BD 435 .L8 Copy 1 BD ^5 J^ARJOFblVlfC B\ F. Emo ryLyor? LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. - — Chap. Copyright No. Shelf \L% UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. What is Worth While Series, AFTER COLLEGE, WHAT? For Girls. By Mrs. Helen E. Starrett. ART OF LIVING (THE). By F. Emory Lyon. BLESSING OF CHEERFULNESS (THE). By Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D. BY THE STILL WATERS. By Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D. CHILDREN'S WING (THE). By Elizabeth Glover. CHRIST-FILLED LIFE (THE). By C. C. Hall, D.D. CONFLICTING DUTIES. By E. S. Elliott. CULTURE AND REFORM. By Anna R. Brown, Ph.D. DO WE BELIEVE IT? By E. S. Elliott. EXPECTATION CORNER. By E. S. Elliott. FAMILY MANNERS. By Elizabeth Glover. GENTLE HEART (A). By the Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D. GIRLS : Faults and Ideals. By Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D. GIVING WHAT WE HAVE. By Anna R. Brown, Ph.D. GOLDEN RULE IN BUSINESS. By Rev. C. F. Dole. HAPPY LIFE (THE). By Charles W. Eliott, LL.D. HEAVENLY RECOGNITION. T.DeWittTalmage.D.D. J. COLE. By Emma Gellibrand. JESSICA'S FIRST PRAYER. By Hesba Stretton. KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER. By John Ruskin. LADDIE. By the author of " Miss Toosey's Mission." LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP. By Ralph Waldo Emerson. MASTER AND MAN. By Count Tolstoi. MISS TOOSEY'S MISSION. By the author of "Laddie." PATHS OF DUTY (THE). By Dean Farrar. REAL HAPPENINGS. By Mrs. Mary B. Clafiin. SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE. By Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D. SELF-CULTURE. By Wm. E. Channing, D.D. SHIPS AND HAVENS. By Rev. Henry Van Dyke, D.D. STILLNESS AND SERVICE. By E. S. Elliott. SWEETNESS AND LIGHT. By Matthew Arnold. TALKS ABOUT A FINE ART. By Elizabeth Glover. TELL JESUS. By Anna Shipton. TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. By E. S. Elliott. TRUE WOMANHOOD. By W. Cunningham, D.D. TWO PILGRIMS (THE). By Count Lyof N. Tolstoi. VICTORY OF OUR FAITH. By Anna R. Brown, Ph.D. WHAT IS WORTH WHILE? By Anna R. Brown, Ph.D. WHAT MEN LIVE BY. By Count Lvof N. Tolstoi. WHEN THE KING COMES TO HIS OWN. By E. S. Elliott. WHEREFORE, O GOD ? By the Rev. C. B. Herbert. WHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD IS ALSO. By L. N. Tolstoi. YOUNG MEN : Faults and Ideals. Rev. J. R. Miller, D.D. For sale by all booksellers, or sent, postpaid, by the publishers, on receipt of 35c. Thomas Y.Crowell & Co,, NewYork & Boston. THE ART OF LIVING THE REV. FMlMORY LYON SOCIAL SCIENCE LECTURER, AND AUTHOR OF " SOCIAL EVANGELISM ! " The art of Life — the greatest of all artsy Thomas Carlyle ^ ^d IU \*\ 0^ NEW YORK: 46 East Fourteenth Street THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY BOSTON: 100 Purchase Street \^ V\ 3$ \3* Copyright, 1897, By Thomas Y. Cbowell & Company. C. J. Peters & Son, Typogbaphkbb, Boston. A. Mudgk & Son, Pbiktebs. NOTE. The following was prepared as a lecture, with no thought of publication. But many who have heard it expressed a desire to give some of the statements more deliberate attention; also inquiries concerning it from various parts of the country by those who may not hear it have induced me to submit it to the pub- lishers in its present form of direct address. As a convenient gift-book I trust it may fulfil a definite mission as an inspiration to mental and spiritual culture. F E L Madison, Wis. THE ART OF LIVING. " Plain living and high thinking," that all-sufficient motto of Wordsworth, perhaps best defines what I mean by the art of living. True living is certainly nothing less than an art. And if we get a proper conception of the meaning and mission of art, I hardly see how living can be anything more. Living is more than a theory, since we are daily reminded that it is intensely practi- cal. But it is therefore more than a philosophy. Mil- lions of unlearned mortals have lived, and lived right well, who never knew philosophy. Other thousands of lettered fame have been scientists, and science is the opposite of philosophy. The one is the philosophy of atoms, the other is the science of universals. But life is more than both of these, since they ignore the more essential elements in human nature. The philosopher, with his cold reason, defies emotion ; while the scientist Darwin sadly confessed that he had lost his taste for poetry and song. To be sure, there is and ought to be a science of living. It is the basis. We would not underestimate that. But it is, after all, the . elementary process. It is not " an ugly anatomy " merely, yet it embodies the unsentimental detail of life. The art of living is needed to give it finish and embellishment. " Art adorns science," says some one. " Science is the helpmeet of art. Art is the love of the soul, as science 5 6 THE ART OF LIVING. is its law." Hence we may affirm : science is the root of the tree of life ; art is its fruit and flower. For art, we must know at the outset, is more than painting, else who of us is not an artist ? As it is not all of life to live, so it is not all of art to paint. Art is even more than formative, such as painting, poetry, music, sculp- ture, and architecture. Art is chiefly inspirational and ministrative. Ruskin, more than any one else, has taught us that art is not only for beauty, but for use. He once said, " I can get no soul to believe that the be- ginning of art is to get our country clean and our people beautiful." All man's work, so far as it ministers to human comfort or pleasure or betterment, is art. And it is because of this practical nature of true art that we may consistently speak of the art of living. The glory of recent art, and of recent science as well, is that they have come into direct contact with real life. Laud seer's dogs and Rosa Bonheur's horses are popular because they seem, above all things else, to throb with life. No science has ever seemed quite so fascinating as the crowning science of biology has now become. Matter itself could never be rightly appreciated but for the phenomena of vegetable and animal life. It is not strange that to us who live the most fascinating of all themes is life itself. Indeed, is not life in the abstract the most marvellous fact in all the world ? Wonderful as are the facts of star or stone, of chemistry or calcu- lus, of physics or language, the simplest elements of real life surpass them all. And the interest increases with the degree of life. Little wonder, then, that man, pos- sessing the highest form of this sacred gift, delights to cherish it. Drummond has said that the greatest thing in the world is love. But love and life are interchange- THE ART OF LIVING. 