Improvement in the methods of education in appreciation must involve the total abolition of the Examination system. Examinations may be able to show whether a man can draw “correctly”, play the notes of a composition, or is versed in the dates of a number of writers and able to list their important works. But it cannot possibly give any indication whether the education in appreciation is achieving its real aim—the increase of the student’s ability to enjoy more and better things, to find greater happiness and richer artistic experiences. Those who would develop the appreciative faculties of others must take the results of their labours for granted.
As before said, our ideas of how to instil a love of beauty, how to awaken interest in and arouse perception of artistic values, are still vague. It is a matter which cannot be taught by rule of thumb. It is not concerned with ascertained facts, nor discoverable by ordered experiment. It is an individual matter. Largely, in practice, such instruction will be exemplary rather than explanatory. Much of the time spent will be devoted to introducing to students actual examples of the art, and thereby the obstacles of ignorance and prejudice will be removed. In addition to this, however, some systematic instruction in the principles of aesthetics, of the general criteria of works of art—completeness, congruity, balance, and proportion, the subordination of details, the relation of means to ends—will be evolved. I would suggest as a starting-point the study of form, of the anatomy or architecture of art. Apart from the moral value of cultivating a sense of proportion, of perspective, of the inter-relation of parts—a sense which is as essential to a sane life as to the appreciation of a picture or a musical composition—nothing could lead more readily to an understanding of the artist’s aims and plan of campaign. In music, for instance, a brief account of the sequence of the main themes, which could be memorized, would render intelligible and whole a composition which otherwise would seem meaningless, shapeless, and dreary.
VII
The fact remains, however, that the percentage of the population which is affected by systematic education is, and is likely to remain, very, very small. The artistic regeneration of the world would be a very slow process if it depended entirely upon the existence of a definite desire for education. Before any one will come into contact with educational institutions he must have attained to a relatively high standard of appreciation and he must be endowed already with considerable enthusiasm for art. The greater problems are clearly: (a) how to increase the interest of those who are almost if not entirely indifferent to the point when they will desire systematic instruction; and (b) how to benefit those who will never (maybe can never) reach even that stage, or who will prefer to “educate themselves”.
As a preliminary to this it will be well to examine some of the causes of low taste. Why is it that millions enjoy When it’s Night-time in Italy, but are bored to tears by the Schumann A minor Concerto? Why should The Bat have power to thrill them when Macbeth leaves them cold? Why, in short, do they prefer the least good to the best? I will not say “worst,” because nothing is bad which artistically can give pleasure and morally is not evil.
The obvious reason, which most of us would give glibly, is that these people are intellectually and spiritually incapable of appreciating good art. How far this is true, and how far the other reasons I shall give are responsible, I would not care to suggest. Very probably it is true in the large majority of cases. In a world the majority of whose inhabitants are quite incapable of thinking intelligently or logically about the most important influences in their lives, where politics and religion and the fundamental human relationships are governed by ignorant prejudices and irrational habits, where a large proportion of men are mentally and physically below par, can we expect every man and woman to possess the latent ability to embrace the beautiful? However that may be, this obstacle to artistic education can be removed only by the sociologist, the educationist, the moralist, and the biologist. We who are concerned with the artistic factor can duly presuppose the existence, now or to-morrow, of a germ of artistic impulse, since we can only influence those who are capable.
Secondly, as we noticed before, the greater familiarity and accessibility of the low grade is a potent hindrance to development.
Thirdly, we must remember that the average man seeks recreation when he embraces art. He may have degraded his idea of the recreational and come to think that unless an experience “livens him up” or “takes him out of himself” it is not suitable recreation. The fact remains that as a rule he is unwilling to give the matter any sustained thought (even though exercising his mind might be a great change from the routine of manual labour), and he is satisfied if the day’s leisure is passed pleasantly. The idea of sustained, cumulative recreation, such as is gained by the real lover of any art, when the pleasure of to-day adds to the recreative value of that of to-morrow, when each experience makes the following keener and more lasting, never occurs to him.
Again, he is conservative and play for safety. Any improvement in taste would involve stepping on to fresh ground, and he is not prepared to do that. Somehow—generally by observing the likes and dislikes of people of similar mentality—he has discovered “what he likes”, and he sees no reason why he should take any risks. That is largely why he goes to see farces, reads detective yarns or tales of the wild and woolly West, and patronizes ballad-concerts and music-halls, but would never dream of venturing into a repertory theatre or a classical concert, or of reading a different type of book. His time, he thinks, and his money, are too precious for excursions into the unknown.
That alone would be sufficient deterrent, but, in addition, it sets up prejudices. He does not want to explore, yet he has (subconsciously, of course) to justify his conservatism. This he does by raising an imaginary barrier between the things he knows he likes and the things he doesn’t know anything at all about and might not like. When he is brought face to face with the unknown, rather than confess his ignorance and lack of enterprise, even to himself, rather than admit that his tastes are low, he jumps to the conclusion that he is wise to be wary and that there must be some good reason for his attitude. Thus he sets his mind at rest by retarding its development.