Nothing in the whole world--I have maintained this in the College over and over again--has done so much harm to Humanity as Art. In a world of common-sense which deals with nothing but fact and actuality, Art can have no place. Why imitate what we see around us? Artists cheated the world; they pretended to imitate, and they distorted or they exaggerated. They put a light into the sky that never was there; they filled the human face with yearning after things impossible; they put thoughts into the heart which had no business there; they made woman into a goddess, and made love--simple love--a form of worship; they exaggerated every joy; they created a heaven which could not exist. I have seen their pictures, and I know it. Why--why did we not destroy all works of Art long ago--or, at least, why did we not enclose the Gallery, with the Museum, within the College wall? The Picture Gallery is a long room with ancient stone walls; statuary is arranged along the central line, and the pictures line the walls. The young man led the girl into the Gallery and looked around him. Presently he stopped at a figure in white marble. It represented a woman, hands clasped, gazing upward. Anatomically, I must say, the figure is fairly correct. "See," he said, "when in the olden times our sculptors desired to depict the Higher Life--which we have lost or thrown away for a while--they carved the marble image of a woman. Her form represented perfect beauty; her face represented perfect purity; the perfect soul must be wedded to the perfect body, otherwise there can be no perfection of Humanity. This is the Ideal Woman. Look in her face, look at the curves of her form, look at the carriage of her head; such a woman it was whom men used to love." "But were women once like this? Could they look so? Had they such sweet and tender faces? This figure makes me ashamed." "When men were in love, Christine, the woman that each man loved became in his mind such as this. He worshipped in his mistress the highest form of life that he could conceive. Some men were gross, their ideals were low; some were noble, then their ideals were high. Always there were among mankind some men who were continually trying to raise the ideal; always the mass of men were keeping the ideal low." "Were the women ashamed to receive such worship? Because they must have known what they were in cold reality." "Perhaps to the nobler sort," said the young man, "to be thought so good lifted up their hearts and kept them at that high level. But indeed I know not. Remember that when men wrote the words that you think extravagant, they were filled and wholly possessed with the image of the Perfect Woman. Nay, the nobler and stronger their nature, the more they were filled with that Vision. The deeper their love for any woman, the higher they placed her on the Altar of their worship." "And if another man should try to take that woman from them--"