I was particularly struck with this on strolling into the Art
School of the University. Here I found that the course of study was
divided into two branches--the practical and the commercial--no student
being permitted to continue his studies in the actual practice of the art
he had taken up, unless he made equal progress in its commercial history.
Thus those who were studying painting were examined at frequent intervals
in the prices which all the leading pictures of the last fifty or a
hundred years had realised, and in the fluctuations in their values when
(as often happened) they had been sold and resold three or four times.
The artist, they contend, is a dealer in pictures, and it is as important
for him to learn how to adapt his wares to the market, and to know
approximately what kind of a picture will fetch how much, as it is for
him to be able to paint the picture. This, I suppose, is what the French
mean by laying so much stress upon "values."
As regards the city itself, the more I saw the more enchanted I became. I
dare not trust myself with any description of the exquisite beauty of the
different colleges, and their walks and gardens. Truly in these things
alone there must be a hallowing and refining influence which is in itself
half an education, and which no amount of error can wholly spoil.
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