THE INDUSTRY OF ALL NATIONS.

director in the place of Mr. Papworth, who was first selected, causedthe Board of Trade to sanction a plan for establishing schools in all the large man-ufacturing towns and districts in England. Scotland had been provided for manyyears before by the establishment of the Trustees’ School, at Edinburgh. Thisinstitution is supported by an income decreed from the investment of certainproperty confiscated at the rebellion of 1745, and vested by the English govern-ment in the hands of trusteg^for “ the promotion and encouragement of arts and,manufactures in Scotland." The school is probably the oldest school of design,using the latter term in the popular sense, in Europe; but prior to a change whichwas made after the movement commenced in England, it had done less for themanufacturing arts, than for the department of fine arts; nor can this be regretted,since Wilkie, Stanfield, Roberts, Dyce, and many others of the leading artists inBritain, received their professional education within its walls. The last-namedgentleman, now W. Dyce, Esq., Royal Academician, was for a period one of theprofessors, and was selected to visit the schools of art in France and Germany, andreport to the government thereon. This report, an admirable document, formedthe basis on which it was proposed to erect the English system. Its author wasplaced at the head of the schools, and his knowledge of his subject, his experienceand attainments ought to have secured for his plans a fair trial. Such, however,was not the result. Attempts were made, and in many instances successfully, tohamper the working of an enlightened system of art-education with absurd re-strictions, to suit the narrow views of professional artists on the one hand, and theequally mistaken notions of manufacturers on the other. Mo one seemed to seethat to make the artisan, and especially the designer, really useful to himself andothers, it would be a waste of time to keep him down simply to the points ofpractice he had to grapple with, and that to do a thing thoroughly well in art, thepower to do much more than the immediate work is necessary. If progress is tobe made beyond a given point, this becomes pre-eminently imperative.

A parliamentary grant of about £5,000 per annum having been made, togetherwith a grant of £10,000, to purchase examples of art for the use of the schools,those cities and towns the inhabitants of which desired the establishment of schools,applied to the council in London. If the place was of sufficient importance as aseat of manufactures, and the inhabitants, or the committee or corporation actingfor them, guaranteed to raise, ty subscription, a sum per annum, equal to theamount of the government grant, which the estimated cost of the school seemedto indicate as desirable, the latter grant was made for three years as an experi-ment, and in no instance has it been subsequently withdrawn. On the contrary,the grants have been increased in the case of the, larger and more importanttowns to three times the original sum, while in too many instances, the localsupport has not been equal to the sums raised at the commencement. This pro-vision of pecuniary means, however, did not meet the whole question. In themidst of so many artists, there were very few competent to undertake the man-agement of the schools, who were also willing to submit to the drudgery and toil,and too frequently uncertain results. Art, as applied to manufacture, had to bemade popular, not only with the public, but with the artist. Every man who couldpaint a picture, or model a statue, considered it “ infra dignitatem ” to meddle withthe utilities of life, unless “ high art,” as it was called far excellence , could be im-ported wholesale into decoration and manufacture. Haydon, a clever painter,and a lecturer of singular power, one who did much to promote the present populartaste for the fine arts in Britain, by his able exposition of principles, took a pervert-ed view of this question from the beginning. The early system pursued at Manches-ter was adopted at his suggestion, and he lived to see it fail most signally, thoughhe still adhered to his doctrine, that if a student could draw and design the hu-man figure, he could draw and design any thing. Of this fallacy he was himselfan example : for with wonderful power in the former, he failed whenever heattempted any thing approaching to ornamentation in its best forms as applied tothe utilities of life. Thus it became evident that teachers must be first educatedbefore the public could be taught, and by Mr. Dyce’s advice, a normal class wasformed in 1841, in the Central School at Somerset House, and six exhibitions of£30 per annum each were offered to the six best students who were willing to devotetheir future professional attention to the schools as masters. The masters of theprovincial schools first established were selected from this class. It was soon dis-covered, however, that an unpaid and irresponsible body, like the council of theMetropolitan School, could not work a great and practical question like this withsuccess. Out of twenty-four numbers, very few attended regularly, and the man-agement fell into the hands of some two or three of the most energetic, whosepersonal predilections and crotchets rather than sound principles ruled themanagement. With Mr. Dyce’s resignation in 1843, commenced a series of changeswhich ended last year in the consolidation of the whole management into a newdepartment of the Board of Trade, now finally constituted as the Department ofPractical Science and Art: Henry Cole, Esq., O. B., and Dr. Lyon Playfair,O. B., F. R. S., being the responsible officers.

