The San Francisco call., 1895-05-22

n Gate Ye5terday

and Photographic reproductions will make you
feel as you enter her doors that here dwells q
lover OF the beautiful, priestess of the divine,
expressed through the forms and symbols of
arr. 1t is partly matter of instinct; it is still
more matter OF education. May the Woman'S
congress do Its part to make the function OF
art in domestic life better appreciated and
better observed.
Thus will the spirit within, in its purity,
serenity, tenderness and trust, mirror the
loveliness of the world without; thus shall we
worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness
For, believe me, there can be no true worship
OF the beautiful which is not also an alteration
OF the truer, the good, the holy. In a high
sense ser these ideals OF mankind are only the
dlferent aspects of the one eternal perfection
they reveal TO us in different ways the char
acter and life of God. The German poet, Helm
rich Heine, that passionate lover of the beauti-
tul, ignored this truth. He pursued the
divine goddess with sensuous and un-
clean desire. At last. shattered in body
he dragged himself into the gallery of the
Louvre and there knelt down alone before that
exquisite fragment of the Greek sculptor, the
Venus OF Milo. Lifting up his eyes he sighed !:
you LII my life and is this to be my reward
Oh descend in your heavenly grace and
weskness" And she, looking pityingly upon
him, replied: "Alas poor mortal. How gladly
would raise you from your misery and woe!
But you see yourself how impossible 1t is; l
have no armsP'
Mere beauty, divorced from the moral ele-
ment, has no help or healing to bring to man.
1t cannot lift him out of his sensuous and
earthly life into anything nobler or better. 1t
is only when we see its divine kinship with
truth and virtue, when all our vision and our
art are dedicated to moral and spiritual ideals
that it becomes the interpreter and revealer OF
the divine to US; word proceeding from the
mouth of God.
Mrs. Charlotte Perkins-Stetson and Mrs.
Sarah Pratt-Carr took part in discussing
the paper just read. Mrs Stetson said she
wished to make just one suggestion on the
remarks made by the Rev. Mr.. Wendte,
and that was that taking the statements
about the public art of the Greeks, there
was noticeable lack of art in American
cities. Mrs. Carr said she thought the fact
that people of large means failed in friendly,
neighborly, brotherly and sisterly feeling
to those of no means had great deal to
do with the lack of art development. The
present economic system made it neces-
sary that half of the world should spend
every penny it earned in bread and butter
| and clothing, and the time spent in this
manner left them no time for the consider
alton of art.
Then Rev. Mr.. Wendte had few more
| words, in which he said he agreed with
Mrs. Stetson as to the lack of public art,
| which he greatly deplored. He told hu-
morous story of an Indiana man who called
| upon the sculptor Reinhart in Rome and
wished to have made a cast-iron copy OF
the column OF Irajan, because it was
the house, and Mr.. Wendte bowed himself
| out amid great applause.
Miss Ina Griffin of Oakland was next in
troduced by the president to read paper
on "rhe Social Value of Music in the
Home, and How to Secure It's Advance
ment." She was received with applause,
| ana read as follows:
If the highest expression of the genuine al
truism is the home, then the home must be the
center of all things that tend to produce con.
tentment. peace and joy. In any adequate
scheme of lite the emotions must be trained
and educated. That music arouses the emo
tions and thot emotions nerve to action
are a9ioms. 1t is also coming to
music, not simply as succession of agreeable
sounds, but intelligently and sympathetically,
we are being trained in the exercise of our
emotions the gymnasium trains us in the
exercise of our limbs. Pain and WEAKNESS are
forgotten under the stimulus of music, moods
of exaltation are induced, tired nerves are
sOothed-and where are all these things needed
more than in the home?
make no extravagant claim that music is
the business or motive OF the home, but 1
do claim that it is the sweetest recrea-
ton. Music in it's truest sense must
become civilzer, inspirer and purifier of
human life. Even as jingle and noise for the
II, lks III,
| as the mere toy of the rich it has added much
to the fullneSs of life.
1t will not be denied that there is, broadly
speaking, no musical life on our western
coast or, indeed, in America. The musical in
terest which struggles to exist is not the inter-
est of the state, nor is it the interest of the
terest OF professional or semi-professional
| class. While in Europe the state main
tains in every city of note its
| tai its authorized school of music, with we'll
| established scholarships for musical students
of unusual merit-maintains military bands of
| unriveleG excellence and looks upon the occu-
pants of the chairs of fine arts in its universi-
| ties as men of great distinction, our own coun-
try fails to give official recognition of any kind
| to the most important of these subjects. It is
| safe to say that if Americans ever become q
musical people the germ must be planted and
| the deveiopme 1T and growth must extend out
ward from the home.
| Through the intervention OF the state, the
most common peasant of Germany becomes
familiar during his three years of military ser.
| vice with the inyigorating marches of parade
days, the magnificent choral of Sabbath ser.
vice and the bewitching lighter rhythms of con-
cert pieces. The schoolboy of the gymnasium
and when he reaches the honored state oi
student proper, he is enabled to join
with his fellow-students in singing Intelligent
ly and musically, at their great commers
the beautiful folk-songs and Inspiring patri.
otto hymns which have been chosen as student
songs. The man of high social position who
nus uOt Stuuieu muslC III some OF 1tS depart
ments, who cannot discuss the characteristics
OF various schools OF composition, is the ex-
ception and not the rule. The contrast with
American conditions is indeed great.
1t is not difficult to arrive at the cause of this
lack of interest or taste for art. Whatever
genius may have escaped to this country
from England or Holland in the days of
our national infancy was DESTROYED
in the struggle for personal as we'll as national
existence. When opera was being introduced
into Germany, when Rembrandt was painting
in Amsterdam, our foIefathers were carrying
on fierce struggle with hardship and poverty
on the bleak shores of New England. While
Beethoven was childishly giving out faint
glimpses OF the genius which was to surprise and
delight the world, while Handel, Haydn and
Mozart, Goethe and Schiller were at the height
of their activities, our country was growing
toward the Declaration of independence and
! the Revolution.
When at the close of the war people began to
/ live more quietly in the colonial centers, when
| the more spiritual side of man might have as
serted itself, the religious narrowness of Puri-
| tanism forbade the cultivation of any taste
/ which might lead to frivolity.
| No doubt this religious narrowness has been
! and still is one great cause of the insufficient