"He once said that had he been given at the commencement of his artistic career what he was then offering, his work would have been different. But he found in his youth no absolute definite facts, and he 'fell in a pit and floundered,' and from this he desired to save whom he could. 'All is so simple,' he would say, 'it is based on proved scientific facts; follow this teaching and you must learn to paint; not necessarily learn art, but, at least, absolutely learn to paint what you see.'
"He also demanded the student to abandon all former methods of teaching, unless in harmony with his own, and to approach the science as taught by himself in a simple and trustful manner.
"The students, used to having any little sketch praised, and finding such efforts remained unnoticed by Mr. Whistler, while an intelligent and careful, though to their eyes stupid, attempt to model in simple form and colour would receive approbation, grew irritated, and the majority left for a more congenial atmosphere.
"It was pointed out that a child, in the simple innocence of infancy, painting the red coat of the toy soldier red indeed, is in reality nearer the great truth than the most accomplished trickster with his clever brushwork and brilliant manipulation of many colours.
"'Distrust everything you have done without understanding it. It is not sufficient to achieve a fine piece of painting. You must know how you did it, that the next time you can do it again, and never have to suffer from that disastrous state of the clever artist, whose friends say to him, what a charming piece of painting, do not touch it again, and, although he knows it is incomplete, yet he dare not but comply, because he knows he might never get the same clever effect again.
"'Remember which of the colours you most employed, how you managed the turning of the shadow into the light, and if you do not remember scrape out your work and do it all over again, for one fact is worth a thousand misty imaginings. You must be able to do every part equally well, for the greatness of a work of art lies in the perfect harmony of the whole, not in the fine painting of one or more details.'
"It was many months before a student produced a canvas which showed a grasp of the science he had so patiently been explaining. Mr. Whistler delighted in this, and had the canvas placed on an easel and in a frame that he might more clearly point out to the other students the reason of its merit; it showed primarily an understanding of the two great principles; first, it represented a figure inside the frame and surrounded by the atmosphere of the studio, and secondly, it was created of one piece of flesh, simply but firmly painted and free from mark of brush. As the weeks went on, and the progress in this student's work continued, Mr. Whistler finally handed over to her [Mrs. Addams] the surveillance of the new-comers and the task of explaining to them the first principles of his manner.
"The Académie had the distinction of causing the rumour that something was being taught there, something definite and absolute.
"A large number of students who had been in the Académie for a short time and left, returned, dissatisfied with other schools, that they might once more satisfy themselves that nothing was to be learned there after all.