second suggested in this
letter, is recommended, not to enable the pupil to draw outlines, but as
the only means by which, unassisted, he can test his accuracy of eye,
and discipline his hand. When the master is by, errors in the form and
extent of shadows can be pointed out as easily as in outline, and the
handling can be gradually corrected in details of the work. But the
solitary student can only find out his own mistakes by help of the
traced limit, and can only test the firmness of his hand by an exercise
in which nothing but firmness is required; and during which all other
considerations (as of softness, complexity, &c.) are entirely excluded.

Both the system adopted at the Working Men's College, and that
recommended here, agree, however, in one principle, which I consider the
most important and special of all that are involved in my teaching:
namely, the attaching its full importance, from the first, to local
colour. I believe that the endeavour to separate, in the course of
instruction, the observation of light and shade from that of local
colour, has always been, and must always be, destructive of the
student's power of accurate sight, and that it corrupts his taste as
much as it retards his progress. I will not occupy the reader's time by
any discussion of the principle here, but I wish him to note it as the
only distinctive one in my system, so far as it is a system. For the
recommendation to the pupil to copy faithfully, and without alteration,
whatever natural object he chooses to study, is serviceable, among other
reasons, just because it gets rid of systematic rules altogether, and
teaches people to draw, as country lads learn to ride, without saddle or
stirrups; my main object being, at first, not to get my pupils to hold
their reins prettily, but to "sit like a jackanapes, never off."

In these written instructions, therefore, it has always been with regret
that I have seen myself forced to advise anything like monotonous or
formal discipline. But, to the unassisted student, such formalities are
indispensable, and I am not without hope that the sense of secure
advancement, and the pleasure of independent effort, may render the
following out of even the more tedious exercises here proposed, possible
to the solitary learner, without weariness. But if it should be
otherwise, and he finds the first steps painfully irksome, I can only
desire him to consider whether the acquirement of so great a power as
th