Granting the wish, how is an ambitious girl to set about learning to draw ? She may do a great deal by herself; but in the initial stage, help is very desirable-not in childhood, but after seventeen. Much waste of time and energy is prevented by a few timely lessons, even though solitary effort with the aid of books, especially such a book as Ruskin's 'Elements of Drawing,'might in the end conquer the difficulties. The old accusation against amateur work, of showiness and superficiality, was certainly well deserved in the days when the one idea was to send for a fashionable drawing-master, who taught his pupils to make feeble copies of his own drawings-which copies he most unfairly touched up, to make the results more satisfactory to parents or guardians. Of course, this system was deplorable; but those evils have disappeared, to give place to their exact contraries in modern art teaching. The dryness of the grounding, the difficulties of getting through the earlier stages of an art school, often discourage the student who cannot give up all her time and energies to conquering these initial difficulties, which are made so great. The modern girl who works in a studio now spends months, even years, drawing rough charcoal studies of the nude. This, of course, is essential for a genius who is seriously going in for figure-painting. But to the ordinary amateur it brings about the desired results no more than the knowledge of the alphabet would give the mental development to be derived from literature. The upshot of all this serious study is that, as the girl's life gets fuller, her drawing can no longer be the accompaniment to her life, and she gives it up in despair.

It may be thought well that these half-hearted workers should be turned back at the outset. This would be right, if the drawing of amateurs were to be measured only by its results. But the least of its many advantages to them is the production of a mere drawing, especially as this is always so inferior to what they hoped to produce. The really important ends in view are the influence on character, the employment of time, and the attainment of innocent happiness, which are all of much greater importance than mere technical skill. I do not deny the usefulness of schools, nor the impetus they may have given to our national art. But their system has its faults, even as regards the training of professionals or of those amateurs whose great talent may carry them quickly through the drudgery these schools impose. It seems to me that there is room now for well-qualified teachers of water-colour sketching, without any revival of the old-fashioned and very superficial system of years gone by. A teacher should himself have been grounded in freehand, design, and perspective. He should be able to guide the pupil through these early stages into the happier plains of still-life or landscape painting from Nature more quickly and with less tedium than could be done in the school or the studio. I know that with patient work a girl may do all this alone. I do not want anything to be expected of the instruction I recommend beyond the smoothing of the path. It will avail nothing unless it teaches her to depend in the long run on herself, her own industry, and her own exertions. A certain amount of technical skill in the use of pencil and colours, certain rules of composition, the knowledge of how to stretch paper, prepare materials, and set about a drawing, may be imparted by a teacher. This saves all the time and vexation it would cost to learn these things alone. But though we may learn from another to some extent how to think, no one in the world can tell us what to think. The faculty and the will must be supplied by the learner. No teacher can instil them, though he may remove obstacles and help to quicken the growth of the powers within. Unless a girl have it in her to feel, in however small a degree, the beauty of the light summer cirrus which floats above her head, or to know how to look with joy into the glowing heart of a flower, no books and no teaching will ever give it to her. Without an inborn love of natural beauty, no one will ever care enough about drawing to persevere; with it, no one can fail to make progress, however slight. Beginners should, I think, never destroy their drawings; they should be kept, not in conceit, but as a proof of progress. Every drawing, however, should be made with a definite purpose, and it is best-as a rule-for each one to draw what she most fancies; the result will then probably not only be more satisfactory, but more original. But to begin sketch after sketch and study after study, and then give them up or throw them away half finished, is a form of self-indulgence most fatal to progress. It debilitates the intelligence and weakens the moral fibre, which alone conquers difficulties.

On the other hand, it is not uncommon for unfortunately conscientious persons to fall into the contrary-error. They may perseveringly linger over unattractive studies, merely because they offer certain difficulties, on the ascetic principle of hair shirts and peas in our shoes. To these I would say: 'If you were pursuing a country path and turned back at the first stile, instead of climbing over it, you would never reach your destination. If, on the other hand, you decided that because climbing a stile is a disagreeable and tedious process, therefore it must be good for us, and you promptly climbed back again, you would delay your progress to no purpose. There is a distinction between overcoming obstacles which obstruct our onward and upward path, and idly creating difficulties for the fancied glory of conquering them.'

Progress depends on a general brain power, and is not so surely proportioned to effort as the sanguine and the clever are apt to believe. It is unfortunately quite possible for amateurs to spend a great deal of time over their drawings, to take a real interest in the pursuit, and yet to achieve but small, very small, results. Such failure is sometimes due to circumstances and to preventable causes. The most common of them is the constant interruption to which all home work, and especially women's work, is liable. The curious selfishness in this matter of even the best of mothers often immensely surprises me. It is hard indeed to convince parents and relations that women have any right to the undisturbed use of any portion of their time. I think a great deal of that desire, so commonly displayed now, for girls to leave their homes and undertake some work, has been brought about by this want of realisation of the necessity of quiet, if work is to be done. These interruptions, so often quite needless, not only cause an immense loss of time, but are actually a great hindrance to improvement in art. It is always difficult, often almost impossible, to take up work again in the same spirit in which it was laid down. The threads are broken, and cannot be joined together again, to say nothing of the intense annoyance of finding the subject moved, the colour-box upset, or the water spilt. The power of working, in spite of such drawbacks, can be cultivated, especially if it is possible to set up a table either in the pupil's own bed-room, or if some disused room can be handed over to her, where no one touches her things but herself.

As a compromise to the undesirableness of leaving home altogether, these difficulties may very well be met, if one or two amateurs club together and hire a suitable room elsewhere outside their own homes. It might also be possible to get the loan of a room in the house of a young married woman who is the mistress of her own time, where all materials remain undisturbed, and where the surroundings are not annoying or distracting. Un-papered walls, simply whitewashed, a plain deal table or two, a few pieces of cheap pottery, are to be procured at the cost of a very few shillings, a bunch of leaves or a handful of Poppies or Marigolds giving the touch of colour which is dear to the soul of the most incipient artist. Besides the advantage to the work of quiet and seclusion, it is to many women both a rest and a stimulus to go out to their work daily, as men do.

Another point which I would beg may be remembered is that water-colours are far more suitable to amateurs than oils. The use of oils encourages all those defects of slovenliness and carelessness, speed and showy display, to which amateurs are liable. A bad sketch or study in oils is far more distressing than a bad sketch in water-colours. The materials of water-colours are more manageable and convenient for those who have neither much space nor much time at their command-that is to say, for the majority of amateurs. Moreover, water-colour painting is our national art, and it perhaps can never be fully understood or appreciated save by those who have some experience of its great technical difficulties.