LEIGHTON HOUSE 
happened. Among the characters of the Schools when I was there, 
was a certain Annie Little—Little was not her name, but it will 
serve. In comparison with most of us, she was old when she was 
admitted, which was at the time I was. If she had ambitions 
they were not satisfied, for she never succeeded even in passing out 
of the Antique school, but finished her seven years’ training there. 
Whereupon she once more sent in the specimen works required, 
was re-admitted, and began the routine of study all over again! 
Visiting the Schools one day, long after I had ceased to work there, 
I was greeted by the little, pale-faced, elderly lady, who had first 
been a probationer when I was, and who was still patiently slaving 
away at chalk drawings of the Discobolus and the Antinous. 
Whether she died in harness or not, I do not know. I hope she 
did, if the rules allowed of it, for wherever her nominal home may 
have been, she was happiest within the Academy walls. 
In competition with the men for the very few prizes open to both 
sexes, the women, in my time, were handicapped by their limited 
training. I felt this severely when—the only girl-competitor— 
I successfully tried for the Gold Medal for Historical Painting, a 
biennial prize, and in those days, at any rate, very highly coveted. 
I think it carried more outdoor prestige then than now, when so 
many of the best male students finish their training abroad, or did 
so before the war. 
I recall the genuine and unselfish joy among the students of my 
own sex, and the ignoble annoyance of the men, who with one or 
two exceptions, promptly sent me to Coventry. Long afterwards 
T learnt on unimpeachable authority, that that night, in their absurd 
wrath at the success of a girl, a mere tyro, as they considered me— 
for I had but very recently passed into the Upper Painting School, 
and to the majority of the more advanced students was unknown— 
the men students smashed a cast in the schools—either a statue or 
a bust. Their attitude was unjust, as well as ungenerous, because 
the voting for the students’ prizes by the Academicians, is by ballot. 
I think and hope that a better spirit among men towards women 
now prevails, and did so even before the war; but I am not quite 
sure that it does, for as yet there are no women lawyers in this 
country. However, a generation and a half ago there were no 
women doctors, so there is hope for the woman attorney, and 
barrister—the more so as ere long the women’s vote will make itself 
305 20 
