But, you will say, all this is fault-finding; let us hear what you have
in the way of positive suggestion. Then I am bound to tell you that,
if I could make a clean sweep of everything--I am very glad I cannot
because I might, and probably should, make mistakes,--but if I could
make a clean sweep of everything and start afresh, I should, in the
first place, secure that training of the young in reading and writing,
and in the habit of attention and observation, both to that which is
told them, and that which they see, which everybody agrees to. But in
addition to that, I should make it absolutely necessary for everybody,
for a longer or shorter period, to learn to draw. Now, you may say,
there are some people who cannot draw, however much they may be taught.
I deny that in toto, because I never yet met with anybody who could not
learn to write. Writing is a form of drawing; therefore if you give the
same attention and trouble to drawing as you do to writing, depend upon
it, there is nobody who cannot be made to draw, more or less well.
Do not misapprehend me. I do not say for one moment you would make an
artistic draughtsman. Artists are not made; they grow. You may improve
the natural faculty in that direction, but you cannot make it; but you
can teach simple drawing, and you will find it an implement of learning
of extreme value.
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