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58 METHODS OF SOClAL REFORM.
appropriate collections of historical pictures. In the same
way I would explain the peculiar charm attsching to the
Museum of the Hate1 de Ciuny, where the ancient buildings
and traditione of the place harmonke entirely with its present
contents and purposes.
In Museums, as a general rule, we aee things torn from
their natural surroundings snd aasocioted with incongruous
objede. In a great cathedral church we find indeed architectural
fragments of many ages, and monuments of the most
diverse styles. But they are in their places nevertheless, and
mark and register the course of tirne. In a modern art
MuBenm, on tho contrary, tho collection of the articles is
accidental, and to rcaliso the true meaning and beauty of an
object the spectator must possess a previous knowledge of its
historical bearings and a rare power of imraginst,ion, enabling
him to restoro it ideally to its place, Who, for instance, that
soes some of the reproductions of the mosaics of Ravenna
hanging high up on the walls of the Museom at South
Kensington, can acquire therefrom the faintest idea of the
mysterious power of those long lines of figures in the Church
of St. Apollinaris ? Although it is, no doubt, bett,er to have
such reproductions available, it is not well to cherish delusion.
Tho persistent system of self-glorification long maintained by
tho managers of tho South Kensington Museum seems actually
to have been successful in persuading poople that the mere
possession and cnsunl inspoction of the contents of tho South
Kensington courts and galleries has created msthetic and
artistic tastes in a previously unaesthetic people. Such a
fallacy does not etand a moment’s serious examination. It is
dispersed, for instance, by the single fact that the fine arts
are in o dacidedly low state in Italy, although the Italians
havo had access to the choicest works of art since the time
of the Mcdicis. It might also be easily pointed out that the
revival of true aesthetic taste in England, especially in the
direction of-architecture, began long before South Kensington
was heard of. It is to men of genius, such as Pugin, and
Barry, and Gilbert Scott, and to no Government officials,
that, we owe the restoration of true taete in England, only