Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/214

LANDSCAPE PAINTING carefully trained; and this fact is so well recognized that the years of our adolescence are mainly devoted to this object.

In order to appreciate how well the work is carried out and how attentively the pupil has listened to his master, you have only to call upon him for, say, the letters of the alphabet or the multiplication table. He will reel them off for you at a rate to make the head spin. He has charge of all the stored-up information of life; he is the guardian of the treasures of memory, and he keeps his treasures all pigeon-holed and tabulated, and ready for the instant service of the master—but upon one condition—that his services be so frequently called upon that his powers do not become atrophied through lack of use. It is not in the simple capacity of a bookkeeper, however, that he serves us best. Having [166]