The Express.
London, England, 1857-11-26 00:00:00

LITERATURA

Introductory Lectures on ihs Scare and Art De-
partment, and the South Ifensinyton Museum.
No. 1. The Functions of the Santee and Art At-
partment. By liana Cots, C. 8., Secretary and
General Superintendent.
No. 2. 011 the Gift of the She hank. Colbretion,
with a raw to Me formation of a Natiensal Gamy
of British Art. By RICHARD REDORATIt, R.A.
One of the functions of the department over which
Mr. Cole presides is to aid Science and Art by
assisting in the publication of works, diagrams,
models, B:c., according to the following
i method :
You bring your work, submit it to the inspection of
the officers of the department. If they approve of
it, you are told, " Find a publisher; we run no risk
whatever. If your publisher will satisfy as that he will
publish your work at the lowest cat, we will patro-
nise you both, and allow you half the prioo for any
works you may sell our schools; these schools pay-
ing you the other." This we believe to be the
method pursued at Kensington when any work is
submitted to the vaunted Department of Science
and Art. Well, provided this method be fairly
earned out, we won't grumble at it, though we
doubt, from what we have heard from publishers of
the terms they are called on to submit to, whether it
will be likely much to benefit either Science or Art.
We see the names of Mesas. Chapman and Hall
attached to the two lectures before us. Mr. Coles
has the modest sum of one penny marked as its
price, that of Mr. Redgrave is left a blank; but as
it is precisely. similar to the former, as to style and
amount of print and paper, we assume its price will
be the same. In matters relating to Science we like
to be accurate; we find by measurement that each
page of these documents presents us with 28 square
inches of print on 110 square inches of paper. We
have margin here enough, and to spare. It is, as
Sir Benjamin Backbiter would say, A rivulet of
type meandering through a meadow of margin." We
hope that Messrs. Chapman and Hall have made a for
speculation with the authors of these ad-
dresses, and we hope some day to hear how much
they have gained after partaking of the advantage
of the schools in connexion with the department
having copies supplied to them at half-price. When
we know how tardily and how stingily Govern-
ment aide are afforded to Science, we cannot but
rejoice that these expensive publication., according
to the rules of the department, will not absorb more
of the funds allowed it for promoting Science and Art
than one halfpenny per copy.
We have read Mr. Cole's address with some atten-
tion, and we confess that we are not much
illuminated as to the attributes of the Science and
Art Department. What functions this body performs
are by no means clearly set forth. Science stands
Int ; we look in vain for the scientific functions of
the Department. We see Science—Science, over and
over again on every page of Mr. Cole's address, but
it is only-the name of the Department of Science and
Art. Has the name only been chosen to decorate
the Department ? Mr. Cole confesses that " inheriting
the old schools of design, the Department exercised
a more direct and positive action for Art than for
Science." Whatever then may be the action of the
Art functions, that for Science most be less. Both in
Science and Art the Department professes only to
exercise its function.. on secondary or adult educa-
tion. True to circumlocution, primary education has
all its functions remaining as a separate division of
the Committee of Council carried on at Whitehall.

All that we can find about adult scientific educa-
tion in Mr. Cole's report is that at the present time
" the number of navigation or Science schools of all
kinds at present in connexion with the department
is twenty-two." Marvellous number. flow tempt
of tassi be rnewit•orit et Imo • onamisa
A assorwomismi bed —the Society at Arts—an-

trued ro get more tharifour hundretradult scientific
schools to join its connexion. Surely the scientific
reactions of Mr. Cole's Department are coffering
from something like paralysis. We must gire tt
some credit, however—it has raised an iron stud out
Mita 73,0001. a year for the Patent Museum, though
Mr. Cole condescendingly tells us that this is only
to be regarded as • temporary refuge for the
destitute.

So much for Mr. Cole's account of the scientific
functions of his Deportment. It is true we are
promised to hear a little more about it when the
Inspector-General for Science favours the public with
his address. When we analyse, however, the art
functions of the department, as given by Mr. Cole,
we gain little more information of these than of the
scientific. We are told that art-education for the
manufactures is a failure, that Government cannot
stimulate it. That the Department succeeded, at a
cost to the State of 1401. a-piece, in educating four
porcelain painters, and then found there was no
adequate market for their labours. We are told to
console ourselves for this failure; that, in spite of all
Government assistance to Art on the Continent, the
people there would prefer our porcelain to their own,
were it not for the fiscal prohibition which prevents
them exercising their Lute. A strange passage this
from a lettere on art-functions.

We are told that the Department, owing to its
Government facilities, is obtaining cuts, electro-
types, and photographs of all the great art-treasures
of Europe. These, by a self-acting process, are to
be distributed to museums and Wilt schools through-
out the country. Now this would be an important
function if carried out, but we doubt whether the
distribution will be very extensive, according to the
self-acting process adopted. That process is to dis-
tribute these works as prizes, not to the pupils who
win them, but the school which have educated them.
Mr. Cole gives us no information as to the number of
adult schools of art in connexion with the depart-
ment. Ile tells as that there are 66 schools of art,
educating 36,000 students in drawing and painting,
throughout the United Kingdom, in connexion with
the Department, at a cost of Itie. each per annum ;
but he admits that these numbers include children in
poor schools under instruction in drawing. Now
theme poor children do not belong to the functions of
Mr. Cole'. Department. If we exclude the poor
schools, who have bought a few pencils and drawing
beards from the Department at reduced prices, Mr.
Cole's lumbers will be greatly diminished. We are
forced, therefore, to coax to the conclusion that the
art functions of the Department display as little
vigour as the scientific.
The circumlocution of Mr. Cole's address, its
apologetic tone for not doing a thing, and its bar-
renness of information, gives timely warning to the
really active workers for secondary or adult educa-
tion in this country. The department has its eye on
the successful working of the suspended body of
Examiners fur the Society of Arts, and promises
examinations and prizes for all the schools which
will connect themselves with it. The Department
so doubt would like to pluck another feather from
the Society of Arts, especially if it found a conve-
nient excuse for the creation of a few mere Inspec-
tors-General.

Mr. Redgrave gives on a disquisition on English
painters scarcely rising above mediocrity. Why
it should be so expensively printed we cannot divine.
Little enough can be learned from it by those who
would wish to know something about the artistic
'slue of Mr. Sheepshanks' collection. But the lec-
ture does one thing—it exercises most ingenious spe-
cial pleading for making Ketaington the site of the
'lf Mamma Pictures, and building ugly places for their
reception.

ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS IN PIEDXONT. Th•
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