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• 1 2017-01-11T00:13:40-08:00 The First Discourse 8 3 plain 2017-01-15T22:26:01-08:00
  answer his expectations, yet, at least, our
  industry may deserve his protection.
   
  But whatever may be our proportion of
  success, of this we may be sure, that the
  present Institution will at least contribute to
  advance our knowledge of the Arts, and
  bring us nearer to that ideal excellence, which
  it is the lot of genius always to contemplate
  and never to attain.
   
  The principal advantage of an Academy
  Is, that, besides furnishing able men to direct
  the Student, it will be a repository for the
  great examples of the Art. These are the
  materials on which Genius is to work, and
  without which the strongest intellect may be
  fruitlessly or deviously employed. By
  studying these authentick models, that idea
  of excellence which is the result of the accu-
  mulated experience of past ages, may be at
  once acquired ; and the tardy and obstructed
  progress of our predecessors may teach us
  a shorter and easier way. The Student
  receives, at one glance, the principles which
  many Artists have spent their whole lives in