1 able. Both are eternal. Only the loveless and the un- loved do not wish to live. Man is the battling-ground of two great kingdoms of life, the animal and the spiritual. To the vegetable and animal kingdoms of life, Christianity adds another, the spiritual kingdom. This new dispensation brings higher life to man. And like John the Baptist, though, as Christ said, none born of woman in the old kingdom was greater than he, yet the least in the new kingdom was greater. So all along this line of life the least in every higher kingdom is greater than the greatest in the lower. Many are the seeming leaps and bounds in the progress of man; but in all his age-long development, to me the most marvel- lous moment is when God breathed into him the breath of life, and he became a living soul — a conscious, act- ing being. If you wish, you may watch this germ until it is quickened into divinest energy, and man becomes a new creature. Then, may we not add to our kingdoms of life another, the celestial ? It is at least because of this great and growing fact of life that science may now be put into poetic form, as did Goethe. It is because of this that all life tends toward artistic expression. It is because art is so in- separable from life that we can say with Dr. Maudsley, that " art has now opening before it a field so wide that imagination cannot dare to limit it. For science must plainly attain to its highest development in the work of the future poet, who shall give to its reality a beautiful form." But I have said that living is a prac- tical art. Since men have lived upon the earth, they have had to learn to live. All the different stages of civilization have been but the record of progress in the art of living. All the creation of tools and instruments 8 THE ART OF LIVING. in the practical arts has been the product of man's re- sources and his reason at any given time. We are, therefore, not only " a part of all we have known," but also of all they of the past have conceived. We are one with the universal mind of history, and heirs to all its discoveries. We may practise plain living and high thinking because we are the offspring of other genera- tions of plain-living and high-thinking people. In some respects, may it not be said our forefathers followed a form of plain-living which puts to shame much modern luxury and dissipation ? Scotch oatmeal, New England brown bread, early to bed and early to rise habits, and the pioneers' out-door life upon the Western prairies, were all decidedly better than the nervous tension and stimulant reaction under which so many now live. We may think well also, because we are inseparably con- nected with the past. The choice spirits of all time have thought loftily, and we know what they have thought. The student of to-day, as Herschel has said, " is placed in contact with the best society in every period of history, — with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who. have adorned humanity. He is a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages." But we may also think high thoughts because of our vital contact with the modern world. Because of the marvellous strides in discovery and invention, our mod- ern life has become more and more complex and inter- dependent. In consequence the art of living, while it has been refined and simplified, has also been exalted. Where once we waited long weary weeks for the mail- stage to cross the continent, now we step to the telephone, and talk with our New York neighbors or Connecticut THE ART OF LIVING. 9 cousins. Whereas our fathers lived in isolation, far from the madding crowd, our solitary place is along the crowded thoroughfare of strangers ; and we know, with Emerson, that " where neighbors are near, friends are few." But all this at least makes high thinking pos- sible. It gives us more time for mental acquirement. It enables the specialist in science to tell us the prop- erties of foods, and the inventor to add machine! y for their utilization; thus insuring us strong minds and bodies to think with. For we think with our bodies as well as our minds. Scientists tell us not only that the spinal cord contains gray matter like the brain, but that all our nerve-processes are forms of thought. We, there- fore, think literally to the ends of our fingers and toes. It is thus I would speak of the art of living for the individual. But not of the individual except as he is vitally related to all other individuals, and to all insti- tutions of which they are common factors. I would have them learn from the past and for the future, re- membering that there " are other futures to stir the world's great heart." Says Browning, — " For more is not reserved to man, with soul just nerved, To act to-morrow what he learns to-day ; Here work enough to watch the Master work, And catch hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. He fixed thee 'mid this dance of plastic circumstance This present thou, forsooth, would fain arrest; Machinery just meant to give thy soul its hent — Try thee, and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed." And now let us take one man as our example, and find what are the essential factors of his development in the art of living. Let us follow him in our thought 10 THE ART OF LIVING. from the cradle to the grave ; witness his evolution from savagery to civilization ; watch his growth from igno- rance to acknowledged culture ; see his power of acqui- sition from poverty to affluence ; behold his personal strivings and his social problems ; make him a citizen, and then a statesman ; a civilian and an officer. From all these standpoints, and in all these processes, observe what man has done by way of seeking the art of living. All along the pathway he has met with ever-recurring wants. He has desired health. He has sought for wealth. He has sought to satisfy his social instincts. He has striven for the power of knowledge. He has created food for his aesthetic nature. He has brought about the reform and progress of the world through the triumph of his ideals. He has endeavored to find his place in the world, and to bring himself into harmony with the universe of truth and beauty. All this man has done, or tried to do, by way of finding the art of living. It were well if we could honestly say he had always satisfied these wants in an artistic way. But he has made the honest effort. Let us give him credit for that ; and since he is still trying, we will give him our encouragement. There is one great principle or fact which we must get clearly in our minds before proceeding farther. This principle, at which I have already hinted, every one must firmly lay hold of if he would understand the world he lives in, the history of the past, or the art of future living and acting. And that is the principle, the law, of progress, of development, of evolution. Here is a fact, it seems to me, a greater than which the human mind can scarcely conceive. For it applies not only to the infinite development of man, but to all life ; to all THE ART OF LIVING. 