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THE INDUSTRY OF ALU NATIONS.

With regard to the kind of instruction given, it would occupy too muchspace to go into all the details. Without attempting a minute account, it willtherefore he sufficient to say, that it comprises a course of geometry and per-spective, simultaneously with a rigid course of free-hand outline drawing froma selection of ornaments of pure styles, and of the human figure. When thiscourse is gone through in a satisfactory manner, the student is taught shading incrayon or chalk, first from M flat, to give him a true method of handling, andthen from the cast; and'hifl subjects may be either antique ornament, orthe human figure. A course of anatomy, illustrative of the latter, is also pur-sued. In the study of color, the practice is first in monochrome from the cast,and then from the smaller objects of nature, such as flowers, prints, shells, etc.,which are usually grouped as compositions of color. In modelling, which is prac-tically taught in most of the schools, the students are carried from the firstefforts in clay from the cast, to modelling from nature, and to the realiza-tion of designs for manufacturers. The technical instruction, given in theseschools, beyond that which applies to artistic practice, is very limited, and howfar it shall or shall not, can or cannot be carried, has been a principal source ofdispute, amongst those who have the greatest interest in the schools andtheir projects. One thing appears quite certain, that to make them into centresfor supplying the actual designs for manufactures, supposing this could be done,would be to bring them down to the level of the manufacturers’ taste, whilethe one great purpose for which they were originally established was to elevatethat taste, as also that of the artisan and general public. In short, the functionsof these schools is to make designers, not designs, but in doing the former theremust of necessity be more or less of the latter done or aimed at. After all, how-ever, the real technical knowledge can only be attained in the workshops or inthe factory; and the most practical, as well as the most practicable view, is toseek to give the artisan such an amount of artistic knowledge as shall enable himto become an art workman, apt at realizing the designs and inventions, of otherswith accuracy and taste, while, should he possess originality himself, his artisticpractice and technical skill will go hand in hand, and render him more fitted forhis position as a leader. The first thing, however, is to make a good and orderlyfollower of him, alike in art and in manufactures.

The Schools of Ornamental Art at present in operation in Great Britain and Ire-land, are located at Belfast, Birmingham, Cork, Coventry, Dublin, Glasgow, Leeds,Limerick, Macclesfield, Manchester, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Norwich, Nottingham,Paisley, Staffordshire Potteries (Stoke), Sheffield, Spitalfields, Stourbridge,Worcesterand York. To this, it should be understood, are now added a considerable number ofelementary schools as the commencement of others of a more extended character,whenever the wants of the respective localities in which they are situated becomeapparent in the uses made of the instruction provided. The latter, however, haveno absolute grant of money. The department provides a properly trained master,and guarantees his stipend for the first year, if the fees of the students do notamount to the sum required. The necessary accommodation as regards class-rooms,furniture, gas-fittings, care-taking, and half the cost of examples, must be absolutelyundertaken by the locality; and there can be little doubt that this is the correctpolicy now to pursue in relation to these institutions. Still, had such a systembeen adopted at the outset, it is more than questionable whether many of theSchools of Art now in operation would have had an existence, and there can belittle doubt that many of them would have been abandoned by their provincialpromoters, had so serious a binder been thrown upon them as the responsibility ofrendering them, self-supporting; for, strange to say, the majority of the manufac-turers of England are exceedingly apathetic upon the subject, and while they com-plain that the instruction given is not as practical as it ought to be, they neitheruse their influence nor their money to assist in making it so. Hence many of theschools, until the recent changes in the central management, had fallen into meredilettanti drawing-classes, from the fact that those who directed them had little orno perception of their true uses; and the public found it pleasant to get in-struction in making pretty drawings at a few cents per quarter, instead of paying anequitable number of dollars. But while this system has, so far at least, been putan end to, there is yet the difficulty to overcome of showing the great manufactur-ing houses that self-supporting Schools of Art which will do their work in the rightspirit, are practicable; for the popular drawing-class element may be carriedto such an extent as to completely absorb the more essential quality of pro-viding for the wants of the artisan. Here lies the difficulty. Art, as applicableto manufacture, ls one thing; whilst art, as a mere accomplishment, is another.Hundreds will be found to pay the requisite fees, and go through such a course ofstudy as may answer very well for manufacturing pretty pictures; but for the pur-poses Of the loom, the casting shop, the potter’s wheel, the printing machine, andthe glass furnace, another, and by no means popular course, is necessary. Severeforms can only arise out of the application of severe principles, and in workingout severe courses of study, and to this none but the professional student will sub-mit; because it is thought that the mere amateur can succeed without the know-ledge required by the artist or the art-workman. Thus we conclude, that to havethe requisite work done, the government must pay for it, since the popular draw-ing-class is the only thing the public care to pay for, in the shape of fees. But we

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also hold, that whilst the government is called upon to pay for the suitable instruc-tion, it ought also to see that such instruction is given. This was a matter ofminor importance with nearly all the previous managements, but it is to be hopedsufficiently understood by the present one to insure success, provided the self-sup-porting principle, based on the popularity-seeking system, is not carried so far as tomake the wants of the manufacturer secondary as compared with the self-supportof the schools.

