facts of it.

5. However, whether these things be generally true or not, at all events
it is certain that our immediate business, in such a school as this,
will prosper more by attending to eyes than to hands; we shall always do
most good by simply endeavoring to enable the student to see natural
objects clearly and truly. We ought not even to try too strenuously to
give him the power of representing them. That power may be acquired,
more or less, by exercises which are no wise conducive to accuracy of
sight: and, _vice versa_, accuracy of sight may be gained by exercises
which in no wise conduce to ease of representation. For instance, it
very much assists the power of drawing to spend many hours in the
practice of washing in flat tints; but all this manual practice does not
in the least increase the student's power of determining what the tint
of a given object actually is. He would be more advanced in the
knowledge of the facts by a single hour of well-directed and
well-_corrected_ effort, rubbing out and putting in again, lightening,
and darkening, and scratching, and blotching, in patient endeavors to
obtain concordance with fact, issuing perhaps, after all, in total
destruction or unpresentability of the drawing; but also in acute
perception of the things he has been attempting to copy in it. Of
course, there is always a vast temptation, felt both by the master and
student, to struggle towards visible results, and obtain something
beautiful, creditable, or salable, in way of actual drawing: but the
more I see of schools, the more reason I see to look with doubt upon
those which produce too many showy and complete works by pupils. A showy
work will always be found, on stern examination of it, to have been done
by some conventional rule;--some servile compliance with directions
which the student does not see the reason for; and representation of
truths which he has not himself perceived: the execution of such
drawings will be found monotonous and lifeless; their light and shade
specious and formal, but false. A drawing which the pupil has learned
much in doing, is nearly always full of blunders and mishaps, and it is
highly necessary for the formation of a truly public or universal school
of Art, that the masters should not try to conceal or anticipate such
blunders, but only seek to employ the pupil's time so as to get the most
precious results for his understanding and his heart, not for his hand.

6. For, observ