11 worlds and races, and to all the institutions of men. A fact, I say ; since it can hardly any longer be called an hypothesis, as it is now unquestioned, so far as I know, by intelligent people. One simple definition of evo- lution, as given by a great scientist, is : " Continuous, progressive change, according to certain laws, and by means of resident forces." (Le Conte.) But this uni- versal law of progress, as it was first promulgated by the scientists, seemed to eliminate from the universe the creating hand of God. It was objected to from the Christian standpoint on that account. But science did not attempt to explain the origin or find the author of life. It only described a process. The great Christian teacher, John Fiske, has described evolution as " God's way of doing things." To my mind, God was never so greatly glorified as when he was discovered to be the Author of such a law. The conception of God's mechan- ical creation of a universe, from which he had with- drawn his hand, certainly could not honor him as does the idea of divine immanence, abiding in perpetual cre- ation and redemption. Says Tennyson, — "Man as yet is being made, and ere the crowning age of ages, Shall not seon after aeon pass, and touch him into shape? " Kedemption is the crown of creation ; and although, as one suggests, " this is a very good world for one that is only half made," we may count upon God remaining in it until every man is complete in Christ Jesus. Nor do I think for a moment that the evolutionary premise detracts in the least from the dignity or greatness of man. To be sure, it tells us that few things in this world have come by leaps and bounds. All of man's 12 THE ART OF LIVING. seemingly brilliant discoveries and achievements have been suggested and wrought out by the race, little by little. Each invention has been the combined suggestion of several men, most of them from several generations. All the great writers, even, have been little else than the recorders of a culminating period of history, embody- ing the fruits of other men's thinking. No stage of civ- ilization has come into existence spontaneously, but has grown out of the stage before it. Not even genius itself can be spontaneously generated, as many suppose, but has been defined as the capacity for infinite pains and toil. Man is not less, but more, entitled to credit because he has had the infinite patience and power to adapt the lessons of preceding centuries to his own use. That he could certainly do this, and continues to do it, only demonstrates his power to make living itself the finest of the arts. We can only briefly illustrate man's demon- stration of this great law of progress. We cannot here discuss scientific evolution as related to the origin and continuity of life, nor the divine element the chief factor in all creation and Providence. But as a question of anthropology, we will take a little time to notice its. workings. The progress of the race has been roughly divided into three stages, — the savage, the barbaric, and the civ- ilized. The lowest, or savage state, is that in which man subsists on wild plants, animals, and fruit. He neither tills the soil nor domesticates creatures for food. He uses what he finds, but it doesn't seem to occur to him to make anything to supply his needs. In this stage man seems quite independent. But, after all, it is the inde- pendence of ignorance. " Man is least dependent," says Dr. Ely, " when he wants least, cares least, knows least, THE ART OF LIVING. 13 and is least." It is only by multiplying his needs and his dependence upon others that he in reality becomes independent. Between this stage and civilized man there is a middle ground. It is the agricultural stage. Man then begins to " raise " his living. By this means he forestalls the uncertainty of hunting and fishing. He also ceases to roam about so much, and settles in a permanent home. More important than all, he now for the first time begins to make many things that he wants. And for this reason he here first finds that living is an art. For him to live as he now wants to live is but to apply, - though he doesn't know it, the principles of mechanical art. But for us the study of his progress in the prac- tical art of living is most fascinating. We find him making crude instruments of stone or flint or bronze. He takes a great stride forward when he learns the art of kindling fire. This barbarian sees a fish caught in the weeds, and he proceeds to make a fishing-net. He once carried a stick to dig up roots, then he made a wooden hoe, and afterwards a plough. Seeing a dead log floating down the river, he jumps astride it, and pad- dles with his hands. Then he hollows out the log, and makes a canoe. He uses his cunning as against the strength of the beast by setting a trap in the woods. From that is suggested to him the bow and arrow, and that again leads to the rudimentary gun. He first rolled a log down hill. Then he hewed out the centre, and laid another across it ; a little more hewing, and he had an axle and wheels on the same principle as modern car- wheels. It was easy to add a rude platform, and behold a cart. When man was altogether savage he sheltered with the wild beasts in caves. But observing the birds build their nests, he tied the leafy boughs together over 14 THE ART OF LIVING. his own head. Then he stretched his captured hides around the sides. Or, if this rude hut for one or two was not large enough, he laid parallel walls of stone or mud, and connected them with a thatched roof. And when he noticed the sun baked the clay, he learned to make brick. When it was cold, it was but natural that he should transfer the skin of a beast, or the tubular bark of a tree, to his own body. His corn he first pounded into meal with a stick in a hollow stone. Finally an- other stone was fitted into the first, an upright lever was used to turn it back and forth, and "two women were grinding at the mill." By a step at a time, water- power, then steam, was attached to this stone — and see, you have the modern milling enterprise. And so we might go on indefinitely, describing how he learned to row and cook and sew ; the slow process of finding the art of spinning and weaving, the uses of metals, of barter and commerce, and the usefulness of various vessels. Step by step there was developed the use of language, the art of writing, and the consequent record- ing of history, law, knowledge, and religion. These things, indeed, mark the beginning of a civilized stage of life. For it is only by the use of writing that the past and the future could be bound together by an unbroken chain of intellectual and moral progress. The savage and the barbarian advanced, it is true, because they were under the inevitable influence of evolution. But he advanced in spite of himself rather than because he desired progress, or consciously set about to attain it. Indeed, in his great reverence for ancestry, and under the inertia of tribe custom, he rather resisted this prog- ress. Are we to conclude that something of the savage still remains in those moderns who are always contend- THE ART OF LIVING. 15 ing for precedent, and never admit an amendment to their political or religious creed ? Alt the progress of the past is a protest against such conservative crystal- lization. The essential difference between savagery and civilization is that the one follows unconscious progress, while the other leads on in the full consciousness of its own development. Civilization wants progress, and deliberately sets about to secure it. And woe be to the conservative whose excess of reverence sets him crosswise of this progressive age. Far better suited to this time is that excess of vitality which makes the radical. Far better that one should have the Zaccheus view, enabling him to see afar the advantages and bless- ings approaching. He holds the key to the situation, — the Pisgah view-point of the man who stands upon the summit of some great mountain, and "views the land- scape o'er." It is true we may not be very proud of our civilization, even at its present best. We certainly ought not to be satisfied with anything that can be improved. "With all our boasted progress, civilization is not yet an unmitigated