It may seem a contradiction to have begun this chapter with hearty praise of French methods in art teaching, and to have continued it with depreciation of French taste, but, in fact, both praise and its opposite are deserved. Paris has maintained the light of art in France. Without Paris, contemporary France would have a very small place in artistic Europe; with Paris it still maintains, though against powerful rivals, a leadership. London has not any comparable influence. Many of the best English Academicians, including the President, have studied their art abroad. The methods of English Academical teaching, which require a minute and trifling finish in mere studies, are a waste of the pupil’s time. [Sidenote: Exceptional Genius in England.] [Sidenote: Poetic Art in England.] [Sidenote: Improvement in English Handicraft.] [Sidenote: Elevation of the Common Level.] The English race, usually destitute of any artistic faculty or perception, produces exceptional geniuses in quite as great numbers as the French. The faculties that raise art above mere technical cleverness to the region of poetry are not excessively rare in the home of poetry itself. In fact, the English tendency has been to rely upon native gifts too much, to the neglect of handicraft, yet even in artistic handicraft the English have made surprising progress in the thirty years between 1850 and 1880. Their art critics go on repeating the old complaint that there is little above the common level, but the common level itself has risen, and the complaint amounts merely to the truism that exceptional excellence is exceptional. [Sidenote: The General Understanding of Art.] [Sidenote: Paris and the Provinces.] [Sidenote: London.] [Sidenote: Edinburgh.] [Sidenote: Art in the Middle and Lower Classes.]