Master of Arts

“ It is in this licence that the whole significance of the master of arts degree is contained; Inception. for what is technically known as admission to that degree was really nothing more nor less than receiving the chancellor's permission to “incept,” and by “inception” was implied the master's formal entrance upon, and commencement of, the functions of a duly licensed teacher, and his recognition as such by his brothers in the profession. The previous stage of his academic career, that of The bachelor of arts. ”

“ No girl who is going to marry need bother to win a college degree; she just naturally becomes a "Master of Arts" and a "Doctor of Philosophy" after catering to an ordinary man for a few years. ”

“ Some, to their credit, recognise Art in its narrower sense, to a certain extent, and confer degrees for proficiency in some of its branches. If there are Doctors of Music, why should there be no Masters of painting, of Sculpture, of Architecture? I should like to see Professors of the Fine Arts in every University; and instruction in some branch of their work made a part of the Arts curriculum.
I just now expressed the opinion that, in our ideal University, a man should be able to obtain instruction in all forms of knowledge. ”

“ Every operation in the arts should be perfect. It has to be so in most arts, from violin-playing to circus-riding, before the artist dare make his bow to the public.
Placing on one side the question of the higher grades of art which depend upon special talent or genius—the great qualities of imagination, composition, form and colour, which belong to mastership—I would now, in this book, intended for students, dwell upon those minor things, the doing of which well or ill depends only upon good-will, patience, and industry. ”

“ Other efforts are experimental, but this one thing we know—that men are turned out from this course who are practically unmatched for quality, culture, and power; even the average B.A. shows up better than his compeers, and a degree in Arts signifies more than one in any other faculty.
We return thus to my original contention—that letters, primarily, are the content of knowledge ”

“ And in both of these methods of study, though of course your own diligence must be your chief master, to a certain extent your Professor of Art can always guide you securely, and can show you, either that the image does truly resemble what it attempts to resemble, or that the structure is rightly prepared for the service it has to perform. But there is yet another virtue of fine art which is, perhaps, exactly that about which you will expect your Professor to teach you most, and which, on the contrary, is exactly that about which you must teach yourselves all that it is essential to learn. ”

“ For he had a strong, working, independent, ready head, which had been improved by various learning, extending beyond his profession into the fields of general literature, and into the arts of painting and sculpture. ”

“ And lastly, a new and important class that has lately sprung into existence, the well-equipped, picked student—brilliant and be-medalled, able draughtsman, able painter; young, thoughtful, ambitious, and educated, who, instead of drifting, as till recently, into the overcrowded ranks of picture-making, has now the opportunity of choosing other weapons in the armoury of the arts. ”

“ For that power, which enables the Artist to conceive his subject with dignity, may be said to belong to general education; and is as much the Genius of a Poet, or the professor of any other liberal Art, or even a good critic in any of those arts, as of a Painter. ”

“ A professorship in aesthetics, the editorship of a magazine devoted to the arts, the curatorship of a museum,—one or all, might have satisfied his present ambition. Yet he had never quite abandoned actual creative work. ”

“ A college of art founded in this part of the world cannot be expected, like a college of literature, to lay before its young members all that may be necessary to complete their knowledge and taste. What is to be had from books may be obtained almost every where; but the books of instruction by which the artist alone can be perfected, are those great works which still remain immoveable in that part of the world, where the fine arts in modern times have been carried to their highest degree of perfection. ”

“ It is obvious that in a general college course, a study of the religious, social, and political factors in civilization that does not include art among these factors is incomplete.
The question under discussion concerns the teaching of art to the candidate for the bachelor of arts degree, and this question will be solely kept in view. Since, however, graduates in science, engineering, law, medicine, etc., are not exempt from the needs of artistic culture, they too should have at least an effective minimum of art instruction.
Art a social activity
Art is recognized as a social activity. ”

“ WHILST the student may profitably employ himself in attempting minor trifles—initials, copies of anything within his reach, or his own ideas; to acquire proficiency in the art, it is requisite to employ a master to direct his taste on the one hand, and to lead him on step by step to perfection, on the other. ”

“ But since it is not to be doubted that we are all met together because of the interest we take in what concerns these arts, I would rather address myself to you all as representing the public in general. Indeed, those of you who are specially studying Art could learn little of me that would be useful to yourselves only. You are already learning under competent masters—most competent, I am glad to know—by means of a system which should teach you all you need, if you have been right in making the first step of devoting yourselves to Art ”

“ There is a wider extent of learning, a wider field of study required for a degree in Arts than that which necessarily would be required for the degree of L.M., and I think it is a matter of congratulation that the great success which has been manifested in the examinations, has attended those who have sought to graduate in Arts. ”

“ They had the best masters for the fine arts, geography, poetry, history and science, and even for sciences which are learned by few, and every branch seemed so easy to them, that their teachers were astonished at the progress they made. ”

“ Even teachers by profession confuse themselves and their unfortunate pupils with vague and hyper-refined talk about art and "schools" and "styles," while all the time much worse work is done than in days when simpler, clearer views were held. To prove this there is the example of the great Master's work and the eternal laws of nature, on the study of which all serious art must be for ever based. ”