The radical defect of the system attempted subsequent to Mr. Dyce’s director-ship, was an unmeaning centralization of power, and dictatorial tone as to thesystem, or rather modes of applying the system of education, on which all were

pretty well agreed, irrespective of the wants and peculiarities of the various man-

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ufactures and local requirements. Mr. Dyce’s successor was Mr. O. H. Wilson(now head-master of the Glasgow School), a gentleman possessing many of therequisites for the office, and whose long residence in Italy, and subsequent experienceas a teacher in the Trustees’ School at Edinburgh, gave him many advantages.Unfortunately, there appeared little fixity of principle in the modes in which theschools were henceforth to be conducted. Changes were made, or attempted tobe made in the provincial schools, because they were supposed to be required bythe circumstances of the head school, the success of which under repeated altera-tions was rather problematical. At length this spirit of dictation and unmeaningdirection was resisted in one of the most important and successful schools, that ofManchester. The head-master, Mr. George Wallis,* remonstrated against im-politic changes in regard to the school over which he presided, and which hadprogressed in an unexampled manner during the two years he had managed it.Its success Mr. Wallis felt ought not to be endangered by alterations inthe system of instruction, which had no real reference to the wants of the pupils,and which abnegated the necessity for teaching anatomy as the basis of drawingthe human figure. The ground now taken was firmly kept, until, by the yieldingof the Manchester committee, Mr. Wallis found he could not retain his post withhonor to himself or advantage to his students, and he thereupon resigned his posi-tion in a somewhat indignant fashion; for he resorted to the very unofficial mode ofinforming the public of the whole circumstances of the case, defended his ownviews, stated why he resigned, and worst of all, foretold the results to the insti-tution, and all others which were subjected to the same law of misrule. Forthree years subsequently, the Manchester School fell in usefulness and popularity,and but for a large increase in the government grant, must have become bank-rupt. It was only on a recurrence of the former modes of management andprinciples of instruction, together with the appointment of the present head-masterMr. Hamersley, whose success at Nottingham pointed him out for promotion, andas the most likely man to redeem the important school of the cotton metropolis,that the classes rallied in numbers, and became once more successful, and thistoo in the face of a debt accumulated during the emasculating process, whichchanged a large balance at the bank into a considerable liability on the otherside.

Nor was it long before the system, against which such “ heavy blows andgreat discouragements” had been hurled from Manchester, began to shake athead quarters. Mr. Herbert, R. A., a most eminent artist and successful teacher ofthe figure, resigned his appointment, and indignantly repudiated the management.In the end, after some eighteen months of uncertainty and inquiry, the Council atSomerset House was abolished, and a Commissioner of the Board of Trade wasappointed to superintend the general management of the schools, while three emi-nent artists were appointed to the entire direction of the educational departmentThese were Mr. Herbert, R. A., Mr. Redgrave, R. A., and Mr. J. LI. Townsend.Mr. Wilson, the late Director, took the superintendence and inspection of the Pro-vincial Schools; but this arrangement existed only for a short period, and he wassubsequently appointed Head Master at Glasgow, a post in which his talents werewell fitted to secure him success.

It is now time to say something about the Female department of these schools.This had been first commenced in 1842 under the direction of Mrs. Mclan, alady whose pictures are an honor to her country, and whose devotionto her duties, and the success which has followed that devotion, notwith-standing the many difficulties in which she has been placed from time to timoby the apathy, and often opposition of the management, deserve the highestconsideration. This Female school was intended to give instruction to fe-males desirous to devote their time to the pursuit of those industrial depart-ments of art, for which their sex might fit them without degradation. Drawingand engraving on wood, lithography, china painting, designing for lace, printedgoods, silk, silver work, even to the modelling of the latter, were suitablebranches of industry. Mrs. Mclan visited Sevres and the Staffordshire Potter-ies, made herself practically conversant with the various methods of painting chi-na, and this, too, as only one part of her duties. In fact, an intelligent and earn-est mind was at work on a suitable subject, and success was the result, even un-der all the difficulties to which we have alluded. Of the present state of the Fe-male School, we shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

The result of the utter want of systematic management in London re-actedupon the Branch Schools, and the extreme of a stereotyped course of study, with-out regard to the varied requirements of each manufacturing locality, resultedin another extreme, in which each master did what was right m his own eyes,and most profitable or convenient for his own purposes. The abolition of the nor-

* It may not bo uninteresting to state, that Mr. Wallis, who has recently visited the United States, asone of the Royal Commissioners from Great Britain, had advocated the cause of art-education for the artisan,long before his connection with the schools. His experience as head-master at Spitalfields. and his successthere and at Manchester, gave his opinions great weight, though this was not felt at the time. Theywere made of more and more value by his untiring attention to the practical questions of art-manufacture,and his efforts as a writer and lecturer, from the period at which he threw up his post at Manchester,until his unsolicited reappointment as head-master at Birmingham in 1851, after five years absence fromofficial duty.