Viewing page 11 of 39

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

11
such a system may have some a advantages but when the taste is to be created, a more liberal course would be more expedient. In this, as in other particulars, the difference of the two countries seems to have been overlooked when the Royal Academy is proposed as the proper model of such institutions in America.

There could be no danger here of the other directors interfering improperly with the peculiar province of the artists, and they might often be useful as mediators or [[strikeout]] umpires [[/strikeout]] umpires between contending parties. They would be the Defence of the meritorious against any of their brethren, who might otherwise pervert the power and influence of the academy to selfish or party purposes. That such differences and oppression may exist in their institutions, is well enough proved by their history, particularly by that of the same Royal Academy, where Example is thought to sanction this exclusive system. There has been but very lately a revolt in this institution, which withdrew much talent from its exhibitions. What has been its result, we do not know, but it may be presumed to have been unfortunate for its seceders, however just might have been their complaints. Such occurrences might often be prevented by the intervention of disinterested direction, and when they happens