Better standards will serve not only as guides but as
weapons. In so far as they are embodied in competent performances, they
are bound also to be applied in the critical condemnation of inferior
work; and the critic himself will assume a much more important practical
job than he now has. Criticism is a comparatively neglected art among
Americans, because a sufficient number of people do not care whether and
when the current practices are really good or bad. The practice of
better standards and their appreciation will give the critic both a more
substantial material for his work and a larger public. It will be his
duty to make the American public conscious of the extent of the
individual successes or failures and the reasons therefor; and in case
his practice improves with that of the other arts, he should become a
more important performer, not only because of his better opportunities
and public, but because of his increase of individual prowess. He should
not only be better equipped for the performance of his work and the
creation of a public following, but he should have a more definite and
resolute conviction of the importance of his own job.
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