recollection both of Cambridge and of the school where I passed my
boyhood; but I feel, as I think most others must in middle life,
that I have spent as much of my maturer years in unlearning as in
learning.

The proper course is for a boy to begin the practical business of
life many years earlier than he now commonly does. He should begin
at the very bottom of a profession; if possible of one which his
family has pursued before him--for the professions will assuredly
one day become hereditary. The ideal railway director will have
begun at fourteen as a railway porter. He need not be a porter for
more than a week or ten days, any more than he need have been a
tadpole more than a short time; but he should take a turn in
practice, though briefly, at each of the lower branches in the
profession. The painter should do just the same. He should begin
by setting his employer's palette and cleaning his brushes. As for
the good side of universities, the proper preservative of this is
to be found in the club.

If, then, we are to have a renaissance of art, there must be a
complete standing aloof from the academic system. That system has
had time enough. Where and who are its men? Can it point to one
painter who can hold his own with the men of, say, from 1450 to
1550? Academies will bring out men who can paint hair very like
hair, and eyes very like eyes, but this is not enough. This is
grammar and deportment; we want it and a kindly nature, and these
cannot be got from academies. As far as mere TECHNIQUE is
concerned, almost every one now can paint as well as is in the
least desirable. The same mutatis mutandis holds good with writing
as with painting. We want less word-painting and fine phrases, and