Unto This Last, and Other Essays on Political EconomyRuskin, John
General
Unto This Last, and Other Essays on Political Economy
Ruskin, John
Art; Economics
And observe, there could be no monotony, no exhaustibleness, in the
scenes required to be thus pourtrayed. Even if there were, and you
wanted for every school in the kingdom, one death of Leonidas; one
battle of Marathon; one death of Cleobis and Bito; there need not
therefore be more monotony in your art than there was in the
repetition of a given cycle of subjects by the religious painters of
Italy. But we ought not to admit a cycle at all. For though we had as
many great schools as we have great cities (one day I hope we _shall_
have), centuries of painting would not exhaust, in all the number of
them, the noble and pathetic subjects which might be chosen from the
history of even one noble nation. But, besides this, you will not, in
a little while, limit your youths' studies to so narrow fields as you
do now. There will come a time--I am sure of it--when it will be found
that the same practical results, both in mental discipline, and in
political philosophy, are to be attained by the accurate study of
mediaeval and modern as of ancient history; and that the facts of
mediaeval and modern history are, on the whole, the most important
to us. And among these noble groups of constellated schools which I
foresee arising in our England, I foresee also that there will be
divided fields of thought; and that while each will give its scholars
a great general idea of the world's history, such as all men should
possess--each will also take upon itself, as its own special duty, the
closer study of the course of events in some given place or time. It
will review the rest of history, but it will exhaust its own special
field of it; and found its moral and political teaching on the most
perfect possible analysis of the results of human conduct in one
place, and at one epoch. And then, the galleries of that school will
be painted with the historical scenes belonging to the age which it
has chosen for its special study.
So far, then, of art as you may apply it to that great series of
public buildings which you devote to the education of youth. The next
large class of public buildings in which we should introduce it, is
one which I think a few years more of national progress will render
more serviceable to us than they have been lately. I mean, buildings
for the meetings of guilds of trades.
And here, for the last time, I must again interrupt the course of our
chief inquiry, in order to state one other principle of political
economy, which is perfectly simple and indisputable; but which,
nevertheless, we continually get into commercial embarrassments for
want of understanding; and not only so, but suffer much hindrance in
our commercial discoveries, because many of our business men do not
practically admit it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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