But the first reform that was needed was a more serious study of the dancing itself, for the ballet, however interesting the music and the scenery, is essentially an exhibition of the dance. The ballet in England has always suffered from the absence of any official school of dancing. In France, in Italy, in Russia, in Denmark, the academies are maintained by the State; the dancers are in a manner civil servants, holding a permanent appointment and receiving a pension on retirement. An adequate training is therefore possible, a continuous tradition is maintained and a high average, at all events in the technique of the dance, is ensured. In England, however, it has been rather the custom for the _danseuse_ to go to this or that teacher to learn a single dance necessary for a certain performance, but not to learn dancing. Indeed it is impossible as a general rule for the dancer out of her slender salary to pay one or two guineas an hour, or whatever the fee may be, in order to attain a proficiency which even when acquired is rarely appreciated. The managers, rightly or wrongly, believed that the public did not care to see good dancing, but only good looks and a dazzling show. The sounder view was probably that taken by the Rev. Stewart Headlam, who always held that the ballet was worthy of serious criticism. Writing in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ in 1886 he said: “If either of those houses [the Alhambra and the Empire] want a really new sensation, to take the town, let them have a small ballet, not only with the best principals who can be got--these indeed they have often now--but with the whole ballet composed solely of dancers, picked dancers, who have been regularly and constantly at practice under a really good master.” Time has justified his words, for it is in no small degree to this minute and general excellence that the success of the Russian ballet is due.