MEN I HAVE PAINTED
of his affable and persuasive nature, to enlist the hearty sympathy and the generous financial support of many of his colleagues and fellow-trustees. A marked feature of his administration, and one which assured its success, was the happy faculty of drawing around him advisers chosen from the ranks of the artists themselves. I can look back with a feeling of pleasure to the thought that I may have been partly instrumental in obtaining for the winners of the travelling scholarships an increased grant from the Cresson Fund, to enable the student to live decently, as well as comfortably, in Paris or in Rome. It was at an interview which I had with Mr. Coates upon this subject that I earnestly brought to the attention of the President the great truth that the creation of artists was not so important as their maintenance. And I pointed out very forcibly the cruel mistake of an over-inducement, through money prizes, to many young persons to enter a profession in which patronage was exceedingly limited, and in which success is usually more illusory and elusive than in any other. Artists can make themselves, but at the outset none can maintain himself without aid.
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