The _Academie des Beaux-Arts_, where six chairs are reserved for the
musical section, could have played a very important part in the musical
organisation of France by the authority of its name, and by the many
prizes that it gives for composition and criticism, especially by the
_Prix de Rome_, which it awards every year. But it does not play its
part well, partly because of the antiquated statutes that govern it, by
which a handful of musicians are associated with a great number of
painters, sculptors, and architects, who are ignorant of music and mock
at the musicians, as they did in the time of Berlioz; and partly because
it is the custom of the Academy that the little group of musicians shall
be trained in a very conservative way. One of the names of these
musicians is justly celebrated--that of M. Saint-Saens; but there are
others whose fame is of poorer quality, and others still who have no
fame at all. And the whole forms a little group, which though it does
not put any actual obstacles in the way of the progress of art, yet does
not look upon it favourably, but remains rather apart in an indifferent
or even hostile spirit.
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