ti, and other rare masters, ancient and
modern; with the most interesting examples to copy--at the most
convenient of desks, we may add--yet in spite of it all, the drawing
school was not a popular institution. When the Professor was personally
teaching, he got some fifteen or twenty--if not to attend, at any rate
to join. But whenever the chief attraction could not be counted on, the
attendance sank to an average of two or three. The cause was simple. An
undergraduate is supposed to spend his morning in lectures, his
afternoon in taking exercise, and his evening in college. There is
simply no time in his scheme for going to a drawing school. If it were
recognised as part of the curriculum, if it counted in any way along
with other studies, or contributed to a "school" akin to that of music,
practical art might become teachable at Oxford; and Professor Ruskin's
gifts and endowments--to say nothing of his hopes and plans--would not
be wholly in vain.

As he could not make the undergraduates draw, he made them dig. He had
noticed a very bad bit of road on the Hinksey side, and heard that it
was nobody's business to mend it: meanwhile the farmers' carts and
casual pedestrians were bemired. He sent for his gardener Downes, who
had been foreman of the street-sweepers; laid in a stock of picks and
shovels; took lessons in stone-breaking himself, and called on his
friends to spend their recreation times in doing something useful.

Many of the disciples met at the weekly open breakfasts at the
Professor's rooms in Corpus; and he was glad of a talk to them on other
things beside drawing and digging. Some were attracted chiefly by the
celebrity of the man, or by the curiosity of his humorous discourse; but
there were a few who partly grasped one side or other of his mission and
character. The most brilliant undergraduate of the time, seen at this
breakfast table, but not one of the diggers, was W.H. Mallock,
afterwards widely known as the author of "Is Life Worth Living?" He was
the only man. Professor Ruskin said, who really understood
him--referring to "The New Republic." But while Mallock saw the
reactionary and pessimistic side of his Oxford teacher, there was a
progressist and optimistic side which does not appear in his "Mr.
Herbert." That was discovered by another man whose career, short as it
was, proved even more influential. Arnold Toynbee was one of the
Professor's warmest admirers and ablest pupils: and in his philan