h a
dexterity which appalled you until you reflected that he had been doing
the same thing exactly, and nothing else, for perhaps a decade, he would
draw in a section of a leaf, and if, as in my case, you happened to have
a pretty sister attending the ladies' class in the school, he would add
leaf to leaf until your whole paper was covered with his mechanical
handiwork, in order to have a little extra conversation with you,
although, I need scarcely add, it was not exclusively confined to the
subject of art.

This sort of thing was called "instruction in freehand drawing," and had
to be endured and persisted in for months and months. Freehand! Shade of
Apelles! What is there free in squinting and measuring, and feebly
touching in and fiercely rubbing out a collection of straggling
mechanical pencil lines on a piece of paper pinned on to a hard board,
which after a few weeks becomes nothing but a confused jumble of
fingermarks?

Had I an Art School I would treat my students according to their
individual requirements, just as a doctor treats his patients. I am led
here to repeat what I have already observed in one of my lectures, that
for the young the pill of knowledge should be silver-coated, and that
while they are being instructed they should also be amused. In other
words, interest your pupils, do not depress them. Giotto did not begin
by rigidly elaborating a drawing of the crook of his shepherd's staff
for weeks together; his drawings upon the sand and upon the flat stones
which he found on the hillsides are said to have been of the picturesque
sheep he tended, and all the interesting and fascinating objects that
met his eye. Then, when his hand had gained practice, he was able to
draw that perfect circle which he sent to the Pope as a proof of his
command of hand. But the truth is that we begin at the wrong end, and
try to make our boys draw a perfect circle before they are in love with
drawing at all. For my part, I had to endure some weeks of weary
struggling with a cone and ball and other chilly objects, the effect of
which was to fill my mind with an overwhelming sense of the dreariness
of art education under the Kensington system. A short time, therefore,
sufficed to disgust me with the Art School, and I preferred to stay at
home caricaturing my relatives, educating myself, and practising alone
the rudiments of my art.

[Illustration: A CARICATURE, MADE WHEN A BOY (NEVER PUBLISHED). DUBLIN
EXHIBITION. POR