MEMORIALS.

53

Your Memorialists aro informed that in Franco there is a “ School of Arts and Manufac-tures ” attended by three hundred students, who afterwards devote themselves to industrialjmrsuits, and aro in great demand as managers by the manufacturers both of France and ofBelgium. They aro also informed that, in addition to this school, established and supportedby manufacturers themselves, there is a Government institution, having provincial schoolsattached, called the “ Conservatory of Arte and Manufactures,” which also affords to themanufacturers and designers the education necessary to understand the principles of theirrespective industries.

Your Memorialists recognise in such institutions a wise intention on the part of foreigngovernments to develop manufactures by applying increased science, skill, and intelligenceto their cultivation. They fool that in the increasing competition of the world it is necessaryto join education to practice, and although they do not think that a practical education inindustrial science can ever of itself make manufacturers, they aro fully convinced that whenthe scientific principles of manufactures are more thoroughly understood by practical menthey will better be able to apply them with advantage in their respective industries, and topromote economy and improvements in manufacturing processes.

Your Memorialists have observed that Government lias considered it desirable to establisha Government School of Mines, in connexion with the Museum of Practical Geology, and theyperceive in this act a recognition on the part of the State of the want of practical educationto a large branch of industry. But your Memorialists in vain look for a college dovoted tothe industrial pursuits which they themselves follow, or to those important textile manufac-tures carried on by the neighbouring manufacturing towns.

Your Memorialists acknowledge that in collecting specimens from different Exhibitors, forthe purpose, as they suppose, of founding a Museum of Arts and Manufactures, you are pro-ceeding in the direction of education, but they aro fully convinced that such collections canonly be made efficiently useful when used as a basis of instruction, and that as a mero collec-tion they coaso to be of much importance in the advancement of industry.

Your Memorialists therefore 2 >resent theso points for your consideration, in order that youmay judge whether arts and manufactures might not be much promoted by the establishmentof a Central College of Arts and Manufactures in connexion with provincial schools for thesame object. They consider that the Schools of Design might bo made the nuclei for thismore extended system of education, and that designers themselves would bo benefited bybeing taught the principles of tho manufacture for which they aro afterwards to design,because by this means they would better understand its wants and the possibilities of manu-facturing processes to carry designs into execution.

They consider that if these branch institutions and the Central College were united intoone university of arts and manufactures, empowered to make examinations and grant certifi-cates to those who showed sufficient knowledge, an impulse and position would be given tomanufacturing scienco which could not fail to be of benefit to the progress of industry.

Your Memorialists would therefore submit these views to your Honourable Board, in thofull conviction that your judgment would best mature the details necessary to carry into effecttho most efficient plan for industrial education.

No. 7. Staffordshire Potteries.

To IDs Royal Highness Prince Albert, K. G., &c. &c. &c., and the Royal Commissioners for

the Exhibition of 1851.

The Memorial of tho Local Commissioners, and Members of the Local Committoosof the Staffordshire Potteries, and their Vicinities, recommended by resolutionspassed at a Meeting, hold at the Now Town Hall, Stoke-upou-Tront, on Wednes-day, October the 1st, 1851.

J. Ayshford Wise, Esq., in the Chair .

Your Memorialists have observed with feelings of tho highest gratification and pride thobeneficial results which have already been developed by tho triumphant success of the GreatInternational Exhibition, and which, however hugely important in their present actualrealization, are still more valuable and comprehensive in expectancy, not only in their promisedinfluence on our own country, but over the whole civilized globe.

As the time for the final close of this vast receptacle of tho aggregate skill and industry ofthe world at large now so rapidly nears its advent, the question, as to tho appropriation ofthe largo surplus funds which its success has accumulated, so as best to perpetuate areminiscence of the good already achieved by its consummation, and also to socure the meansby which futuro advancement may be most reasonably and hopefully expected, now recoives,as it demands, general and earnest attention.

It has been considered, and your Memorialists coincide in tho opinion, that the applicationof those funds to tho preservation of the Crystal Palace as a winter garclon,—without at allreflecting on tho general merits of the proposition, and tho policy of its adoption on a distinctand soparate footing—would have been a misappropriation, and contrary to the express