good. Some one has written of " Civilization, its Cause and Cure." But whatever its cause, we may say with William Morris, "The only remedy for civilization is more civilization." It is true that there are some things in our civilization which are " forever settled," as some are so fond of saying. For "what is excellent, as God lives, is permanent." And all that was good and true in the olden times will live in the new. But it is also just as true that some things which for centuries have been supposed to be permanent are by no means excellent. According to our higher con- ceptions and better ethics, they are abominations to the world and to God, Therefore no crystallization of these 16 THE ART OF LIVING. things into laws and creeds, or forms and symbols, can make them permanent against the tide of our advan- cing consciousness. For the on-sweeping march of the world's progress in the art of living is irresistible. As applied to all life, society, education, culture, govern- ment, and religion, it is the golden key to the cabinet of all true living and acting. We have seen the application of this principle . of growth in the lower stages of life. There are just as definite lines of development within the civilized state itself. Here, again, three different forms of progress have been noted. There was first the empirical or imi- tative. This was but little above the barbaric we have described. In this stage life is regarded in an imper- sonal way, and with superstitious awe. Mingling with this period, and growing out of it, is the legal and scien- tific spirit. Its law is the law of might, and its religion is the idolatry of matter — of things rather than ideas. There is law here, but no grace. There are duties, but few rights ; business, but little patriotism ; laws and causes, but little interest in ultimate effects ; a me- chanical view of society with little sympathy. The world is under the spell of Goethe's scientific mandate : " He who wills the great must serve the stringent ought. Only such obedience proves the master soul. Law alone assures us freedom's conquering might." We can now see the limitations of the extreme scientific tempera- ment. And yet it has brought its blessings to the world. It has brought to us a rational faith in the place of superstition. It has given us astronomy in- stead of astrology. It has traded us chemistry for alchemy. For phrenology we have the science of psy- chology. In fact, the scientific stage of man's develop- THE ART OF LIVING. 17 ment has given the human mind that substratum of facts upon which faith in higher and better things is based. But, to use the language of another . " After analysis comes synthesis, and beyond the practical reali- zation of science in works whicn add to human comfort, there remains the sesthetical embodiment of science." In other words, we approach the artistic, the spontane- ous, the creative, life-giving impulse. Here men cease to be the slaves of fact, and become the servants, if you please, of fancy. For the thirst of the human mind for the ideal is no less normal and imperative than its hun- ger for the real. In so far as men rise above bondage to science alone, and live upon the artistic plane, they cease to live by rule and law alone, and begin to be im- pelled by impulse, by love, and inspiration. They learn the truth, not by rote, but by intuition. From this standpoint it is the " beauty of holiness, not holiness by rule and measure," that we seek. A great artist urged that no art can be the result of external compulsion. Neither can the artistic life. It must be voluntary, even cheerful, and it must develop from within like all organic life. The Pharasaic standard of "how much must I do " no longer satisfies. Our righteousness must exceed that ; and we therefore ask, " How much will I be permitted to do ? " The criterion of a man's success in the world is, as a great university president has said, not how much he has gotten out of the community, but how much he has benefited society. A government or a municipality, according to this artistic standard, is by no means merely a business corporation. It is infinitely more than this, or else there is no such thing as patriot- ism. Lester F. Ward, the great social scientist, says, " We are living in the < stone age ' of the art of govern- 18 THE ART OF LIVING ment. We shall not emerge from it until the principle of i attractive legislation ? is thoroughly understood and applied." There must be a higher motive in obeying law than that it is law. There needs to be law, but there is need also of the recognition of grace from a higher hand. There is need of facts and things ; but there is also a necessity for — " Things whose strong reality Outshines our fairyland in shapes and lines More beautiful than our fantastic sky." There is need of science ; but there is more need of art, " not to antagonize science, but to assimilate it." In considering these different stages of the develop- ment of life and thought which I have described, we cannot draw a hard and fast line between them, and say where one begins and the other leaves off. Society is in all stages of development at the same time. It is not difficult to find savage customs and barbaric conceptions of life at the present time. We are still striving to lib- erate ourselves from the bondage of superstition. But in general, may it not be said we are just now midway between the scientific and the artistic plane of life and thought? And while no intelligent person would per- haps care to be labelled by any exclusive tag, yet we may have a right to say that most people at the present time have either the scientific or the artistic tempera- ment predominating. Not that these are found in any respective classes. There are artists and philosophers who are materialistic in the extreme. While, on the other hand, there are scientists, artisans, and working- men who are philosophical in their methods, and idealis- tic in their aims. But on the whole, could we not safely THE ART OF LIVING. 19 divide society into two classes, — those who have to do with things, who live in the world of things, who de- light in handling things, who have no faith in anything but things ; and those, on the other hand, who have to do with ideas, who love ideas, who believe in the triumph of ideas, who live as President Madison "appeared to live wholly in the world of ideas," who treat things as Emerson treated a load of wood, just as though it were real, while the atmosphere of ideas in which he lived was infinitely more tangible ? These are they who fol- low the advice of the great writer who said, " Fill your mind and heart, however large, with the ideas and senti- ments of your age, and the work will follow." It is in this latter class, I am proud to say, I profess my greatest interest and sympathy. It is in this realm that living, to my mind, for the first time becomes not only an art, but a fine art. To demonstrate this we will now proceed to pay our respects to the power of ideas, the superiority of mind over matter, and consider the artistic method of education. I am sure we will have no trouble in agreeing with Henry George when he said, " Mind, not muscle, is the promoter of progress." And also with Channing, " It is mind, after all, which does the work of the world, so that the more there is of mind, the