6 AUGUST 1853, Page 12

SCHOOLS OF DESIGN : CALICO PATTERNS.

London, 27th July 1853.

San—I did not last week reply to your remarks on any letter of the 14th, for I had hopes, perhaps faint hopes, that Mr. Redgrave, who quotes that evidence of Mr. Herbert's, and, hence I suppose, admires it, and possibly understands it, might have made it intelligible to us, and that then I should not have had to ask room in your valuable columns for more than one letter to answer both ; but as that gentleman has not noticed my inquiries, I will delay no longer. You have guessed, Sir, my inference correctly enough, but of that afterwards ; in the mean time, I merely wished to show that Mr. Herbert had given rather confidently an opinion upon a subject with which that very opinion and the way he gave it showed him to be little acquainted,— namely, the production of patterns. Your remark that Schools of Design are not to perpetuate the present low condition of manufacturing taste, but to improve it, is as clear as it is judi- cious ; however, allow me to say, that when I rated so low Mr. Herbert's knowledge of design, I did not mean that a pattern of his might not be worth sixpence, or even six pounds, as a work of taste by such an able artist ; but merely that it would not answer a printer's purposes ; and when I spoke of calico-patterns and calico-printers, I did not think of our printers, poor fel- lows ! nor their patterns, but of Alsatian and Parisian printers and their works : and that one of these printers would shake his head, or show in some perhaps more Alsatian or Parisian way that Mr. Herbert's pattern was "no go " ; that either it could not be printed at all, or, if it could be printed, that it would not suit any market in the known world.

With regard to your inquiry, whether, although artists might be the most competent masters for general purposes, special masters might not be re- quired for special classes, I do not know that there are really any such classes. Mr. Redgrave has tried with much ingenious argument to prove that the masters of Schools of Design should be brought up in a very parti- cular way : be says, that mere artists will by no means do, and that he will prepare and train a number of the proper sort ; but he has not yet explained to us by what means he himself has been qualified to go about such prepara- tion of masters.

I cannot help thinking that the Directors of our Schools of Design indulge too much in fantastical speculations upon ornament, its origin, its elements, its wonderful requirements; instead of looking to what is really wanted of a School of Design, and then setting themselves in the best and speediest way to acquire that. The publications by the Department of Practical Art seem to be made out for the sole purpose of fencing in Ornamental Design from vulgar inquiry ; it invests the study of ornament with every imaginable perplexing difficulty, and wraps it in clouds of mystery. Perhaps the Directors think that simple art of any kind will never succeed in commanding respect from John Bull ; and that it is necessary, in order to get him to look into it at all, to make it as puzzling as possible. - The =evenings and reveries of these gentlemen are sometimes rather

diverting for instance, one of them, in a Parliamentary Report on Conti- nental Schools of Design, expresses amazement that the Swiss should produce such beautiful prints without any schools !—not knowing that "Swiss," " Challis," &c., are merely names given to certain kinds of patterns, which patterns are produced in -Mullhausen, in Paris, and some in London, in Glasgow, and Manchester.

I am, Sir, your very obedient servant, Sistrime.

[Our reference to special classes was in allusion rather to what the new

direction of the Schools of Design has announced as its principle than to any- thing actually in practice. Still, as we find by Mr. Cole's report of the pre- sent year, special classes for " artistic anatomy, practical construction, wood-engraving, painting on porcelain, and decorative art in all kinds of woven fabrics, and paper-staining, and in metals, furniture, and jewellery," are already more or less fully in operation. With this qualification, we agree in our correspondent's main position—that artists are the right teachers. At the same time, if his assumption be true as to the inability of Mr. Herbert, an artist who for some time directed the study of the pupils, to draw an available pattern, and as to his want of acquaintance with the production of patterns," we cannot regard these minor positions as confirmations of the primary one ; although we presume Simplex's rejoinder would be, that the artist is there to teach principles, and not to illustrate them by competing with his pupils in production.—En.]