of casts. A Collection of Casts* for use in Drawing Schools, recommended by the Depart- Collection ment of Practical Art, and exhibited by permission at Marlborough House, Pall Mall, London. No. 1 Subject, Where from, and Date. Anatomical statue, by Houdon Statue of Discobolus, the original in the Vatican, the work of Myron Statue of Dancing Faun, the original at Florence Bust of Clyte, from the British Museum Erst of Diomede, from the British Museum Bust of Young Augustus, from the Capitol Statuette of Hercules, from the British Museum, (Alexandrian period) Statuette of Apollo, from the British Museum Mask of Moses, by M. Angelo, (at Rome) Masks of two daughters of Niobe, (period of Scopas) Masks of two children, by Fiamingo Twelve casts of hands, armis, legs, and feet, from the antique and nature One goat's head, from nature Three anatomical rilievi of horse, stag, and panther, by Fraton Large scroll, from the Trajan Forum, the original in the Sala Borgia, 3 Large frieze, from the Trajan Forum 4 Large pilaster, from Villa Medici, at Rome Pilaster, in three pieces, from St. Maria del Popolo, at Rome Four pilasters, from the tomb of Louis XII., at St. Denis, near Paris One piece of frieze with eagle, from the Bronze Gate, by Ghiberti, of Price of each Cast. £ s. d. 550 440 0 10 0 0 10 6 0 15 0 070 050 110 010 O 050 0.10 6 0 10 6 036 1 1 0 440 440 440 110 0 0 18 0 0.15 0 9 One piece of frieze with squirrel, from the Bronze Gate, by Ghiberti, 0 15 0 8 One piece of frieze with pomegranates, from the Bronze Gate, by One Gothic patera, different, from a cornice in the late St. Stephen's On early English capital, from the Temple Church One leaf, from the Chapel of St. Eustache, Paris One leaf, from the Temple of Jupiter One griffin Four pieces of enriched mouldings Three different pateræ 86 & 89 Two Greek style, different One patera, from Brescia One slab, from the Parthenon One panel, dancing girl with wreath One Gothic patera, from a cornice in the late St. Stephen's Chapel, 050 050 036 076 050 076 076 100 0.10 0 0 8 6 0.10 0 036 110 110 52 8 0 Each Cast may be purchased separately; but if the whole collection is bought at one purchase, a discount of five per cent, will be allowed for cash. This Collection may be procured through the Department of Practical Art, by any public school, for 261, 58. Schools of Design obliged to start as Drawing Schools. IV. ADDRESSES delivered at the OPENING of an ELEMENTARY DRAWING (1.)—Address by HENRY COLE, C.B., the Superintendent of General Management. FOURTEEN years have passed since it was admitted to be public policy that the Government should undertake to establish schools to afford instruction in the principles of art, with the view of improving and beautifying the objects of every-day use, such as the paper hangings which decorate the nakedness of our walls, the carpets and curtains which give warmth and colour to our rooms, the draperies which cover our persons, the utensils in metal and earth and glass which administer to our daily wants, comforts, and civilized habits. A Central School of Design was constituted in 1837, the express purpose of which was to provide for the architect, the upholsterer, the weaver, the printer, the potter, and all manufacturers, artizans better educated to originate and execute their respective wares, and to invest them with greater symmetry of form, with increased harmony of colour, and with greater fitness of decoration; to render manufactures not less useful by ornamenting them, but more beautiful, and therefore more useful. The establishment of the Central School at Somerset House has been followed by the organization of 21 other schools, located in all parts of the United Kingdom. 2. At the origin of these schools it seems to have been assumed as sufficient, that it was only necessary to decree to have a School of Design in any locality, and to find the funds and educational apparatus requisite for its foundation, and that a School of Design would become then and there established, and its fruits be manifested at once in the improvement of inanufactures; but the experience of 14 years, not with any one but with all the 21 schools, has shown that the looked-for result was not to be produced by these means only. Experience in every one of the 21 schools has proved that students did not exist sufficiently qualified by previous art-education to enter them, but had to be trained, not merely to be able to understand and practise the principles of design, but to learn the very elements of drawing. Indeed, principles of design were hardly admitted to exist. Manufacturers were therefore slow to recog nize them, and were not prepared to value any results from the schools; besides being necessarily under the thraldom of fashionable caprice, or, in other words, bound to obey the ignorance of the public, they could only look to the demand of the markets. And, lastly, the public have known little of the teaching of the schools; have been rather discouraged from attending them by mistaken rules, which attempted to limit their uses to artizans only; and although the public were the ultimate and absolute judges of the results of the schools, they have been allowed to remain uneducated in art and uninformed of the existence of principles of art which might assist in judging such results correctly. 3. Thus it has followed, that instead of being Schools of Design for teaching the principles and practice of applied art, the schools, by the irresistible force of circumstances, have been compelled to begin with being mere drawing schools," as they have been often officially and candidly reported to be. They have been obliged to be mere drawing schools in their beginning, or they must have closed their doors. Instead of teaching the end, they have been, and still are, under the obligation of teaching little else than the mere A B C of art. Necessity of 4. It has taken a long period of 14 years to arrive at the conviction elementary that in order to educate a competent designer, you cannot avoid the tion before obligation of first teaching the very elements of art,-a power of drawing; art-instruc -such being the low state of art-education in this country. In fact, to improved obtain a competent designer, care must first be taken to ascertain that design cau be produced. the student really can draw even simple forms. This is a truth now generally acknowledged, and no longer a proposition, but an axiom; we now believe that it is idle and premature to talk to a student on the principles of design, who is unable to demonstrate to you by drawing that he can see a form correctly. Until he can give evidence that his eyes are able to see forms, lights, and shadows, and are sensible of the harmonies and discords of colour, and that his hand has been tutored to follow his perceptions, it must not be taken for granted that he can understand principles of design. 