On the other hand, if we are amiably and cheerfully inclined to admire
things in general in a popular way, easily pleased and not exacting, we
shall both receive and give a great deal of pleasure, but it will be all
in a second and third and fourth-rate order of delight, and although
this comfortable turn of mind is saved from much that is painful and
jarring, it is not exempt from the danger of itself jarring continually
upon the feelings of others, of pandering to the downward tendency in
what is popular, and, in education, of debasing the standard of taste
and discrimination for children. To be swayed by popularity in matters
of taste is to accept mediocrity wholesale. We have left too far behind
the ages when the taste of the people could give sound and true judgment
in matters of art; we have left them at a distance which can be measured
by what lies between the greatest Greek tragedies and contemporary
popular plays. Consternation is frequently expressed at seeing how
theatres of every grade are crowded with children of all classes in
life, so it is from these popular plays that they must be learning the
first lessons of dramatic criticism.
There are only rare instances of taste which is instinctively true, and
the process of educational pressure tends to level down original thought
in children, as the excess of magazine and newspaper reading works in
the same direction for older minds, so that true, independent taste
becomes more rare; the result does not seem favourable to the
development of the best discernment in those who ought to sway the taste
of their generation.
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