AMATEUR ARTISTS 309 



criminate charity, or, as is continually the case with 

 visiting in hospitals, to stir up unintentionally class 

 hatred by injudicious interference. It is a growing opinion 

 that almost all such work requires, not zeal and intel- 

 ligence alone, but the whole time and individual energies 

 of those who devote themselves to it. Not all who can 

 give these are endowed by Nature and education with the 

 qualities which render them capable of being useful in 

 that line. 



Five-and-twenty or thirty years ago, serious education 

 for women of the leisured class was hardly thought of. 

 The teaching of domestic economy, as well as all real 

 mental training, was neglected in favour of superficial 

 accomplishments. It was then far more common to meet 

 with the young lady whose aesthetic impulses found vent 

 in flower-painting and landscape art than it is in the 

 present day. Mr. Buskin's teaching, the constant read- 

 ing of art criticism above all, the more thorough ground- 

 ing now insisted upon in every branch of education has 

 opened girls' minds and increased their diffidence. They 

 have a far more widespread and intelligent interest in art, 

 but the actual number of amateur workers has greatly 

 diminished. These influences, by educating the taste 

 and increasing the knowledge of a large section of the 

 public, have combined to deter those who in former days 

 would have been only too ready to dabble in water- 

 colours. They are now withheld by an exaggerated 

 sense of the difficulties of the undertaking, or by a 

 consciousness that they lack time or opportunity to learn 

 to any purpose. Unfortunately this diffidence principally 

 affects the more sensitive and poetical of the young 

 people. For the sake of these, and just because en- 

 couragement is needed, I wish to point some of the 

 reasons why their courage should not fail. It seerns to 

 me that there is much profit and enjoyment to be derived 