more work will be accomplished." And we do not forget the words of Frances E. Willard, "The two greatest forces working in the world to-day are edu- cation and wealth. And of these two, education is as far superior to wealth as is electricity to horse-power." There is no need at this time of expatiating upon the value of education. The man who said, " The college is the interpreter of the universe to the soul of man," but voiced the universal verdict. Of course we know of 20 TEE ART OF LIVING. those who have had the best academic training, and yet are not truly educated. While others, with little techni- cal knowledge, have had the philosophy of a Franklin, or the statesmanship of a Lincoln. But it is of true education, the real power to think well and act ration- ally, that we would speak. Some of us extract all the comfort we can from the estimate of Isaac Watts, " The mind is the stature of the man." But, after all, perhaps he didn't mean any of us. More likely he was thinking of a Shakespeare or a Plato's brain, or the mind of a Homer or Hamilton or Webster. Who knows but he meant Jefferson, of whom it was said, " He had the best head in Virginia," or Milton, who had "an amplitude of mind to greatest deeds " ? But these are exceptions. We common mortals have to admit our limitations. We freely confess with Isaiah that " as the heavens are high above the earth, so are God's thoughts higher than man's thoughts." Man's vagrant mind can scarcely at- tain unto them. But we insist it should be the aim of education to make us put on our thinking-caps. It is the business of science through a Kepler to " think God's thoughts after him." It is the province of phi- losophy in an Emerson to " let the world beware when God lets loose a thinker on this planet." It is by the power of literature, through a Dryden, that " I know I am because I think." It is by the stimulating thought- power in Euskin that " all art is revelation, and all art is praise." It is, in short, the mission of all true educa- tion to make thinkers of us all. Knowledge is " thinking things together." It is analysis, but it is also synthesis. It is to behold the wide field of things and ideas in their true relations and bearings. It is to nourish and culti- vate the mental faculties. It is not the cramming of THE ART OF LIVING, 21 facts into the brain, but the outworking of the thinker's soul. For "there is an inmost centre in us all," said Browning, " where truth abides in fulness, and around, wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in. And to know rather consists in opening out a way whence the imprisoned splendor may escape than in effecting entry for a light supposed to be without." This view, as to the method of gaining knowledge, has revolutionized our educational system. It is now brought into harmony with the great law of progress, and becomes at once a science and an art. It has given us a new science of psychology, — the recognition of systematic mental as well as physical action. It is now known that mind follows certain laws of growth no less than matter. If body and bush can be analyzed, the brain may also re- veal its secrets. Studies are accordingly adapted to every stage of development. What truth is adapted to the full-grown man is not suited to the child-mind. This fact has given us a new child-psychology. " The educator," thought Pestalozzi, " creates nothing new in the children ; he only superintends the development of inborn faculties." And this idea was carried still far- ther by his great disciple, Frederick Frobel. It is he, indeed, who was the real discoverer of this new child- psychology. Frobel held with Rousseau that each age has a completeness of its own, and that there must be a harmonious development of the entire child-nature. Its play must be work, and its work, study. " Living, act- ing, conceiving," he said, — " these must form a triple cord within every child of man." Knowledge is the pursuit of truth. Therefore truth will not be attained by correcting error. Emphasize the truth, and its op- posite will be forgotten. Likewise teach the good, and 22 THE ART OF LIVING. let it fill the life, and the evil will be crowded out before we know it. " Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." And this method of mind-training has been found applicable not merely to the kindergarten. These are universal principles, which apply to all stages of development and to all branches of study. Educa- tion, as we now conceive it, is nothing less than the attempt to learn " the truth, all of the truth, and noth- ing but the truth." Whether in the field of science or art, of philosophy, history, or theology, we would en- deavor to strip the facts from all the verbiage of men's opinions, and get at them in the true light of their own glory. For the sunlight of God's truth has often been darkened by the doubtful embellishment of human dogma. And this by scientific dogmatism no less than religious. The true art of education, on the contrary, is the cultivation of the eclectic spirit, — the power to gather the truth without prejudice from all directions and every source. For all truth, when fully discovered, is found to be identical, and a part of the universal whole of truth. This fact has been best illustrated in the more recent comparative study of the sciences.. Formerly the specialist in each great science studied silently and alone, as if in that line lay all the truth about the universe. He didn't even dream that the facts he was discovering could be approached from any other direction. And if there seemed to be agreements in the findings of different scientists, he only regarded it with suspicion, as he jealously guarded his own field. But one day the astronomer in his observatory, the chemist in his laboratory, the botanist with his herba- rium, the geologist with his "rocks of ages," the student of natural history, and the anthropologist, all looked up THE ART OF LIVING. 23 from their work with the amazement of revelation ; for the first time it had dawned upon them that they were all coming to the same great laws and workings of the universe. Instead of being antagonistic, therefore, they could henceforth be mutually helpful. And hence the co-ordination of the sciences as we have them to-day. All sciences are looked upon and studied as one great world-science, each lending to the other its uncompleted parts to make our knowledge whole. According to this progressive method of study, there- fore, each separate branch of learning has become trans- formed. The study of history itself, the observation of man's past development in the art of living, has become a new science. Instead of the weary chronicles of man's strife and bloodshed, which is the most the text-books of the past contain, the long epochs of peace take their rightful place as of greater importance. Men have done more in the past than to cut one another's throats (though up to the present time what student from the common schools would think so ?). Industry has been the rule, and war the exception. Social advancement is discover- able in spite of inhuman factions. Governments have been formed notwithstanding internecine strifes. A true study of history, therefore, is not chiefly the mem- orizing of wars and dates, or the description of battle- fields and destruction. It is far