The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-16
THE FINE ARTS.
AnArt School for Philadelphi


twenty-five years ago the solid, practical men
of England, who had no nonsense about them,
and who looked at matters from a purely utili-
tartan point of view, pooh-poohed art as some
thing that was all very we'll for people who had
nothing to do with their money, that was q
good amusement for lazy Italians and light
headed Frenchmen, but that was beneath the
notice of solid English manufacturers and agri-
cu!turists.
There was no money in art, and so England
was better off without art culture than with it,
and as fine feathers do not make fine birds, so
solid and substantial workmanship could not be
improved by fanciful ornamentation. These
ideas were ingrained in the British mind, and
the lack of refined taste in the mass of the peo-
pie rendered it impossible TO change them by
anything short of complete and emphatic
demonstration that art did pay, and that not
only was there money in it, but that the neglect
of art was costing England millions
of POUNDS sterling every year. The
great exhibition of 1851 brought the industrial
products of every nation together and displayed
them side by side in such manner that COM
parison could not be avoided. The result was
that the manufactures of Great Britain were
totally eclipsed, the French, especially carrying
off the palm for the beauty no less than the in
trinsic excellence of their contributions. The
artistic poverty of the articles turned out from
English looms and workshops was apparent
to the most uneducated eye; and while men
of culture felt ashamed, the solid practical men
| began to open their eyes, and to inquire
| whether their profit in the future would not
| greatly depend upon their entering upon artis-
| tic rivalry with the ''blarsted French, you
know" The result of the exhibition was that
! industrial art schools were established in many
| af fhn TNrin Iy,f
was found that they did not produce all the
results desired. Gle lr- headed, practical men
then determined to go to the
root of the difficulty, and to aim
at giving the entire people more or less
art education and training. With this object in
| view, drawing was ordered to be taught in all
the public schools of the kingdom, and the
! effect of this was, that when the pupils entered
the regular art schools they had sufficient pre-
paratory training to enable them to make salts
| factory progress. Now the English schools of
! design are said to be the best in the world, and
the great institution at South Kensington is
absolutely without rival, while the good
results of this system of art education have
been plainly visible in all branches of British
manufacture.
Are the practical men of the United States
in general, and of Philadelphia in particular,
able to appreciate the obvious moral of this
narrative or will they wait to have 1t forced
upon them in such a manner that they will be
forced, in selfdefense, to act in the same man
ner that the English did? In 1876 there will be
great exhibition of the art and industry of all
nations held in this city, on the occasion of the
celebration of the centennial anniversary of the
signing of the Declaration of Independence.
On this occasion Philadelphia, the greatest
manufacturing city of the Union, certainly