the deeper is its intention. Nevertheless,
when I have once sufficiently pointed out the nature and value of this
conventional work, and vindicated it from the contempt with which it is
too generally regarded, I shall leave the student to his own pleasure in
its pursuit; and even, so far as I may, discourage all admiration
founded on quaintness or peculiarity of style; and repress any other
modes of feeling which are likely to lead rather to fastidious
collection of curiosities, than to the intelligent appreciation of work
which, being executed in compliance with constant laws of right, cannot
be singular, and must be distinguished only by excellence in what is
always desirable.

20. While, therefore, in these and such other directions, I shall
endeavour to put every adequate means of advance within reach of the
members of my class, I shall use my own best energy to show them what is
consummately beautiful and well done, by men who have passed through the
symbolic or suggestive stage of design, and have enabled themselves to
comply, by truth of representation, with the strictest or most eager
demands of accurate science, and of disciplined passion. I shall
therefore direct your observation, during the greater part of the time
you may spare to me, to what is indisputably best, both in painting and
sculpture; trusting that you will afterwards recognise the nascent and
partial skill of former days both with greater interest and greater
respect, when you know the full difficulty of what it attempted, and the
complete range of what it foretold.

21. And with this view, I shall at once endeavour to do what has for
many years been in my thoughts, and now, with the advice and assistance
of the curators of the University Galleries, I do not doubt may be
accomplished here in Oxford, just where it will be preeminently
useful--namely, to arrange an educational series of examples of
excellent art, standards to which you may at once refer on any
questionable point, and by the study of which you may gradually attain
an instinctive sense of right, which will afterwards be liable to no
serious error. Such a collection may be formed, both more perfectly, and
more easily, than would commonly be supposed. For the real utility of
the series will depend on its restricted extent,--on the severe
exclusion of all second-rate, superfluous, or even attractively varied
examples,--and On the confining the students' attention to a few types
o