SCHOOLS OF SCIENCE AND ART.* SerzNeE and Art have been
brought into an unnatural kind of union by the creation of a department embracing under.one head and one management two subjects which are manifestly distinct in many essential respects. The artistic faculty is one that seems to be con- stituted of such very opposite elements to the scientific faculty, that we can hardly see how the education of it should be at all associated with the culture of science, even in its applied form. We might with equal reason attempt to favour the study of mathematics and astronomy by classing those subjects with poetry under one depart. mental head. It is not that for a moment any objection could be found to the motive held in view by the Council on Education to afford instruction to the industrial classes in those branches of science which have a direct bearing on their occupation ; this is un- questionably a desirable object. But the Report before us, leads us to mistrust the system and the kind of administration that guides
• EUrlith Report of the Science and Art Department of the Committee:of Coma on Education
it. The evidence that the industrial classes avail themselves will- ingly of the instruction offered, or that they are really being in- duced to listen to the lectures in the different places where they are appointed, is not satisfactory. It appeals from the Report there that the is a fair. number (89) of persons unaergoing the train- ing for enabling them to become certificated teachon. What may be the grade in life of these persons we are not 'reformed, but we suspect it is not generally that of the industrial clissea. That there are so manj candidates for certificates only shows tat there are so many desirous of obtaining the office of teariier and moying the small emolument of 201., 151., or 101. a year for their servitN in the evening in teaching what they know to the classes. Teachersin navigation, we should add, obtain salaries varying from that of bean master, which is 1201., 1001. or 801., according to the grade which he took in examination, to that of assistant-master, which runs from 801. to 401. That this affords a factitious estimate as to the spread of scientific knowledge among the industrial classes, is shown by the fact mentioned in the Report, that " the Professors of the universities and other persons of well-known acquirements" have applied for the certificate to become teachers. When we come to seek for some analysis of the education supposed to be going on at the thirty schools of science established, the Report becomes wonderfully meagre. There are no tables showing either the number of lectures given or the average amount of attendance upon each. So many fees have been paid varying from 3d. to ls. 3d. each person, so many have attended during the year, and so many certificates in the three grades were awarded. From the Report of Captain Donelly, RE., who is the inspector of these schools, we observe that most of the students are boys, and a large proportion of these came from schools of superior rank, such as the City of London School, and others under private superintendence. We refer to this in no spirit of dis- paragement, but to show that the influence of the department is bearing rather upon the lower strata of the middle classes than upon the strictly industrial classes. It would be satisfactory if we could perceive that some of the thousands of young artisans were de- voting a portion of their time and their earnings to the sources of improvement which science assuredly offers them, and for which this country provides the means. The attendance of students upon the courses of science instruction delivered at the head school of the department, South Kensington, is shown, by the table of the Report, to have been very far from satisfactory. From most of the large number of schools in the metropolis not a single student is entered. Here and there some well-known public school, such as St. Mark's College, Chelsea, or the Royal Military Asylum, send 20 or 30 boys; but we should not like to vouch for the interest in the instruction to be estimated from this. The chief attendants were schoolmasters and a few schoolmistresses, and a certain fair proportion of pupil teachers. The attendance upon the other courses, embracing geo- metry, architecture,physics, chemistry, geology, botany, zoology, animal products and food, physical geography, navigation, and on the artistic anatomy of the human form, was tolerably good ; but there is nothing to show that the persons who paid the small fee of six- pence to each lecture were not of the middle class. We should be glad to know that the industrial classes were availing themselves of the opportunity, and to be spared the doubt whether the middle class was not benefited inordinately by this great boon to them. This, however, is the kind of information the Report fails to give,. and in the absence of it, the question arises whether this department of the national education plan is well administered, and whether it is possible to manage efficiently two such extensive branches of public instruction throughout the kingdom under the one super- intendence. To do this effectually would tax the ability of a Humboldt or a Bunsen. It is of the first importance, also, to see that the expenditure upon this department, which in seven years has reached to within a very few hundreds of the annual cost of the British Museum (100,4141.), is applied to the benefit of those classes who would otherwise be without the advantages. In con- sidering, these points, it is necessary to discriminate between inspec- tion and administration. The inspector merely reports what he observes, and in this case not very minutely or intelligently ; it is for the superintendent of the whole system, whoever that personage may be, to deal with the plan. Now, the Report gives only a brief sum- mary of the reports from the central and local schools, signed by Lord Granville and Mr. Robert Lowe—a document evidently duly prepared and submitted by the department, and not by the FAnca- tional Council, who are ostensibly responsible.
