ildren. To be swayed by popularity in matters
of taste is to accept mediocrity wholesale. We have left too far behind
the ages when the taste of the people could give sound and true judgment
in matters of art; we have left them at a distance which can be measured
by what lies between the greatest Greek tragedies and contemporary
popular plays. Consternation is frequently expressed at seeing how
theatres of every grade are crowded with children of all classes in
life, so it is from these popular plays that they must be learning the
first lessons of dramatic criticism.

There are only rare instances of taste which is instinctively true, and
the process of educational pressure tends to level down original thought
in children, as the excess of magazine and newspaper reading works in
the same direction for older minds, so that true, independent taste
becomes more rare; the result does not seem favourable to the
development of the best discernment in those who ought to sway the taste
of their generation. If taste in art is entirely guided by that of
others, and especially by fashion, it cannot attain to the possession of
an independent point of view; yet this in a modest degree every one with
some training might aspire to. But under the sway of fashion taste is
cowed; it becomes conventional, and falls under the dominion of the
current price of works of art. On the other hand it is more unfortunate
to be self-taught in matters of taste than in any other order of things.
In this point taste ranks with manners, which are, after all, a
department of the same region of right feeling and discernment. If taste
is untaught and spontaneous, it is generally unreliable and without
consistency. If self-taught it can hardly help becoming dogmatic and
oracular, as some highly gifted minds have become, making themselves the
supreme court of appeal for their own day.

But trained taste is grounded in reverence and discipleship, a lowly and
firm basis for departure, from which it may, if it has the power to do
or to discern, rise in its strength, and leave behind those who have
shown the way, or soar in great flights beyond their view. So it has
often been seen in the history of art, and such is the right order of
growth. It needs the living voice and the attentive mind, the influence
of trained and experienced judgment to guide us in the beginning, but
the guide must let us go at last and we must rely upon ourselves.

The bad effect of be