his other trade; only this school of trial must not
be entirely regulated by formal laws of art education, but must
ultimately be the workshop of a good master painter, who will try the
lads with one kind of art and another, till he finds out what they are
fit for.

[Note 4: See note 3rd, in Addenda.]

23. Next, after your trial school, you want your easy and secure
employment, which is the matter of chief importance. For, even on the
present system, the boys who have really intense art capacity, generally
make painters of themselves; but then, the best half of their early
energy is lost in the battle of life. Before a good painter can get
employment, his mind has always been embittered, and his genius
distorted. A common mind usually stoops, in plastic chill, to whatever
is asked of it, and scrapes or daubs its way complacently into public
favour.[5] But your great men quarrel with you, and you revenge
yourselves by starving them for the first half of their lives. Precisely
in the degree in which any painter possesses original genius, is at
present the increase of moral certainty that during his early years he
will have a hard battle to fight; and that just at the time when his
conceptions ought to be full and happy, his temper gentle, and his
hopes enthusiastic--just at that most critical period, his heart is full
of anxieties and household cares; he is chilled by disappointments, and
vexed by injustice; he becomes obstinate in his errors, no less than in
his virtues, and the arrows of his aims are blunted, as the reeds of his
trust are broken.

[Note 5: See note 4th, in Addenda.]

24. What we mainly want, therefore, is a means of sufficient and
unagitated employment: not holding out great prizes for which young
painters are to scramble; but furnishing all with adequate support, and
opportunity to display such power as they possess without rejection or
mortification. I need not say that the best field of labour of this kind
would be presented by the constant progress of public works involving
various decoration; and we will presently examine what kind of public
works may thus, advantageously for the nation, be in constant progress.
But a more important matter even than this of steady employment, is the
kind of criticism with which you, the public, receive the works of the
young men submitted to you. You may do much harm by indiscreet praise
and by indiscreet blame; but remember the chief harm is always done by