MAN expresses his ideas or conveys his thoughts to others by means of language, and language consists of a set of symbols which serve to establish a standard system of communication between all persons by whom these symbols are understood. To all who understand English the word "boy" conveys practically the same general meaning. In any tongue the word symbol is meant to establish a criterion of understanding as to some object or idea for which the word symbol stands.

The same truth may be applied to musical tones. A succession of sounds or a chord of tones conveys to him who understands this language a concord of musical elements expanded into a motif. A quality or an emotion quite similar in its nature is aroused in all persons who hear and understand. Musical composition exists to convey from one person to others a stimulant, whose action on the aesthetic sense and on the consciousness of human beings shall result in awakening definite emotions, thus constructing definite ideas.

The picture language, and its efficient method of communicating ideas even between people who do not understand the same word language or the same sound language, is too well known and understood to require comment. Age, success, national limitations, and educational development are alike unable to destroy the power of the pictured idea.

Colour, which is perhaps one of the most potent and certainly one of the most pleasing means of expressing ideas, is least understood. It is of all language forms the most abused. This is partly due to the fact that in this age colour is usually accepted as good because it belonged to some period expression, or because some particular person used it, or, what is more lamentable, because some individual likes it for personal reasons. The sentimental aspect of colour, sensed and used for the orgy for emotions it creates, has done much to retard the scientific and sensible understanding and use of it. If it is worth knowing at all, it is worth understanding as well as feeling, and it is also worth using to express with the utmost perfection all that its component elements can possibly tell.

Like all other language expressions there are two ways of approaching it from the constructive standpoint: first, one may be surrounded by a harmonious colour environment. He may be led to see what is really good and bad under this condition and he may by unconscious absorption - particularly if he has a natural instinct for colour discernment - learn to sense right relationships and use them in his own life expression. This manner, however, of acquiring knowledge is one sided, and is applicable mostly to persons who are unusually endowed, leaving one with no standard of judgment except feeling. Since feelings are emotions and differ absolutely in individuals, they must also vary in every instance, and therefore the results of this training with most persons are somewhat unreliable.

On the other hand, colour, when considered as a power in nature, and regarded as a normal method of expressing ideas, may be as scientific in its inception and workings as any other power in nature, so becoming a tangible thing to acquire and use.

Science has not developed colour as it has sound, but there are many analogies apparent to the uninitiated. Sound is produced by the vibration of the ether surrounding us. Colour is produced by the vibration of light in the same ether. Sound, its combinations and messages, reach consciousness through the sense of hearing. Colour, its elemental meanings, combinations, and force, reach the same consciousness in the same way through the sense of sight. The impressions of sound and colour are interwoven in consciousness through association with other ideas and with each other, until music seems to have colour, and colour seems to express musical tone. In fact, so closely are these media associated in the minds of many persons that it is not difficult for them to translate a symphony in music to a colour harmony exciting the same emotions, or the colour harmony to the musical symphony with the same results. It is not the purpose of this discussion to go into the details of these relationships, but only to bring to the mind of the reader the necessity for seeing colour at the outset from the same standpoint of common sense and adaptability for use that he sees sound symbols or picture representations. The interest which one has in a language and the progress he makes in acquiring it depend upon perceiving clearly the simplest elements in that language, their relation to each other and to ideas which they should express. The treatment of colour must be under the same conditions.

It has been said that colour originates in light. This may be proven by observing colours in the brilliant sunlight, in a shaded room, on a very dark day, just before dark, and in a perfectly darkened room if this were possible. The change in their appearance in each case is due to the change in light in which these observations are made. The colour of the object remains the same, but the condition under which the eye receives the impression changes. The dull day brings dull colours apparently, and similarly the bright day brilliant ones. This is because the light is bright or dull, and not because the pigment substance has in any way been changed.

This fact is important in the selection and arrangement of materials for furnishing a room, inasmuch as the room must be seen ordinarily in all kinds of weather, day and night, with both natural and artificial lights. Unless one knows what the normal colour is under normal circumstances, he is unable to use the artificial light which comes from electricity, gas, or oil, or to use hangings other than white, or to place upon his walls any colour from which light must be reflected onto all other objects associated with it. Is it not clear that the light entering a room may be changed in tone by the colour of the window hanging, through which it is filtered, by reflecting from the wall some of the colour which its surface shows, or from the changed aspect which it must take on if the light itself is produced by artificial means?