chers worked
together every Thursday evening. With the beginning of the third term,
March 29, the increase of the class made it more convenient to divide
their forces. Rossetti thenceforward taught the figure on another night
of the week; while the elementary and landscape class continued to meet
on Thursdays under Ruskin and Lowes Dickinson. In 1856 the elementary
and landscape class was further divided, Mr. Dickinson taking Tuesday
evenings, and Ruskin continuing the Thursday class, with the help of
William Ward as under-master. Later on, G. Allen, J. Bunney, and W.
Jeffrey were teachers. Burne-Jones, met in 1856 at Rossetti's studio,
was also pressed into the service for a time.

There were four terms in the Working Men's College year, the only
vacation, except for the fortnight at Christmas, being from the
beginning of August to the end of October. Ruskin did not always attend
throughout the summer term, though sometimes his class came down to him
into the country to sketch. He kept up the work without other
intermission until May, 1858, after which the completion of "Modern
Painters" and many lecture-engagements took him away for a time. In the
spring of 1860 he was back at his old post for a term; but after that he
discontinued regular attendance, and went to the Working Men's College
only at intervals, to give addresses or informal lectures to students
and friends. On such occasions the "drawing-room" or first floor of the
house in which the College was held would be always crowded, with an
audience who heard the lecturer at his best; speaking freely among
friends out of a full treasure-house "things new and old"--accounts of
recent travel, lately-discovered glories of art, and the growing burden
of the prophecy that in those years was beginning to take more definite
shape in his mind.

As a teacher, Ruskin spared no pains to make the work interesting. He
provided--Mr. E. Cooke informs me that he was the first to
provide--casts from natural leaves and fruit in place of the ordinary
conventional ornament; and he sent a tree to be fixed in a corner of the
class-room for light and shade studies. Mr. W. Ward in the preface to
the volume of letters already quoted says that he used to bring his
minerals and shells, and rare engravings and drawings, to show them.

"His delightful way of talking about these things afforded us most
valuable lessons. To give an example: he one evening took for his
subject a cap, and wit