The greater part of this Report is occupied in detailing the condi- tion of the schools of art in London and in the principal towns, and describing the new acquisitions to the central museum at South Kensington, and those at Edinburgh and Dublin, with the successful results of the travelling museums. But here again, in place of a systematic report from the general superintendent of the Art Depart- ment, Mr. Henry Cole, C.B., the Report supplies simply the brief report which the head master of the training school at South Ken- sington writes to the secretary of the Science and Art Department, who is also Mr. Henry Cole, C.B. We must confess to some disap- pointment at finding positively nothing offered as the result of the great experience which Mr. Cole must have acquired in being the superintendent of the department from its origin.
The Report shows that in the past year 74,267 persons (it would be more dorrect to say children), in public and other schools, received instruction in drawing through the agency of the Schools of Art. Being interpreted, this means that these boys and girls made certain little drawings upon their slates of simple objects of regular form. Then in the provincial schools there were 11,121 learners, the bulk of whom, again, are children of the national schools and private in examples and diagrams, can do no more than be the national draw_ ' 'schools of the middle c ses, all of whom pay a small fee. Taking ing-master, it is not fulfilling the expectations which welcomed its
two schools at rand*: Darlington has 1113 receiving instruction; establishment. • of these, 891 are Aildren of public schools, 40 are from private schools, and 47
. eke school teachers, leaving 135 as students, who THE MAGAZINES.be
may inten to apply their knowledge to the arts and manufac-
tures. At vonport the number is 788, being a decrease of 69 in THE Magazines for September seem to reflect very faithfully the the year • 7 of them are children, 63 pupils from private schools, condition of the public taste. Almost all the questions which have 44 are Tool teachers, and 104 are students. The amount paid in been eagerly discussed in society during the last four months are dis_ fees • these schools was, in the first case, 2031. ; in the next, cussed over again in some one or other of the gaily bound serials 7 1 . 12s., yet they received in aid respectively 1621. and 1171. It before us. The Belgravian lament has elicited two articles, both very not, as has been said, entirely self-supporting, although the total of mise of a third. The Scotchmen are still " sullenly firing" long-range • , indeed, the case all through the list of schools, that considerable valuable in their way. America has two : Ireland three. Dyspepsia, sums have been added by the department, so that the Art schools are an always popular theme, brings out too good essays, with the pro. is a goodly sum to be raised from the country by fees, and is shots at Mr. Buckle. Servants have one article to themselves; and an increase of near 40001. over the amount derived in 1858. In re- the Volunteers another.
