lightly pleased or wisely displeased, but he cannot paint for those
who are dull in applause and false in condemnation.

REMARKS ADDRESSED

TO THE MANSFIELD ART NIGHT CLASS

_Oct. 14th, 1873._[22]

166. It is to be remembered that the giving of prizes can only be
justified on the ground of their being the reward of superior diligence
and more obedient attention to the directions of the teacher. They must
never be supposed, because practically they never can become,
indications of superior genius; unless in so far as genius is likely to
be diligent and obedient, beyond the strength and temper of the dull.

[Note 22: This address was written for the Art Night Class,
Mansfield, but not delivered by me. In my absence--I forget from what
cause, but inevitable--the Duke of St. Albans honoured me by reading it
to the meeting.]

But it so frequently happens that the stimulus of vanity, acting on
minds of inferior calibre, produces for a time an industry surpassing
the tranquil and self-possessed exertion of real power, that it may be
questioned whether the custom of bestowing prizes at all may not
ultimately cease in our higher Schools of Art, unless in the form of
substantial assistance given to deserving students who stand in need of
it: a kind of prize, the claim to which, in its nature, would depend
more on accidental circumstances, and generally good conduct, than on
genius.

167. But, without any reference to the opinion of others, and without
any chance of partiality in your own, there is one test by which you can
all determine the rate of your real progress.

Examine, after every period of renewed industry, how far you have
enlarged your faculty of _admiration_.

Consider how much more you can see, to reverence, in the work of
masters; and how much more to love, in the work of nature.

This is the only constant and infallible test of progress. That you
wonder more at the work of great men, and that you care more for natural
objects.

You have often been told by your teachers to expect this last result:
but I fear that the tendency of modern thought is to reject the idea of
that essential difference in rank between one intellect and another, of
which increasing reverence is the wise acknowledgment.

You may, at least in early years, test accurately your power of doing
anything in the least rightly, by your increasing conviction that you
never will be able to do it as well as it has been done by