“ The bachelors may have assisted in the education of the younger arts students and of the glomerels who are mentioned below, but normally instruction in the arts course was given by masters, and in the higher faculties by doctors. ”

“ Of those forms of nature which the student can originally consult—the sea, the sky, the earth—we would counsel him to draw from them in the first learning; for though he ought afterwards to analyse and mature his style by the study of works of art, from the first sketches to the finished picture, yet, by beginning with nature and his own suggestions, he will acquire a genuine and original style, superior to the finest imitation; and it is hard to acquire a master's skill without his manner. ”

“ And even those few courses which the English departments of our larger universities have in recent years established for the benefit of their graduate students—courses in the structure of the short story and the play and the novel—although they are an encouraging step in the right direction, are not either in kind or in degree quite comparable to the practical training that is open to students in every other branch of art. The best instruction in any craft or profession is a practical training by someone who has already proved himself a master of it. ”

“ Let us think for a few moments of the whole reading public as a College, which Truth, as Head-Master, is endeavouring to instruct and educate; and of men of Genius, discoverers, reformers, as assistant-masters, to each of whom is committed the task of teaching the subject of which he knows most. ”

“ Spending a few months at a day school, and a few more at a “floral drawing master,” then a few more at school at Margate, making drawings for sale, colouring prints, fruitlessly studying perspective, bandied about from school master to drawing master, and from drawing master to architect—such a life for a young mind from ten to fourteen years of age is enough to spoil the finest intellectual digestion. ”

“ It is the Arts Course of a University, particularly its Philosophy, that gives this general knowledge and enlargement of the mind. Its influence is most telling in the various Faculties where students specialize for their future career. ”

“ It is unnecessary, in an educational view, to divide the arts by the employment of the terms “useful” and “fine;” for the fine arts can only exist legitimately where the useful arts have paved the way. In a harmonious development the artist will enter on the heels of the artisan. ”

“ Again, though art may profit by a free and broad method, yet all artistic significance depends on the More and the Less. Beauty is a narrow circle [76] in which one may only move in modest measure. And of this modest measure the academy, the school, the master, above all the antique, are the guardians and the teachers. ”

“ The professors of every art, both the noble arts and the base arts, and non-professionals, were there, selling and exhibiting their compositions and their professional works to kings, and rewards were given for every work of art that was just or lawful to be sold or exhibited or listened to. ”

“ As soon as art became, not art for the whole people, but for a rich class, it became a profession; as soon as it became a profession, methods were devised to teach it; people who chose this profession of art began to learn these methods, and thus professional schools sprang up: classes of rhetoric or literature in the public schools, academies for painting, conservatoires for music, schools for dramatic art.
In these schools art is taught! But art is the transmission to others of a special feeling experienced by the artist. ”

“ Leave the critic, then, to his thesis: and let us confess that for everyone except for the artist, that thesis has a great and stimulating value.
The words of the critical, even though they come from outside the profession, have a value in preserving and in interpreting good traditions in art. The real power, however, through which these traditions live is the teaching done inside of the profession. What the apprentice learns at the bench from the master-craftsman—this is what controls the67 future of art. It is through this teaching that the raw youth is turned into a craftsman. ”

“ While the School of Fine Arts, as proposed, looks to the development of native genius, by giving dignity and honor to the professional education of an artist, there is much that is comprehended in the school that would have a direct bearing upon the schools of Agriculture and Engineering, and which would, at the same time, exercise an important influence in cultivating the taste of an educated gentleman. ”

“ It is the most astounding fact of history that education has been confined to abstractions. The schools have taught history, mathematics, language and literature, and the sciences, to the utter exclusion of the arts, notwithstanding the obvious fact that it is through the arts alone that other branches of learning touch human life. ”

“ With what eagerness do we regard the first studies of any of the great Masters,—tracing the elementary thoughts, their treatment, and changes under the artist's hand,—studies of nature, snatched with a passing stroke of the pencil, to be eventually immortalized in some masterpiece of art. ”

“ So, then, without any scruple, whatever branch of art you may be inclined as a student here to follow,—whatever you are to make your bread by, I say, so far as you have time and power, make yourself first a noble and accomplished artist; understand at least what noble and accomplished art is, and then you will be able to apply your knowledge to all service whatsoever. ”

“ Under these circumstances it becomes interesting to inquire just how much the young painter may accept with safety from his master; in what manner he may best acquire the thorough and intimate knowledge of technique which is so essential to his success, without 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. ”

“ The world has long recognized that in painting, music, sculpture, and architecture it is indispensable that technique shall be acquired; but—absurd as it may seem—it is only recently, comparatively speaking, that it has been practically recognized that this is as true of poetry as of painting, as true of literature as of any other art. It is in truth only in our own day that there has been anything like a general acceptance of the fact that in literature as in the other arts technical skill must be laboriously acquired before any successful and permanent work can be produced. ”

“ Having got our bearings, we find before us a purely practical problem, that of leading the student through the maze of a new science and teaching him the skill of an old art, exemplified in a long line of masters. ”