ART AND THE GOVERNING CLASSES. lTo THE EDITOR OF THE
"8PECTATOR:1
Sts.,—I should be obliged if you would allow me to correct the summary which you gave of my speech to the "Inter- national Congress for the Development of Drawing and Art Teaching" last week. I did not attribute "extreme stupidity and ignorance" to our governing classes; but I supposed that this, and not intentional rudeness, was the cause of the marked neglect of the Congress by the Government. I should have said the English Government, for Scotland and Ireland have both sent official representatives to the Congress. I did, indeed, express regret that the want of cultivation in our rulers in education did not enable them to judge of the practical results of the schemes which they imposed, and that they failed to take advantage of this unique opportunity of informing themselves on the subject. I did not advocate "Government interference" in the sense in which Mr. Dunn, the chairman of the Scottish Committee, deprecated it, for Mr. Dunn and his colleagues have succeeded in establishing in Scotland the system of co-ordination of schools which I advocated for England, and which has been established in certain educational areas in England, a system by which "the work of elementary schools prepares students for the work of secondary schools or for schools of arts and crafts, while these again prepare for the course of the Royal College of Art." Where this is not done, and where the curriculums are independent and overlap each other—and this seems to be the case in the greater part of England—I believe that the training time of the student and much public money is wasted, and it is this chaos and consequent waste which I desire the organising power of the Government "to interfere with."—I am, Sir, &c., 1 Palace Green, Kensington, W.
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