a
distinction, giving prizes for academic drawings which should be as
thoroughly accurate in a mechanical way as industry and application can
make them, and also for artistic drawings, in which the student should
be encouraged to follow his bent, striving for the expression of any
qualities that delight him, and troubling less about mechanical
accuracy. The use of drawing as an expression of something felt is so
often left until after the school training is done that many students
fail to achieve it altogether. And rows of lifeless pictures, made up of
models copied in different attitudes, with studio properties around
them, are the result, and pass for art in many quarters. Such pictures
often display considerable ability, for as Burne-Jones says in one of
his letters, "It is very difficult to paint even a bad picture." But had
the ability been differently directed, the pictures might have been
good.

[Illustration: Plate XIV.

DRAWING IN RED CHALK BY ERNEST COLE

Example of unacademic drawing made in the author's class at the
Goldsmiths College School of Art.]

It is difficult to explain what is wrong with an academic drawing, and
what is the difference between it and fa fine drawing. But perhaps this
difference can be brought home a little more clearly if you will pardon
a rather fanciful simile. I am told that if you construct a perfectly
fitted engine--the piston fitting the cylinder with absolute accuracy
and the axles their sockets with no space between, &c.--it #will not
work#, but be a lifeless mass of iron. There must be enough play between
the vital parts to allow of some movement; "dither" is, I believe, the
Scotch word for it. The piston must be allowed some play in the opening
of the cylinder through which it passes, or it will not be able to move
and show any life. And the axles of the wheels in their sockets, and, in
fact, all parts of the machine where life and movement are to occur,
must have this play, this "dither." It has always seemed to me that the
accurately fitting engine was like a good academic drawing, in a way a
perfect piece of workmanship, but lifeless. Imperfectly perfect, because
there was no room left for the play of life. And to carry the simile
further, if you allow too great a play between the parts, so that they
fit one over the other too loosely, the engine will lose power and
become a poor rickety thing. There must be the smallest amount of play
that will allow of its workin