perhaps they excel our modern efforts in a certain reserve and dignity,
and in a more matured thoughtfulness.

If criticism is an art, such as I have described it, and is subject to
certain rules and conditions; if good criticism is appreciative,
proportionate, appropriate, strong, natural, and _bona fide_, and bad
criticism is the reverse of all this, why, you will ask, cannot the art
be taught by some School or Academy; and if criticism is so important a
matter as you say, surely the State might see to it? I must own I am
against it. Mr. Matthew Arnold, who is much in favour of founding an
academy, which is not only to judge of original works but of the
criticisms of others upon them, states the matter very fairly. He says,
"So far as routine and authority tend to embarrass energy and inventive
genius, academies may be said to be obstructive to energy and inventive
genius; and, to this extent, to the human spirit's general advance. But
then this evil is so much compensated by the propagation on a large scale
of the mental aptitudes and demands, which an open mind and a flexible
intelligence naturally engender; genius itself in the long run so greatly
finds its account in this propagation, and bodies like the French Academy
have such power for promoting it, that the general advance of the human
spirit is perhaps, on the whole, rather furthered than impeded by their
existence."

But I do not accede to this opinion. It is under the free open air of
heaven, in the wild woods and the meadows that the loveliest and sweetest
flowers bloom, and not in the trim gardens or the hot-houses, and even in
our gardens in England we strive to preserve some lingering traits of the
open country. I believe that just as the gift of freedom to the masses
of our countrymen teaches them to use that freedom with care and
intelligence, just as the abolition of tests and oaths makes men loyal