ference to these public schools, most of which are assisted by Par- What our periodical critics think of the Belgravian lament is liamentary grants, it should be stated that they pay 51. a year for one to be discovered in Fraser': Magazine and the Cornhill. But each lesson a week. The largest income is paid to the department from writer handles the subject in a manner peculiar to himself. In Fraser London and Manchester. The metropolis yields 26061., of which it is used as a peg on which to hang some reflections concerning the 4631. comes from the charity schools, and 25/. only from private manners and morals of the age in general : in the Cornhill it is made schools ; Manchester pays 10691., and it is curious to observe how an occasion for vindicating the " selfish bachelor," and for unfolding the middle class, with the characteristic eye to business peculiar to all that is really wrapped up in the phrase "Keeping up appearances." the place, avails itself of the schools to the extent of 3921., while Fraser complains that the young men and women of the present the students of the artisan class, male and female, are only about day have been educated on a system of moral licence combined with double the number, and pa y 3941. In Glasgow, Birmingham, and intellectual tension ; that sacrificing all to knowingness, our young
Coventry, there are no pup i from private schools. ladies have become familiarized with facts of which their mothers
Reviewing the financial state of the schools, we find that the only vaguely heard as of rumours from some remote and half-mythic income from fees has diminished in 34 instances and increased in 27, region ; that this general intimacy with what is wrong has made while from 14 schools there is no statement. This decline is attri- them cease to be afraid of it ; and that, consequently, things which bated to the Volunteer movement. The course of instructionpursued ought never to be mentioned in female society have now become an in the training school is divided into six groups—elementary drawing, ordinary jest, and part of the regular "chaff'' of every fashionable painting, figure drawing, modelling ornament, modelling the figure, damsel. We deceive ourselves, the writer thinks, in believing that mechanical drawing, architectural drawing. Besides practice in our civilization is powerful enough to prevent bad results. Civilize- teaching, this course is said to comprise "to the fullest extent all the tion alone does not tame the strong passions of humanity ; it merely usual academic studies," and others which have a direct reference to smooths over the surface of society, through which, however, fright-
machinery, manufacture, construction, and ornamental design. ful evidence of the volcano underneath is constantly bursting in the schools be overflowing. wife lose them also, and his children reared even in ignorance of their
The legitimate sphere of the department lies in applied art, yet existence. But a still more powerful deity remains behind, who claims the Report does not furnish even the faintest allusion to any practical the allegiance of every man of parts before domestic happiness, and results of their schools in supplying the manufacturers and decorative that is—independence. The members of liberal professions, for whose artists of this country with artt workmen and designers. We are especial benefit this article is intended, should love their profession aware that some few of the pupils of the schools have found occu- for its own sake, and not merely for what they can make by it, pation in the manufacturing districts, but we know that they have if they are to do anything great or noble. Mere domestic imp- rint yet succeeded in keeping the French designers from our potteries, piness is a low ideal of life : a delightful adjunct, if we can our glass-works, our calico-printing, our silk-weaving, and paper-stain- unite it with the pursuit of some great object, such as the ing works. In Manchester, at certain seasons, the French designer is completion of a great book, the expansion of au important rly expected; he makes his appearance regularly with his port- science, the advance of beneficial legislation, but not to be folio of neatly executed designs, ready for the engraver, suitable to substituted for any one of these objects. But when a man has others the public taste, and consequently acceptable to the manufacturer. dependent upon him, he must judge of everything in life by its money These artists belong to no schools of design, yet they carry off the value alone. Thus "in many a neglected parish the clergyman takes prizes in the face of our elaborate establishments. If it is not so, we pupils, and many, a man who might have written books worth read- presume the Report would have had a more explicit tale to tell, and mg shreds his mind into magazines and newspapers. Many a lawyer we should have been able to congratulate ourselves on having at last or doctor who might otherwise have distinguished himself has to put a school of design that could furnish our own patterns to our manu- up with a half acquaintance with his profession, and an obscure facturers. In the list of national medals awarded, 21 only out of 80 country practice, because he determined, as he thought magna- are given to elementary and applied design, and of these only one to nimouay, in early life to do a brave thing, and marry as he pleased, emical drawing, one to architectural design, and none to mould- setting appearances at defiance ;" and " many an enterprise of great rag, casting and chasing, porcelain painting, wood engraving, and litho- pith and moment has been gently smothered by a happy marnage graphy. Now, in mechanical drawing, in nickel work, and in wood and a large family of fine children. Many a vigorous career, both in engraving, the English are considered to stand among the first in the action and in speculation, has been cut short by baby fingers." It world, but the men who have obtained this position are not from the must be admitted that the clubs have found a powerful champion In ranks of the School of Design, neither does it seem they are likely this writer, though what will be thought of him by the sisters of his to come from that source. club acquaintances is a totally different affair. Women are in the If the department, with all its professors and teachers, with its habit of stigmatizing such ideas as these as "wicked pride." There
enormous museum of examples in art and manufacture, with its liberal is, however, one consolation we can offer to the fair sex, i
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