The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-10-09 00:00:00

combination of the dead-white of the lead with the
brownish-red dye contained in the crude shell-lac. Of
course different tints can be communicated to the paint
by using various kinds of shell-lac, and the admixture
of small quantities of ochre, sienna, &c. The name I
have given it is the " Lacboraic Paint." The second
method of painting that I have found successful is
this :—The colour is to be mixed with a solution of
glue (about a pound, dissolved in a gallon of water),
and the house or wall to be painted with the same :
when nearly dry, it must be brushed over with a strong
infusion of oak-bark or catechu. As will be readily
seen, the rationale of this is—the gelatine (glue) is
converted into leather (tannate of gelatine) by the
tannic acid of the oak-bark, and thus protects the
colour from sun and rain. Both of these may with
great propriety be denominated " sanitary paints." I
have been strongly advised to patent these original
processes ; but having alreaAy an invention more in
accordance with the spirit of the times—viz., my
" Volcanic Shell," now before the Ordnance, for the
benefit of the Russians, and being of the "-no mono-
poly" school, I deem it better to present them to the
Builder as an earnest of my goodwill.—The Builder.

THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. —Persons now
living, who can remember five or six and thirty years
back, will perceive with pleasure that a great change
for the better has taken place in the estimation of the
fine arts as an aid to education ; nevertheless, although
this fact has become recognised, we are still, un-
fortunately, very deficient in adequate means for con-
conveying art instruction to the artizans and other
useful classes in this country, which will enable them
to take an equal position with those in similar circum-
stances in France and Germany. The great mine of
English raw material has, however, been heretofore
comparatively unwrought. The masses have been un-
taught. It is not now denied that the study of art
ought to be commenced with the earliest dawnings of
sense. We do not mean that parrot kind of education,
by which children are taught to jingle rhymes, or to
say that twice twelve are twenty-four, three times
twelve are thirty-six, without understandinc, the mean-
ing of the one, or knowing the correctness of the other.
That " a thing of beauty is a joy for ever," is a truth
which in the education of the rising generation has not
been sufficiently considered. Yet, in order to enable
the millions of British workmen, who are to follow us,
and take their proper place, to feel this, we must open
the young eyes to truthful principles : at present we
are deficient of means to work out this desirable result
—and should, therefore, carefully look for and apply
new methods. It is pleasant to know that F. Froebel,
a disciple of Pestalozzi, has introduced a system of
education which seems to us to open out a path for
great progress. The main desire in Froebel's plan
seems to be to carry out the idea that the fundamental
principle of education " is the free, full, and harmonious
development of all the faculties of the human being,
—not by pretending to implant something better in the
children, but by educating every power which a benefi-
cent Creator has bestowed upon them." The principle
of discipline employed enables the teacher to avoid cor-
poreal punishment. This is important ; it is, however,
more particularly to this system of education, as applied
to the arts, that we would now direct attention. There
is a principle of harmony in all; and it is the first effort
of Froebel's system to encourage and bring it forward.
A school has been established on this plan at, 32,
Tavistock-place, by the exertions of Joannes Ronge, a
gentleman who has distinguished himself in the cause
of education and liberty in Germany. " Play is the
labour of the child." Frobbel has therefore invented
numerous games and amusements. The difference
between the articles used in his infant garden and the
toys which are commonly given to children, is that the
former are of finished materials, offered to the child to
look at or be used in a given form, in imitation of the
ideas of others. Froebel supplies the children with
materials with which they can produce an unlimited
number of forms. Not only are those faculties which
tend to the practice of the arts, mathematics, and
mechanics, the perception of form, figure, beauty,
harmony of colour, manual dexterity, order, and
perseverance, fundamentally taught by this system,
but also the harmony of sounds, for many of the games
with cubes, balls, rollers, &c. are accompanied with
songs, which awaken the intellect, exercise the voice,
and give a taste for the harmony of sounds, which are
so fitting in company with harmony of form and colour.