5. Another conviction which the progress of these schools has almost Ignorance of the public. Established-I say almost, for, although it is a truth perceived by a few, it is not quite yet a settled conviction with the public at large-is, that when you have taught the designer, his works will be of very little use indeed, if not absolutely useless, and his labour discouraging to him, unless those who are to use his works and judge of them really possess the knowledge and ability requisite to enable them to do so. If the public are insensible to the merits of his works, be they ever so great, what mockery is it to be training a band of designers, misdirecting their labours, and sacrificing their hopes! If the consumer of manufactures, who has to pay for them, and has, therefore, the absolute right of choice, is left without a knowledge of good and bad, and always pretty sure, in his ignorance, to select the bad,-what folly is it to affect to help the manufacturer to produce a good article which no one will buy, and which must therefore remain in his warehouse a dead loss to him! There are many retail salesmen who relate the thraldom they feel in the necessity of pandering to the low uneducated taste of the majority of their customers. If their shops contained only objects of correct taste the proprietors would soon find their names in the Gazette. tion of a 6. My own conviction is, that if it were necessary to choose between Educationof the public two courses for fostering the production of improved design in manufac- of prior imtures, the education of the public at large or of a special class of artizans, portance to the end would be more readily secured by teaching the public aright, and the educaconvincing it of its ignorance, than by educating the artizan only. If you special class. leave the public ignorant, the educated artizan will not be employed; but if you lead the public to feel the want of beauty and propriety,-to be sensible of their presence and impatient at their absence,-to distinguish between symmetry of form and disproportion, to demand from art, at least, the aspiration after the perfection of Nature and the recognition of Nature's eternal fitness and simplicity, I am sure the public will soon demand good designs in manufactures, and be willing to pay for them; and I feel morally certain that the instincts of traders will teach them to find the means of supplying such demands, and of causing their artizans to acquire the power of administering them. for all 7. It is the conviction, on the one hand, that you must prepare students Elementary by affording them the means of obtaining a sound elementary education instruction before you admit them to Schools of Design, and on the other that you classes; must use every means to remove the ignorance of the general public. and induce them to appreciate and judge wisely of the results of the teaching. of the schools, that has led the Government broadly and unhesitatingly now to recognize, for the first time, the want of elementary instruction in art for all classes, and to assist the public in obtaining it. And the meeting held in this building to-day, presided over by the Chief of the Board of Trade, to inaugurate the first Elementary Drawing School, as the beginning of a systematic effort to afford such education to all classes, may be viewed as a token of the sincerity of the Government in this object. 8. Hitherto elementary instruction in art has been given only at Schools of Design, which, being separate institutions, have been formed necessarily to be afford. ed in special elementary schools, and at great expense. The average total cost of a School of Design has usually in public been about 8007. a year to the public, a cost obviously so great that a schools of all kinds. limited number of places only could have them. But if the principle be recognized that art-education ought to be general, and that as soon as possible a rule be made that no one should be admitted to a School of Design or Practical Art who has not received proper elementary instruction ; then, instead of having a few schools in a few places, we may hope to see many schools or classes for teaching art of an elementary kind; not separate institutions, but connected with mechanics institutes, with our public schools, and other educational institutions. Nature of Board of 9. Wherever a desire is expressed to have the assistance of the Government in forming such classes in any kind of schools already existing, such assistance will be cordially afforded, so far as the means permit, which Parliament places at the disposal of the Board of Trade for this purpose. 10. Towards aiding the establishment of Elementary Schools, or classes aid given by for drawing and modelling, in the advantages of which all classes of the community should share, the Board of Trade has already announced its willingness, on its part, Trade. Art-educa be made self 1. To appoint a competent master, and to guarantee the payment to him of a certain income for a fixed period, in case the fees to be derived from the instruction of the scholars should not suffice to pay the master's salary. 