other than to read the narratives of battle, or to revel in military gore and glory. The new and the true historical study is the in- vestigation of the social, industrial, economic, and polit- ical conditions of the past. We are supposed to have passed the military stage of development. China is just approaching it. Li Hung Chang thought there wasn't anything in Europe or America worth seeing but guns 24 THE ART OF' LIVING. and standing armies. We naturally pity him, and there- fore we ought not to teach our children to return to his standpoint. To us who expect to live in peace, whose swords and spears are contributing to the art of peaceful living, it is soon found that Plato's book of a " Model Eepublic " is of more value than many Thermopylae. A Magna Charta is infinitely superior to a Waterloo. A great invention is quite as decisive as a Gettysburg. A treaty or a land-grant is far more significant than the relative strength of armies. The true statesman is the modern student's ideal Napoleon ; and the reformer is a greater hero than the general. The Louisiana purchase, the early Wisconsin fur-trade, westward emigration, the history of Wall Street or of a social settlement, are all fuM of lessons for the present times of " piping peace," and for the future, when the nations shall not learn war. All this enables the student of history to contribute far more to the present art of living. He means more to social life, and is a more valuable citizen. Such a stu- dent is raised from private considerations and personal ambitions ; and, as one puts it, " he breathes and lives in public and illustrious thoughts." He is able to dis- criminate between the permanent and the transient in history, and can wisely lead society when it is swayed by its impulses. But this advancement in the method and matter of study has been most marked of all, perhaps, in the field of political economy. What are called the classical economists of a century ago looked upon their study as a purely theoretical pursuit. They began by reasoning out certain facts about the world, and assuming cer- tain propositions to be universally true of human nature. Among these was the false assumption that man could THE ART OF LIVING. 25 always be relied upon to be perfectly selfisn. From this law of self-interest they undertook to show how men would act under its guidance. Upon this also, by an entirely inductive process, they based the necessity of competition as the supreme law of progress ; of demand and supply as the law of production ; and " the iron law of wages " as the only way to properly limit population. It is unnecessary to say, that as many of their facts were transient, and their premises false, their conclusions were proportionately erroneous. But they held full sway, and were the final authorities in political economy, until there arose, about 1850, the German historical school of economists. They went back of the old prem- ises, and explained and modified them. They traced actual historical developments and industrial conditions, showing where certain laws were permanent, and where they were modified by environment. These students of the mere facts of industry and government were in turn followed by the Austrian school of economists, studying the subjective causes of economic phenomena. They laid stress upon man himself as the being for whom all indus- try and government should exist. All external devel- opment is subordinate to the growth of the individual factor. The individual, from this standpoint, is not re- garded as the tool or machine of the state, but the essen- tial unit. Corporations are not to grind the face of the poor man because he does not serve them, as the Greek state hurled its crippled and aged, not able to fight, to the dogs. Individuals are not the servants of institu- tions, nor are institutions to serve the interests of a favored few ; but they are to exist for the benefit of all individuals. And thus, not only the study, but the appli- cation, of economic principles contributes more and more 26 THE ART OF LIVING. to the higher art of living. By such a method, political economy becomes not a theory or a philosophy, but, as we have it to-day, a practical and worthy social science. And thus through the whole developmental regime of study, there has been pre-eminently a study of develop- ments. All study is the study of life. Few facts could be known in such biologic research without the data of growth. Such study itself could not long remain at a standstill. Nothing is to be studied for itself, not even the classics. The study of language is valuable only as it gives us a better insight into a certain period of his- tory, telling us how a certain race has lived in the past. Says Dr. 1ST. D. Hillis, " It is an excellent thing for the modern student to say, ' This is a dog/ in Greek and Latin and Sanscrit ; but it is far more important that he should be able to give three facts about the dog's development." Likewise, it is splendid if the modern boarding-school product can declare, " I see a rose," in French, German, and Italian ; but she might better be telling us its natural history, and how it may bless the sick-room. It sounds very scholarly to give precisely the ancient accent to " anthropos " or j " homo ; " but we ought to know more of the progress, disposition, and destiny of plain "man." In short, many feel that the classics occupy a place in the average college curricu- lum all out of proportion to their importance. Milton, after studying Greek twelve years, declared for more practical studies. Shakespeare, on the best of authority, " had little Latin and less Greek." And Spencer, the great philosopher and master of English diction, never even learned the Greek alphabet. At least we cannot deny that this is a utilitarian age. There is a demand for scholars who are edu- THE ART OF LIVING. 27 cated in hand, as well as in head and heart. And so we have industrial training-schools for teaching the practical and mechanical arts of life. The popular demand is for men who can develop the world's ma- terial resources. In the language of another, it wants "men who can build a bridge to market, or open a mine of fuel or ore. One who can build and run a fac- tory, or push a railroad across the plain." It seems to me there is even a suggestion of selfishness in this standard of coarse utility. There is even the demand for a man who has the conscience, or lack of conscience, to be, in his own words, "a plain political boss," or the greed to be a merchant prince, or captain of monopo- listic industry. A man is to be educated by all means, but only that he may get rich, or be elected to office, or increase the yield of wheat or the price of calico. Have we come to this, that the only purpose of knowledge is to make money ? Is man a money-making machine ? Is progress simply the development of our material resources ? Is civilization but laying a railroad-track or opening a mine ? Is the kingdom of heaven brought any nearer by the telegraph ? Is there not a deeper problem than that of getting money, in the question of how to use it wisely ? With all our cry for prac- tical education, is not that training which develops man- hood, makes better fathers and citizens, vastly more practical than that which aims to double the corn-crop or merchant-stock or bank-reserve ? In short, we do not hesitate to affirm that now, as ever in the past, soci- ety is directed more by men of thought than by men of action. Much as Mammon moulds society, mental forces mould it more. And now, it may seem strange that though we have 28 THE ART OF LIVING. been talking so much about the art of living, we have said little about art itself. But no education can be complete unless the aesthetic element is recognized. No nature, indeed, is capable of education to any high de- gree of culture that has not in it a perception and love of the beautiful. Beauty is all about us. "It unfolds in the flowers of springtime, and colors the autumnal leaf. It waves in the branches of trees and the blades of grass. It haunts the depth of earth and sea, and gleams in the hues of shell and precious stone." The ocean, mountains, clouds, sunset, all overflow with beauty. There are also the beauties of painting to delight the eye, of poetry to please the mind, of music to reach the ear. No man can claim true culture whose soul does not respond to these artistic creations of God and man. No great poem was ever written except in defence of a great truth or a noble cause. An impure hand never sketched an immortal painting. No brain, discordant with itself and the world, could possibly conceive the harmonies of a great symphony or an oratorio. And the highest thing art has ever done, in any form, is to set before men the image of a noble being. Neither can the fine arts be appreciated or understood except by the exercise of full- grown powers. Only the pure soul responds to its lofty inspirations. " For the fine arts," says Euskin, " are not to be learned by locomotion, but by making the homes we live in lovely." We are not to study art, as is too often thought, for its own sake, to give us pleasure, but to find a truth, or adorn a principle, or teach a lesson. In other words, aesthetics and ethics are inseparable. According to the criterion of the critics, that alone is pure literature which is written for its own sake. I do not believe this verdict will long withstand the demands of this ethical THE ART OF LIVING. 29 age. But whatever may be said of literature, I am sure that art as a whole has had a higher inspiration than "simply the fun of the thing," and it is destined to fulfil a nobler mission than simply to give us something "nice to look at." John Ruskin, as we all know, was the first great apostle of art to emphasize this fact. And by his insistence upon the usefulness of art he has revolution- ized the aesthetic world. He freely admits that art is the product of human happiness, the expression of human pleasure. But it does not minister to solitary happiness or pleasure, either of asceticism on the one hand, or Epi- cureanism on the other. Buskin distinctly believed that the art of any country is the exact exponent of its social and political virtues, and he did not think "the classic virtues could grace an age of common place." If a na- tion had no ethical life, he was sure there could be no aesthetic expression. All art of the past is to be studied, therefore, strictly with reference to the age in which it was produced. We cannot understand the art of any period unless we understand the spirit of that time. Nor, on the other hand, can we fully appreciate the history of any period save as it has expressed itself in its contemporary art. The study of the arts or the gaining of culture is, therefore, also a progressive study as truly as any other form of education. To express art for our day and generation, we must embody the highest life of to-day. And if such a purpose seem ideal, it is not therefore unreal. For our idealism is but the realism of others who have reached a higher attain- ment. And when we shall have developed to our pres- ent ideal, we shall know the realism of nature and of nature's God. For, says one, "The idealism of Plato and the realism of Bacon will be found to harmonize; 30 THE ART OF LIVING. the generalizations of Humboldt and the poetical in- tuitions of Goethe will seem but different descriptions of the same facts , idealism and realism blend and are extinguished in the intimate harmony between the indi- vidual and nature." I dare say some of you have been thinking that there is too much of the ideal in what I have been saying. You very likely have thought that it is altogether too ethereal for any use in this practical world. I admit that this is a practical age. I also confess that I have presented ideal conditions. But precisely what I wish to show just now is that ideals themselves are the most practical things on earth. I should never forgive myself if I did not give what are at present my highest ideals of living. What are ideals for, anyway, if not to lead us to higher action ? An ideal is but the vision stage of theory, and a theory is the formal statement of an ideal. An action is but the expression of a theory, or ideal, or vision, if you choose to go back that far. There is noth- ing so unpromising as stagnant character and self-con- tentment. The crystallization of the idealless life is as lifeless as coagulated blood. On the other hand, I know of a successful young man who has this motto over his desk : " The true life of a young man lies in his visions, his high ideals, and in his endeavor to realize them." There never has been an act of importance on earth that was not first a theory, or creed, or principle of faith. All private and public action is but putting theories into practice. So we had better think three times before we condemn the world's theorists, although this is what their contemporaries have usually done. All progress is nothing more nor less than the readjustment of institu- tions to ideals. This is true in the progress of govern- THE ART OF LIVING, 31 ment from despotism to democracy ; it is true in the evolution of religion from Fetichism, all along the line of heathen cults to Christianity, and in the develop- ment of Christianity itself, from formal worship to true service, and from human dogma to divine doctrine. The same is clearly seen also in the emancipation of thought from slavery to metaphysical schools to liberty in the individual discovery of truth. It is easy to find illustra- tions of these statements. All the experimentations of science have been but the following of ideal conceptions, and when demonstrated, adjusting the science to them. Plato did much toward shaping better governments for the future when he wrote " The Ideal Republic." Re- publics were born in the ideals of the Magna Charta, and democracies in the Declaration of Independence. Buddha was the idealist of the Brahman religion, and millions of people are now conformed to it while they listen to higher ideals of missionaries. Savonarola preached high ideals of church and state in Florence, and it led to Luther. Luther presented an ideal of faith to which the church has conformed itself, and Wesley an ideal of practice hard for his age to fulfil. Idealized thought was presented to the world in such men as Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, Emerson, and the whole transcendental school. The institutions of men are now being adjusted to their thought. Christ him- self was the great idealist of all, in government and philosophy, in religion and truth, in faith and life. And with snail-pace the world