Elma Graves

“ He simply declined to admit that what we call justice and generosity are natural, spontaneous products essential to the preservation of society. He believed that, while it was perfectly expedient and proper for men really tqual and intelligent to cooperate instead of fighting one another, it was sentimental folly to surrender anything to the mentally or physically inferior who lacked the power to assert their claims. Egoism untrammeled, and not altruism, was to him the indispensable condition of gradual ascent of the race. ”

“ Someone has truly said that the question whether we shall have art in education is a question whether we shall be barbarian or civilized. And art in education means more than talks in the schools of things not seen ; more than pictures, as essential as books ; more than anything connected with day school or art school. It means the appeal of beauty, whether consciously or unconsciously felt, and the expression of beauty, since all true education comes both from the influence of environment and from activity of the self, in the everyday surroundings and work ”

“ With our present squalor and vulgarity in the surroundings of the poor, and luxury and shall we say with others? vulgarity in those of many of the rich, any vital growth would seem well-nigh hopeless. Who can conceive of art taking root in the pain and ugliness of the lives of many people in our great cities? They scarcely have a glimmering of what real beauty and harmony are. ”

“ On the subject of competition there is an irrepressible conflict between the individualists and the socialists; but is it not clear that competition in a "fair field and no favors" is entirely different from competition between men who are heavily handicapped and men who are free and untrammeled? Inequality of faculty may imply inequality of rewards in a society governed by individualistic principles, but society never yet has tried equality of opportunity. There certainly was no equality of opportunity in Greece or Rome, and there was none under feudalism. ”

“ If justice means equality of opportunity and of liberty, what do we mean by equality of opportunity or of liberty ? What is, and what is not, consonant with the enjoined equality? For example, with reference to land and other natural resources, what is the logical implication of equal freedom ? Is private property in land compatible with justice ? If not, what principle should govern the tenure of land ? If the answer be affirmative, does private property justify the monopolization of large areas by individuals while tens of thousands go landless ? ”

“ In our own day of storm and stress, intense struggle for existence, sensational- ism, and hurry, Brook Farms or settlements, or even cooperative action of scattered individuals animated by a common purpose, would command neither influence nor sympathetic attention. Perhaps it is necessary to qualify the aphorism that small reforms are the enemies of great ones ; for, while small reforms do not attack the roots, the sources, of social wrong, they serve to popularize the idea of reform and prepare the public mind for radical programs. ”

“ Is there not for America one truth to which it should cling very closely : that in all art development it should follow its own laws of growth, and thus come to have a truly national style? And may not this best come about through its use of all the inheritance from other ages and lands which rightly belongs to it, classic models, with modifications to suit the spirit of the time and place ? ”

“ The second function of art, its influence in education, in life, in civilization, as expression through some part of the everyday work of man, involves a great change in our industrial, as well as our strictly educational, system. This, however, does not do away with the fact that, if beauty be provided for the people by the public, it may immeasurably hasten the time when we may have an art by the people, ultimately, truly, an art 0/the people. ”

“ Art in its message to us, and as expression, holds much of the joy and solace of the elevation and inspiration of life. This surely for art were excuse enough for being and for becoming a necessity of life and education ”

“ Not only does this struggle for existence involve the necessity that personal ends must be pursued with little regard to the evils entailed on unsuccessful competitors ; but it also involves the necessity that there shall be not too keen a sympathy with that diffused suffering inevitably accompanying this industrial battle. Clearly, if there were so quick a sympathy for this suffering as to make it felt in anything like its real greatness and intensity, life would be rendered intolerable to all. ”

“ The struggle, not indeed for existence, but for comfort, superior position, distinction, is sufficient to maintain the vigor of the society, though it does not require the suppression of sympathy and generosity. ”

“ Our natures are not perfect enough to dispense with " sanctions" to moral conduct, and punishment of crime and evil may be a necessary means of improvement, part of the social discipline molding individuals for the social state. But the non-invasive individual ought to be safe from interference, and the sham individualism which steals the livery of freedom and equality rigidly kept within the bounds of fair play. We cannot compel the highest altruistic conduct by force and penalties, but equality of rights can, and therefore should, be enforced. ”

“ For, what is civilization good for if its end is not character, if it aims not at a destiny for man higher than that to which the satisfaction of his animal desires, or of his mere love of acquisition, whether material or intellectual, will lift him ? Art in its broad, its true sense, including all pro- duction which involves creative thought and beauty, if a rough- hewn definition may be ventured, should become a positive necessity of life and work. ”

“ Just as it is idle to cry peace when there is no peace, so it is vain to preach altruism to a society living and toiling under conditions which would bankrupt any individual or any class that tried to live up literally to the golden rule. ”

“ Spencer has never ceased to insist, and Professor Giddings evidently accepts that view without qualification. He evidently believes, in addition, that war and international burglary will go on so long as there is anything to grab and benevolently assimilate, and that exhorting so-called civilized nations to keep the peace, mind their own business, and respect the rights of others is sheer waste of breath. Empire first, and then, when there are no worlds left to conquer, democracy within these empires, is his forecast of the course of evolution. ”

