The paternal function of government, the right of the state to interfere in matters beyond its traditional range, its duty with regard to education--all this was quite contrary to the prevailing habits of thought of the time, especially at Manchester, the headquarters of the _laissez faire_ school; but to Ruskin, who, curiously enough, had just then been referring sarcastically to German philosophy, knowing it only at second-hand, and unaware of Hegel's political work--to him this Platonic conception of the state was the only possible one, as it is to most people nowadays.

In the same way, his practical advice has been accepted, perhaps unwittingly, by our times.

We do now understand the difference between artistic decoration and machine-made wares; we do now try to preserve ancient monuments, and to use art as a means of education.

And we are in a fair way, it seems, of lowering the price of modern pictures, as he bids us, to "not more than L500 for an oil picture and L100 for a water-colour." After a visit to the Trevelyans at Wallington he went with his parents to Scotland; for his mother, now beginning to grow old, wanted to revisit the scenes of her youth.

They went to the Highlands and as far north as the Bay of Cromarty, and then returned by way of the Abbeys of the Lowlands, to look up Turner sites, as he had done in 1845 on the St.
Gothard.