INTKODUCTION.

The  universal  importance  of  instruction  in  drawing  was  not  fully  recognized
  until  the  produets  of  the  arts  and  industries  of  the  various  nations
met  each  other  at  the  World’s  Fairs.  It  then  beeame  evident,  that  most
raw  materials  receive  their  value  in  social  interchange  through  form
only;  and  that  therefore  the  education  of  form,  according  to  sesthetic  principles,
  is  the  first  condition  for  the  successful  development  of  industry,  as
well  as  for  the  elevation  of  taste  in  general.  The  first  powerful  impetus
toward  a  reform  in  art-instruction  was  given  at  the  London  Exhibition
of  1851,  where  the  produets  of  industry  from  all  parts  of  the  world  were
brought  together  for  the  first  time  in  an  international  tournament;  and
England  herseif  then  proceeded,  through  the  instrumentality  of  drawingschools,
  to  regulate  taste,  which  had  long  been  subject  to  caprice,  in
accordance  with  scientific  maxims;  to  introduce  uniformity  into  the
treatment  of  the  matter  of  form,  and  to  give  to  its  development  a  basis
resting  upon  sesthetic  principles.  The  industry  of  France,  which  until  then
had  proceeded  without  principle  in  the  matter  of  style,  allowing  itself  to
be  swayed  by  external  influences,  and  dazzling  rather  by  the  brilliancy
of  its  manual  dexterity  than  by  virtue  of  its  positive  artistic  merits,
presently  found  that  it  must  also  enter  into  this  reform,  if  it  did  not
wish  to  see  its  productions  seriously  endangered  in  the  markets  of  the
world.  For  the  example  set  by  England  vras  followed  by  Austria,  by
Germany,  in  part  at  least,  quite  lately  also  by  Russia;  and  everywhere
these  efforts  were  accompanied  by  the  best  results.  And,  simultaneously
with  the  growth  of  art-instruction  during  the  last  decades,  art-science 1
1  Art-Science,  the  German  “  Kunstwissenschaft,”  is  a  word  which  has
hardly  been  naturalized  as  yet  in  the  English  langnage.  It  embraces  all  that
inay  be  known  respecting  art,  —its  -history  and  its  philosophy,  as  well  as  its
technical  detail.  Art-science,  which  is  a  creation  of  modern  times,  seeks  to
impart  to  the  study  of  art  as  much  of  the  method  of  the  exact  Sciences,  as  the
nature  of  the  case  will  perinit.  It  therefore  proceeds  empirically;  and  its
activity,  in  searching  through  arehives  to  obtain  documentary  evidence  con-