2. To assist in furnishing samples of suitable drawing copies, models, coloured examples, and books, and contribute half the prime cost towards the purchase of them. 3. Also to furnish samples of drawing materials, such as black-boards, drawing-boards, paper, slates, chalk, pencils, &c.; and to give such information as will enable the managers and scholars to obtain those materials the readiest way. On the part of the public the following are the conditions :-- 1. A committee of management must be formed, either by corporate or parochial authorities, or persons engaged in schools of any description, or by persons interested in the object, who must find three public schools in the locality willing to be taught drawing, and engage to provide, keep clean, warm, and light a suitable room for a distinct drawing school, at their own liability, and to give the names of not less than 20 male or female scholars, who will attend the school, if opened, for a period of not less than three months, at a payment of not less than 6d. per week each scholar. 2 Such committee must collect and account for the fees from the students; conduct and manage the school; provide for stated and periodical visits of inspection by the members of the committee; be responsible for the attendance of the master; contribute at least half of the fees received towards his salary; dismiss him for incompetency or misconduct; engage to follow the course of instruction prescribed, and make an annual report on the proceedings of the school, on or before the 31st of October.* ; 11. Every effort should be made to render these schools as far as postion should sible self-supporting, to divest them of any kind of charitable aspect, to supporting. attract all classes to use them for their merits only, and to pay for them and there can be no doubt, if all are led to feel their value and to share in their advantages, this instruction may be made self-supporting. The highest point of ambition in the management should be, to become able to decline any pecuniary assistance from the Government. Rates of 12. The payment proposed for learning drawing appears very low, fees propor- having too much, I fear, the look of a charitable donation: it is at the tioned to For the mode of proceeding in establishing a school see page 30, rate of lid. per lesson of two hours, with the use of the best examples: means of no one, I think, can be deterred from attending by the cost; and it may paying. be hoped that the evening classes in the proposed school will be frequented by the numerous artizans of the neighbourhood:-that every carpenter who has to cut straight lines, every smith who has to forge them, and every bricklayer who has to lay them, will attend this school at their leisure hours in the evening, to acquire a power of seeing accurately by means of drawing accurately, and that they will also send their children, both boys and girls;-for to see correctly and to draw correctly are quite as useful to one sex as to the other. In the morning it may be hoped that the upper and middle classes will learn to attend; that the professional man and the tradesman will feel their children disgraced to remain in ignorance, and that artizans should be the only persons educated in art. If arrangements for the upper and middle classes are made, it would of course be at a rate of charge more closely proportioned to the value of the education and their means of paying, and so enable those who can less afford it to enjoy the advantages of these drawing classes. necessary classes 13. A power of drawing is too commonly regarded as a luxury and Drawing a superfluity in education; permissible to girls, who ultimately become branch of women better educated and more refined than men, but unnecessary for education boys, who become men intensely skilled in the anatomical points of a horse, for all but not of their own frame, and are unable to draw even straight lines. Drawing is regarded as an extra " in school bills, which parents rather avoid than encourage. The same sort of mistake used once to be made with writing. 66 14. It should be felt to be a disgrace to every one who affects to be well educated if he cannot draw straight lines, and make at least simple geometrical forms. Those who cannot do so have no right to expect you to believe that they can even see correctly; yet such is the anomalous state of matters on this point, that persons who are unable to use a pencil will affect raptures at paintings, and will criticise art, and announce canons of taste with absolute dogmatism. A modern writer observes, "Ask a connoisseur who has scampered over all Europe the shape of the leaf of an elm, and the chances are ninety to one that he cannot tell you; and yet he will be voluble of criticism on every painted landscape from Dresden to Madrid, and pretend to tell you whether they are like nature or not. Ask an enthusiastic chatterer in the Sistine Chapel how many ribs he has, and you get no answer; but it is odds that you do not get out of the door without his informing you that he considers such and such a figure badly drawn." learnt. 15. It is rather the province of my colleague than myself to speak of Drawing the doctrinal part of art-education; but I must request his leave to say a easy to be few words on the ease of learning Elementary Drawing, which, in its earliest stage, should be of a geometric character, and on the universal use of the power, when acquired. 16. Geometrical drawing is an easier acquirement than writing. A Outline child will sooner learn to make the outline of a square or an oblong easier than drawing accurately than the capital letter of the usual Italian hand; and most writing. children, before they acquire the power of writing, have passed through a stage of self-instruction in drawing simple forms rudely, and have acquired a power which would have been readily expanded, had it been at all cultivated. Drawing is a power of expressing things accurately. Writing is the power of expressing only ideas; and in daily life it constantly happens that it is far more valuable to have the thing itself denoted correctly by actual form than the vague expression of it by words. All material objects may be more accurately expressed by simple forms than by any number of words. Make the comparison between the verbal description |