“ In fact, we are living in an era of small reforms of which little good and but little harm can be predicated. Can it not be made the eve of an era of reforms really great and far-reaching? If, as was indicated above, there is a general and profound realization of the threatening evils, is it not possible to evolve an agreement with regard to the irreducible minimum of social reform? ”

“ MUNICIPAL ART 679
Someone thinks it "a most stinging criticism of free institutions that civic action should have failed, and individual action per- force be appealed to." The cause is surely not hard to find : political bossism and the greed of corporations are the dominant powers in our large cities, and the political machinery is so constructed as to leave without representation, almost without influence, what might otherwise be a "saving remnant" of American society, and, indeed such is the power of good leadership might soon become the ruling majority. ”

“ That the expression and the interpretation of such expression of the inner life shown through these art-forms constituted much of the real living of these people, who can doubt ? Then what has all of this been to the rest of the world ? The mind cannot form a picture of the earth without the beauty, aside from the utility, of these creations of man. The charm of foreign travel, and the general satisfaction and enjoyment of life can we think how different these would be without such beauty and our varied inheritances from it ? ”

“ IN the midst of conditions which cry aloud for betterment in all that pertains to a city's life, what place can there be for a consideration of art ? Very forcibly does this idea present itself to those familiar with the aspects of existence in that portion of a great city where the results of neglect and bad management on the part of the public are most apparent, and the need for improvement most pressing. ”

“ In Greece see how this art towers ever above the mount of the gods. Italy has height after height of art production, reaching in real significance far above all work of battle, conquest, and kingly rule. In the cities of northern and western Europe the public works are so great that these cities can never be accused of being "great through largeness only." ”

“ It is unquestionably true, as someone says, that "only by re-creation of the sources of art can it be restored as a living force." But how can the sources of art within the mind and soul of man be re-created ? ”

“ We do not love one another too much ; personal, national, and social egoism needs no artificial stimulation. An altrurian looking down and seeing the militarism of Europe and even America, the wars and preparations for war, the furious rivalry, the aggressive self- assertion, the struggle for markets and colonies, would never imagine that civilization was threatened by too literal an applica- tion of the religious and ethical doctrines of the Bible. ”

“ Art as a factor in education, to the specific end of citizenship, is surely a matter with which the public should be concerned. What may be the effect of a great public work of art is sug- gested by that often referred to, of Michael Angelo's David, its effect upon every citizen and every citizen-to-be of Florence, representing, as it did, the release of the city from the tyranny of Cesare Borgia, a grandly impressive symbol of the love of, and the struggle for, political freedom. ”

“ It is only in our own day and spot of the earth that civic art dwindles to nothingness, and art has become, as someone describes it, "a frivolous art for the gilded classes, without des- tiny, without aim, subject to the caprice of speculation and fashion, scattered by chance in private salons." All great art, it seems generally agreed, is, or has been, distinctively an art of cities. ”

“ Then, besides the delight, how much of what is of value in our knowledge of a people is found in the manifestations of their real life and their ideal conceptions through sculpture, architecture, painting, music, even leaving out poetry and eloquence ; and what has been MUNICIPAL ART 67$
enduring in these has been an expression of the life of the people. So much a part of our consciousness has this beauty become, this beauty and its revelations, that we cannot in our thought divest the world of it. ”

“ Vested wrongs, however ancient, do not become rights. Laissez-faire did not prevent the abolition of the institution of slavery, and it cannot prevent the rectification of other firmly established institutions. True, consistent, honest individualism presupposes two conditions: equal opportunities, and equal liberty to utilize them and develop one's faculties. ”

“ He discerns half a truth in Nietzscheism, however, and points out that under a certain social condition the fullest exercise of altruism and the conscious furtherance of Nietzsche's ideal may coincide. The soul of good in Nietzscheism is alleged to be its insistence upon the preservation of the vigor of the race. "Beyond any doubt," writes Professor Giddings, "physiological power, physiological vigor, is the only enduring basis of human excellence. Any contrary doctrine is a form of the self-destructive philosophy that existence itself is an evil." ”

“ The fundamental trouble with our most civilized societies is not that we tolerate struggle at all, as Tolstoy believes, nor that the struggle is not severe and ruthless enough, as Nietzsche held, but that we allow the practical disciples of the metaphysi- cal exponent of "blood and iron" to disregard the rules of the contest. Non-resistance may be possible at some future time ; non-aggression by society ought to be possible here and now. ”

“ The real obstacle to the steady improvement of the race is found in the "slave ethics" of modern codes and practice, in the practice of benevolence. Charity is not a virtue, but a blunder and a handi- cap. Might alone is right, and instead of the greatest good of all, or even of the greatest number, the guiding principle of the enlightened "blonde beast" should be the greatest freedom, pleasure, and welfare of the most vigorous and intelligent.
This is Nietzscheism in a nutshell. ”

“ No school is more thoroughly discredited than that which accepts existing iniquities and meets all demands for reform with the laissez-faire mockery. Nothing will be "let alone" which is not in accordance with the requirements of social justice. ”

“ Charity is not a weakness, but one of the advanced manifestations of power, and non-aggression, as well as non-resistance even, can be established without entailing race-deterioration. Only, according to Pro- fessor Giddings, the condition precedent to such relations among men is the expansion of democracy, the absorption of small states in larger political aggregates, and the spread of knowledge and mutual comprehension. ”