On Saturday last a number of the Members of both
Houses visited the National Gallery by invitation of the directors in order to see the four new rooms, containing Dutch and Spanish pictures, which have just been reopened to the public. A special feature of their visit was that the whole party was taken round the newly hung rooms by Mr. Hubert Wellington, who is the official Guide and Lecturer who has been appointed in accordance with the new policy for our Galleries and Museums— a policy which the Spectator has long advocated. In the words of Mr. Witt, one of the Trustees of the. National Gallery, the function of the new guides is to make visitors to the Gallery welcome and help them to get as much as possible out of what are, after all, their own pictures. The guides are not only to instruct but to point out " what good fun a visit to the National Gallery may be—one of the best games in the world to those who have been shown something of how to play it." It is hoped that this system of providing first-rate guides—men who are scholars and lovers of works of art—a system which was first instituted in 1910 at the British Museum, will •spread rapidly. We hope that it will only be the forerunner of the larger policy of making Museums and Galleries the clubhouses of the nation. We must remind our readers that Mr. Wellington may now be found at the National Gallery every day between eleven and one.
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