Hamilton Wright Mabie on how to inculcate professional standards into pupils

  There is a way to inculcate professional standards into pupils. It is, according to Hamilton Wright Mabie, to follow the method of the Kano school of Japanese painters. About it Mabie says the following in his book, Essays on Work and Culture (Dodd, Mead and Company, 1898):

The course of study in a Kano school covered at least ten years, and the average age of graduation was thirty. The rules of conduct were rigid; the manner of life simple to the point of bareness; the discipline of work severe and unbroken. During the first year and a half of study the pupil devoted his entire time to copying certain famous works in the possession of the school; making, in the first instance, a copy from the picture set before him, and then reproducing his own copy again and again until every stroke and detail was thoroughly comprehended and mastered. In the course of eighteen months sixty pictures were studied with this searching thoroughness; the secrets of skill in each were uncovered, the sources of beauty or power discerned; and the eye and hand of the pupil gained intelligence, quickness, penetration. Month after month passed in what seemed to be a monotony of mechanical imitation; but in this arduous and literal reproduction of the skill of others was laid the sure foundations of individual skill. This devout attention to methods secured for a considerable number of men a technical expertness for which we look, as a rule, only in the work of the greatest artists. The result of this training was not mechanical skill, but truth and freshness of observation. The signature of the artist in question reveals not imitative but an original nature, not a faculty absorbed in accuracy but in passion for expression: “Hokusai, the Old Man Crazy about Painting.”

The arduous patience of these Oriental students of painting bore its fruit in a tradition of skill which was in itself an immense stimulus to the aspiring and ambitious; it established standards of craftsmanship which made the possession of expert knowledge a necessity on the part of every one who seriously attempted to practice the art. Mr. La Farge comments upon the level of superior artistic culture which these Japanese artists had attained. They had advanced their common skill so far that a superior man began at a great height of attainment, and was compelled to exhibit power of a very rare order before he could claim any kind of prominence among his fellows.

The establishment of such a standard in any art, profession, or occupation has the immense educational value of making clear to the student, at the very beginning of his career, the prime importance of mastering in detail every part of the work which he has undertaken to do. There is no place in the modern working world for the sloven, the indifferent, or the unskilled; no one can hope for any genuine success who fails to give himself the most thorough technical preparation, the most complete special education. Good intentions go for nothing, and industry is thrown away, if one cannot infuse a high degree of skill into his work. The man of medium skill depends upon fortunate conditions for success; he cannot command it, nor can he keep it. In the fierce competition of the day the trained man has all the advantages on his side; the untrained man invites all the tragic possibilities of industrial and economic failure. He is always at the mercy of conditions. To know every detail, to gain an insight into every secret, to learn every method, to secure every kind of skill, are the prime necessities of success in any art, craft, or trade. No time is too long, no study too hard, no discipline too severe for the attainment of complete familiarity with one’s work and complete ease and skill in the doing of it. As a man values his working life, he must be willing to pay the highest price of success in it, - the price which severe training extracts.
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    For information about the Kano school of Japanese painters, click here.
    For a sketch of Hamilton Wright Mabie’s career and his works, click here.