is adjusting its life to his lofty standards. New truths are rare germs. If the world had discov- ered but one each century, it would be vastly richer than now, and farther advanced. For it has never 32 THE ART OF LIVING. failed to be slowly moulded into the formula of its revelations. The discoverer of a new truth is hence greater than kings or generals. Emerson once said, " Every revolution is started by some man getting hold of a new truth ; and when he convinces another man of it, that is the key to that era." And men have seemed to do just this repeatedly. Almost periodically, it would seem, there have been voices in the wilderness of their generation. And most frequently, perhaps, they have been but John the Baptists, crude, illiterate, and ascetic, preparing the way for a greater prophet, more systematic, less radical, and more philosophical. Such was Socrates to Plato, and Elijah to Elisha, and Confu- cius to Buddha, and Savonarola to Luther, and Swe- denborg to Bushnell, and Cromwell to "Washington, and Carlyle to Buskin, and Garrison to Wendell Phillips. And who will say their times have not been epochal periods in the world's history ? They have been times of the proclaiming of new ideals. They have been new- world periods, when with much travail and pain the race has sought to be born into higher life. As the dys- peptic has his periods of biliousness, and then of vora- cious appetite ; as commerce seems to have its decadal crises and recurring seasons of prosperity, — so the truth seems to come to the world in great cycles and epicy- cles. History repeats itself in epoch spirals. Ever and again it has its reformers, its discoverers, its preachers of a higher righteousness. And when they come, soci- ety, with Hiawathian strides and Herculean strength, marches out of the wilderness of superstition, and takes up new burdens for man's betterment. And whenever the world has thus thrown overboard the burden of its past mistakes and errors, and has ventured to sail out THE ART OF LIVING. 33 into the unknown ideal sea, it has never failed to find some X ray in a new continent, or a law of gravitation, or principle of brotherhood, or larger Christ. I some- times think these times of larger discovery and life mark the centuries. Certain it is that to us who stand upon the threshold of a new century, it is easy to sing, — "We are living, we are dwelling, In a grand and awful time ; In an age on ages telling, To be living is sublime." We have our wilderness voices, either proclaiming new truth, or bringing to light old truths long covered over by the debris of arbitrary interpretation. With the ideals of all these taking form in social settlements, civil-service reform, institutional churches, arbitration conferences, and schools of the kingdom, are not our institutions plainly being adjusted to our ideals ? Are there not — " Titanic forces taking birth In divers seasons, divers climes : For we are ancients of the earth, And in the morning of the times." And is it not the duty of this time, as of every other time, to adjust its conduct and character to these high- est forces ? " Shall we not," says one, " find in being and doing preparation for higher being and doing " ? Shall we not find in all education, in all art, and in all ideals, the means for the perfection of our being ? For if we will let them, they will add to our learning and to our sympathy that " sweetness and light " of which Matthew Arnold is so fond of speaking. As the greatest personality has the widest influence, so the higher our life, the wider will be our social mis- 34 THE ART OF LIVING. sion, The ideal art of living is the art of being true to all the relations of life. True to the home, to social circle, to city, state, school, business, and to the church. The ideal man, therefore, is the one who is a true father, neighbor, citizen, workman, business man, and churchman. The greatest men have been true to all these relations. The greatest tribute to the greatness of Phillips Brooks was the attendance of all classes at his funeral. Of the greatest One of all time, it was said, "the common people heard him gladly." The greatest men professionally have been master of many professions. Thus Shakespeare is claimed as the patron saint of actors, poets, lawyers, doctors, soldiers, and many others. Thus Michael Angelo could be great as sculptor and architect, as well as painter ; and Da Vinci could invent a wheelbarrow and build bridges with the true genius of an artist. George Du Maurier could win fame either by drawing or writing stories, while F. Hop- kinson Smith seems to have little choice in putting his pictures in water-colors or word sketches. To one who has learned to interpret life, it makes little difference whether it be through the sermon of John Watson, D.D., or the Scotch narratives of Ian Maclaren. For the art of living is the art of interpreting all things in terms of the true and the beautiful. The possibility of doing all this, of course, has inhered not only in the men, but also in the material with which they have worked. The only secret rests in the fact that these men have penetrated beyond phenomena to the real sub- stance of ideas and internal principles. As one puts it : "The supreme artist or seer gets so completely to the centre of the realm of beauty, that it seems almost a matter of indifference to him in what particular channel THE ART OF LIVING. 35 he works." And we are more and more coming to real- ize that this innate power of the true genius is supple- mented and assisted by the close connection of the arts. As we have already noticed, the sciences are insepara- ble; just as truly all the arts are interdependent. To quote Professor William Knight : " It is not more true that zoology and botany, that physiology and psychol- ogy, that chemistry and physics, intersect each other, than that poetry and music, that sculpture and archi- tecture and painting, have the deepest and closest affinities." One of the best evidences that we are now in a tran- sition stage of man's advancement is that we are able to see in our generation what others have not been con- scious of in theirs. The ancients held that their golden age had been in the past. Others have prayed for their millennial age in the Nirvana of the future, while we seek our golden age in the present. We realize more fully than ever, as we stand in the morning of our times, that only darker days have gone before. As the race pushes on in a never-ending evolution, we know that no Eden of the past could surpass our present ideal, or even our best attainment. And as we labor to fulfil our ideal under the burden and heat of the day, we realize that it will contain as much and no more than we put into it. It will be the golden age and day if we make it so. And though, as Herbert Spencer says, there is no political alchemy by which we can get golden con- duct out of leaden instincts, there is plenty of chance for golden instincts. Hence the need of studying the great social problems of the time. Hence the necessity of being at once in the world's life, and not of it in its unripe actions. The need for the individual is to learn r Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Sept. 2004 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township. 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