because he does not realize that general education and broad culture should come prior to special knowledge of his art, and moreover are essential to his knowledge of it. No doubt vanity and love of approbation urge

1 Given at the Conference on Expression.

him forward; but in most cases perhaps there is a something within him that responds in a vague emotional way to the beauty he finds in whatever he reads; and his egotism whispers in his ear that the world needs him, and that he has a message no one else can express, and that he must express it immediately and in his own way. If he does so, without waiting for the right education and training, without waiting until this vague response becomes a definite and clear one, even that original vague response in his soul, which is truth, and will become the breath of his art-life if he but wait upon it, may die away; for egotism will take the place of truth, and this wonderful echo-chamber within responds to nothing but truth. If, hushing self, he will wait upon and listen to this response within him, vague though it be at first, he will learn wonderful lessons. He will learn that in art, as in life, he must lose his life to gain it ; and if there is a special message that he is to bring to the world, the world will get it soonest by his humbly serving the truth. Here again it is education and development of mind that enable one to hush the buzz of self and listen, and thus learn these wonderful lessons; and where there was once a vague murmur in this chamber of the soul, now in the perfect silence comes a glorious response. The personal life that was lost in the contemplation of the truth finds itself again in this expression of universal life.

Should, then, these first impulses towards expression be checked until the mind is more disciplined and cultivated than is usually the case when the impulse first takes possession of us?

As long as the response within to the beauty without is vague and undefined, waiting will help growth.

We may read the passage over aloud, and then read it again and yet again, receiving new impressions of the beauty and truth in it by of the ear as well as the eye; and thus reacting upon our minds, new beauties and truths will be responded to, and what was vague at first will gradually grow defined and become a clear mental picture.

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But this is the work of the studio. It is educational. It is a part of the waiting, the work of impression rather than expression.

Let us train our minds to be receptive, to wait reverently for the coming of the voices.

Did Mary choose the better part, or did Martha? Is contemplation I use the word in its highest and most spiritual sense - that reverent attitude of soul which tends towards self-effacement? Is contemplation the completest act of worship? Is it the highest effect of art? All good art starts from it; all good art induces it.

LELAND T. POWERS.

THE painters of our day have contempt for the opinion of those outside their own profession; yet outsiders, it is said, sometimes see deeper into a game than those who are engaged in playing it. Painters have respect for each other's opinions; they paint for each other, - or, at any rate, they follow each other. If one makes a hit, all the others try to follow like a flock of sheep.

Artists should study the needs, the ideals, the spirit, the burden of their age. They should even study the wishes of their audience. They should study whether they have anything to say. Much of the art of our time consists of mere studies. There is no expression of anything; it is merely an exhibition of technical execution. The painter who is to become an artist must, first of all, study his own heart, and learn what he feels most intensely, loves most surely so that he can express it artistically. Painting is simply a mode of expression; but it is peculiar in that a whole life, a whole character, or the very soul of a scene in nature must be breathed into one supreme moment, and upon a few inches of canvas.

Some one has said, "Great art can never come down to us; we must climb to it." Taste, appreciation of something great and noble, is cultivated by struggles to rise, and never by "adaptation,' or by degrading the art to popular whim.

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THE art of explaining art is most difficult. An interpretative art has the greatest temptation to go astray.

A PRACTICAL LESSON IN LITERATURE AND

THE

EXPRESSION.

HE study of Literature through Vocal Expression implies a vivid imaginative realization in the reader of the environment of the poetic thought, life, character of the poem. Such environment is essential to the spirit of poetry. It implies a cultivated instinct to discern relations. This instinct is in some degree universal, but may be cultivated by systematic training. Whatever will develop the power to think with the poet through a series of circumstances or situations, will furnish such training.

The Authors' Recitals, given in the School of Expression, have proved to large and cultivated audiences that such training is adapted to the average student as well as to those of exceptional ability.

Said a student of a neighboring university, after hearing a recital from "Les Misérables" by the students of the School of Expression: "I should like to know how they get such results. We have nothing in our university that can be compared to what we have heard this evening in its practical results. These students know

that book."

Professor Corson speaks of the "key tone of a poem," - that delicate something which can never be imitated, but which is a natural consequence of thinking the thought in its natural environment.

On

NOTES ON THE READING OF MILTON'S "L'Allegro.'' 1. READ the poem through thoughtfully and receptively. Be open to whatever is potent in its influence. This kind of artistic or intense attention to thought can be cultivated by actual use. finishing the reading of the poem, speak aloud to yourself your own spontaneous opinion of the poem. Note this down, and preserve it with care. It is of more value to you at this stage of

than the most elaborate judgment of scholars.

your study

2. Read the poem again. This time have pencil and hand, and note every reference you cannot explain.

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