"The value of the cultivated ear is well understood; and the time bestowed on the acquisition of the universal language of music, is abundantly repaid by the gratification which it affords, although not employed in the communication of knowledge, but merely as a source of agreeable sensation. Were the same attention paid to the improvement of the eye, which is given to that of the ear, should we not be rewarded with as great an increase of the blameless pleasures of life,--from the power of discriminating hues and forms,--as we derive from the knowledge of musical proportions and sounds? The cultivation of the sense of sight would have such an effect in improving even the faculty of executing those productions of mechanical labour which constitute so large a portion of the riches of a commercial and refined people, that it ought to be regarded among the mere operative classes of society as a primary object in the education of their apprentices. Indeed, it may be confidently asserted, that an artizan, accustomed to an accurate discrimination of outline, will, more readily than another not educated with equal care in that particular, perceive the fitness or defects of every species of mechanical contrivance; and, in consequence, be enabled to suggest expedients which would tend to enlarge the field of invention. We can form no idea to ourselves how many of the imperfections in the most ingenious of our machines and engines would have been obviated, had the inventors been accustomed to draw with accuracy. "But, to the student of the fine arts, this important branch of education will yield but few of the advantages which it is calculated to afford, unless his studies are directed by a philosophical spirit, and the observation of physical expression rendered conducive to some moral purpose. Without the guidance of such a spirit, painting and sculpture are but ornamental manufactures; and the works of Raphael and Michael Angelo, considered without reference to the manifestations which they exhibit of moral influence, possess no merit beyond the productions of the ordinary paper-hanger. "The first operation of this philosophical spirit will lead the student to contemplate the general form of the figure as an object of beauty; and thence instruct him to analyse the use and form of every separate part; the relation and mutual aid of the parts to each other; and the necessary effect of the whole in unison.