"When the society was in its infancy they gave premiums for children's drawings, and for this--'Let children lisp their praise.'[42] It was asserted that we should thus improve our own manufactures, and gravely asked by these _professed_ encouragers of the commerce of their country, if the French children being instructed in drawing did not enable that people to give a better air to all the articles they fabricated. I answered positively, NO; and added, that thus trumpeting their praise was a degradation of our own country, and giving to our rivals a character which they had no right to. Were this point debated, French superiority would be supported by fashionable ladies, travelled gentlemen, and picture-dealers. In opposition to them, would be those who are capable of judging for themselves, the few that are not led away by popular prejudices, and the first artists in the kingdom. These, I am conscious, would be a minority, but composed of men that ought to have weight, and whose opinion and advice should have been taken before the plan was put in execution. "Of the immense improvement that is to take place in our manufactures from boys of almost every profession being taught to draw, I form no very sanguine expectations. "To attain the power of imitating the forms of letters with freedom and precision in all their due proportions and various elegant turns, as Snell has given them, requires as much skill as to copy different forms of columns and cornices in architecture, and might with some show of propriety be said to demand a knowledge of design; yet common sense and experience convince us that the proper place for acquiring a fine hand is a writing-school. As measuring is but measuring, I do not think that a tailor would make a suit of clothes fit better from having been employed twice seven years in taking the dimensions of all the bits of antiquity that remain in Greece.[43] How absurd would it be to see periwig-makers and shoemakers' boys learning the art of drawing, that they might give grace to a peruke or a slipper! If the study of Claude's landscapes would benefit the carver of a picture-frame, or the contemplation of a finely-painted saucepan by Teniers or Bassan would be an improvement to a tinman, it would be highly proper for this society to encourage them in the practice of the arts. But as this is not the case, giving lads of all ranks a little knowledge of everything is almost as absurd as it would be to instruct shopkeepers in oratory, that they may be thus enabled to talk people into buying their goods, because oratory is necessary at the bar and in the pulpit. As to giving premiums to those that design flowers, etc. for silks and linens, let it be recollected that these artisans copy the objects they introduce from nature,--a much surer guide than all the childish and ridiculous