(1819-1900) The son of a Scotch millionaire who had settled in London, Ruskin received from private masters the best possible preparation for his future and also traveled extensively with his father and mother. Shortly after his graduation from Oxford he astonished the world with the first volume of "Modern Painters," a work designed primarily to show the superiority of Turner, and a few other modern artists, over the older painters of landscape; in later volumes he wanders over the whole field of art criticism, the burden of his advice being a return to the study of nature itself. "The Seven Lamps of Architecture" discusses the moral principles which should underlie architecture. This subject was suggested to him by his continual studies of the work of painters and architects in Italy and France while in pursuit of material for his earlier work. "The Stones of Venice" carries on the task set in both these works, namely the problem of the moral basis underneath all art, the purpose which should lie at the back of the artist's mind. As he grew older his religious views, formerly rather narrow, became broader, in common with the progress of the times, yet he laid more and more stress on the need of upright and godly character in all who have any purpose of attempting good work. His later volumes, then, are filled with this moral teaching and also take up the errors of the social conditions of the period. Old age pensions, state education, radical improvements in the houses and home life of the common people were among the needs which he saw, now accomplished, but then regarded as rampant and foolish socialism. In his style, as in his theories, there is a tendency to exaggerate, a fault that is common among reformers, as in the cases of Dickens and Carlyle. But the lofty ideals which he maintained and the grace and power of his style far more than atone for the occasional error of overstatement. In "Præterita," a brilliant autobiographical fragment, he accounts for the rare clarity and beauty of his style, for it was his custom for many years during his childhood and youth to read the Bible through aloud to his mother every year in daily selections. The simplicity and majesty of the Biblical language left its impress on his own prose. His economic theories have not been adopted in England or elsewhere, but he himself lived up to them and spent his whole fortune in the philanthropic endeavor to put his plans for the betterment of the working classes into operation. In spite of the fact that his fortune was great and that he received as much as $20,000 a year royalty from the sale of his works in his latter days, his property at the time of his death was inconsiderable. THE MAN 1. What was Ruskin's education; his position in the world? 2. In what two rôles did he appear? 3. What cardinal doctrine did he preach? 4. What extraneous elements did he attempt to read into art?