On analyzing a table, published in the first official report of the new depart-ment, we find that the grants to the various provincial schools before enumeratedamount, to £7,500, and that the fees received from students are £2,788 4s. 4d. Thelocal subscriptions, donations, Ac., amount to £5,146 18s., thus giving a total in-come of £15,347 12s. 9d. for the year ending 31st December, 1852. The expendi-ture shows a total of £13,118 2s. 3d. For this expenditure, 3,762 males, and1,106 females are receiting artistic education, or at least are so reported. Thekind and degree of this instruction is, as we have shown, open to grave exceptionby the earnest advocate of a thoroughgoing system as applicable to really usefulpurposes.

In the returns from nearly all the schools, the occupations of the students aregiven; but when we see the great city of Manchester neglecting to give thismost important item of information, and returning round numbers of portentousamount as the number of students on the ioohs (a most equivocal mode of return),we naturally seek to see what further impression is given from this importantlocality. On turning to another table, in which returns are made from the date ofthe establishment of each school to 1851, the same school returns, strangely enough,less than half the number as the average; thus the difficulty of giving the occu-pation of the 700 is shown by the fact that 322 is nearer the mark, whilst theamount of fees received in the year 1852, always a good test, since the moneymust be accounted for, is only £262,16s., which clearly gives even less than 300students. Now this example of an official return is quoted to show, how littledependence a government can place upon the expenditure of grants for the resultsof the application of which it does not clearly hold the administrators responsible,by seeing that the work undertaken to be done is actually accomplished; a pointabout which, until recently, officials at head-quarters scarcely troubled themselves.It is only right to say, however, that the returns from all the other schools appearto be fairly given, the lists of the occupations of the students being curiously illus-trative of the trades of the various localities. The ages, too, are given in groups,and show that the greatest number of those who attend are between fifteen andtwenty, a large number being also between twenty and thirty, and many abovethirty years of age. The average period of attendance, however, would appear notto be above two years and a half, and this too, irrespective of the many who donot attend a whole year.

In London a great change is now in the course of being effected. Insteadof a single school at Somerset House, several elementary schools are estab-lished, whilst the rooms, previously occupied in that great centre of govern-ment offices, have been given up to the registrar-general, and its businesstransferred to Marlborough House, where all the advanced classes are conduct-ed. The female school being located in the neighborhood of College University,goes on much as it has done, as regards its elementary course of instruction, but isnow being made more extensively useful than formerly.

There is one point in connection with the support of these schools, whichappears to have been a fruitful source of discussion wherever the pecuniary ques-tion has been raised. In the provinces large subscriptions are required to assistin their support, in the metropolis this is not done. Even Spitalfields, a branchschool, received the whole of its support from the government, except some£40 or £50 per annum, until lately. The provincials maintain, that while Londonpossesses innumerable advantages for the study of art, in nearly all its forms,provincial towns have rarely any except such as may be afforded by the estab-lishment of a school of ornamental art; and yet a provincial town is calledupon to bear half the cost of an institution so much needed, but the me-tropolis gets the government grant without any conditions. The reply is,that a central institution is essential for the proper training of masters forthe provincial schools, and that a great portion of the expenses of the metro-politan schools, ought to be set down to the provincial ones. The line of con-tention, however, still exists, and promises to form no unimportant point in thefinal question as to how far the provincial schools are to be self-supporting.

Under any circumstances, it is the policy of a wise government to encouragesuch institutions as these, the working of which in Great Britain we have been en-deavoring to illustrate. Their influence, imperfectly as they have been as yetworked, has been very important. Under a more earnest and stringent system ofsupervision, with the experience of the past to rely upon, their future career cannotfail to be marked with beneficial results alike to the artisan, the manufacturer,and the general public. For, in an age like the present, in which the ingenuityof man is so strikingly manifested in the rapid development of means of manufac-ture, by which the useful can be made ornamental, in some instances at even lesscost than it can be constructed without decoration, it is not too much to say, thatthat country which pays most attention to a matter becoming daily of more im-