Page:Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison.djvu/283

THE TRUE IMPRESSIONISM sacrifice of that personal integrity which is still more essential. Let us at once concede the fact that there is no perfect system of art instruction. But without question the system most nearly approaching the ideal is that which has the great art school or institute for its central idea. To begin with, students learn much more from each other than they do from their masters. The constant attrition and stimulation, the wholesome emulation of the school keeps every mental fibre on the full jump, every nerve alive and tingling. The progress made by each helps the other forward. The student sees here a technical point, there a trick or an idea, and, like the young barbarian that he is, he promptly appropriates them all to his own use. And this is just so much to the good, for the callow cub is putting on technique much [221]