Music and dancing! They are quite the two primal instruments of education. Make them licentious; let Mr. John Stuart Mill have the dis-ordering of them, so that—(see page 18 of Letter XII.)—“no one shall be guided, or governed, or directed in the way they should go,”—and they sink to lower and lower depth—till the dance becomes Death’s; and the music—a shriek of death by strychnine. But let Miriam and David, and the Virgins of Israel, have the ordering of them, and the music becomes at last the Eternal choir; and the Dance, the Karol-dance of Christmas, evermore. [57] Virgins of Israel, or of England, richly clad by your kings, and “rejoicing in the dance,” how is it you do not divide this sacred,—if sacred,—joy of yours with the poor? If it can ever be said of you, as birds of God, “Oh beauteous birds, methinks ye measure Your movements to some heavenly tune,” can you not show wherein the heavenliness of it consists, to—suppose—your Sunday-school classes? At present, you keep the dancing to yourselves, and graciously teach them the catechism. Suppose you were to try, for a little while, learning the catechism yourselves; and teaching them—to dance? Howbeit, in St. George’s schools, this, the most ‘decorous,’ rightly taught, of all exercises, shall not fail of its due discipline to any class whatsoever:—reading, writing, and accounts may all be spared where pupils show no turn to any of those scholarships, but music and dancing, never. [58] Generally, however, it will be the best singers and dancers who ask for teaching also in literature and art; for all, there shall at least be the way open to these; and for none, danger or corruption possible in these. For in their libraries there shall be none but noble books, and in their sight none but noble art. There is no real difficulty or occasion for dispute in choosing these. Admit the principle of selection, and the practice is easy enough; only, like all practical matters, the work must be done by one man, sufficiently qualified for it; and not by a council. If he err, the error may be represented by any one cognizant of it, and by council corrected. But the main work must be done single-handed. Thus, for the use of the St. George’s Company, I shall myself, if my life is spared, write out a list of books which without any question will be found serviceable in their libraries; [59]—a system of art instruction which will be secure so far as it reaches; and a list of purchaseable works of art, which it will be desirable to place in the national schools and museums of the company. With this list of purchaseable works, I shall name, as I have time, those in the museums of Europe which ought to be studied, to the exclusion of those on which time would be wasted.