ART KDUCATION. 14I 



In passing to the work of a- vocational school the student 

 is apt to find that little regard is paid to the work he has done 

 in the public schools, whether it be much or little, or of what 

 sort. He must start afresh. From this point forward the 

 waste of energy is greath^ reduced, in so far as it is caused by 

 the futility of the work as planned. At the worst the exer- 

 cises are insufficient or badly related rather than bad in them- 

 selves. If they do not make scholarly artists, architects and 

 craftsmen, it is either because teacher or student is not capable 

 or that the work laid out is not alone sufficient to constitute 

 an education in art. 



Failure on the part of the student is sometimes due to real 

 incapacity on his part or that of his teachers, but the tragedy 

 of the man who grows to middle life on the dreams of genius 

 without the power to realize them, and is forced at last to do 

 any work that he can get, is so common in the world of art 

 as to call for some other explanation. These lamentable 

 failures are not due, as a rule, to general constitutional 

 incapacity, for such students are usually intelligent and 

 industrious. It is because they have determined to do just 

 that work which depends absolutely on rare personal gifts 

 and disregarding the probabilities, they have not been con- 

 strained to work toward the ambitious end by the way of 

 reasonable and useful apprenticeship. If a boy displays an 

 aptitude for the use of language, a wise parent or a wisely 

 conducted school considers it a gift that may be turned to 

 his account in his future. He may be able to use that gift 

 as a teacher, a journalist, or a pleader. Neither the school 

 nor the father has any right to build on the possibility that 

 the boy may be the great poet or novelist of the next gen- 

 eration. It may be, and it will come if it must, but as the 

 foundation for a useful future the basis is too doubtful. 

 But if a boy shows, a talent for drawing, the first thought 

 iS' to make a painter of him, a poet of tones and colors. 

 A whole history of disappointments and wasted lives is 

 based on the one fact of real talent unapplied, of talent 



