666 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



founded to promote those objects which have been fostered by the 

 elder society, which, drifting away from Art in its highest sense, has 

 taken in hand industrial art and applied science. One single com- 

 parison will demonstrate my meaning. In the beginning of the 

 century under the auspices of Count Rumford the Royal Institu- 

 tion undertook to improve the dwellings of the working classes, to 

 warm and ventilate workhouses, hospitals, and cottages, and to exibit 

 and patronize improvements in the economical consumption of fuel 

 and the teaching of culinary science. In the present year the Society 

 of Arts, founded originally to encourage young artists, has offered 

 premiums for the best kinds of culinary and domestic warming ap- 

 paratus, and has directly fostered attempts to instruct the people of 

 England in the best methods of preparing food. 



The Society of Arts has now existed for a hundred and twenty 

 years, and owes its foundation to Mr. "William Shipley, a landscape- 

 painter, who, from a " well-grounded persuasion of the extensive 

 utility of the art of drawing to this nation, erected the Academy in 

 the Strand, opposite to Exeter Change." By the efforts of this gentle- 

 man a meeting was held in 1*754 at Rawthmell's coffee-honse, to 

 consider the propriety of establishing a " Society for the Encourage- 

 ment of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce." 



It was resolved to bestow premiums on a certain number of boys 

 and girls, and an advertisement was issued accordingly. The indus- 

 trial element, however, was not lost sight of, as, while a number of 

 drawing prizes were advertised, premiums were offered for the dis- 

 covery of cobalt in England, the growth of madder, and the manu- 

 facture of buff leather. The primary object was the encouragement 

 of art, but the view taken of the " polite arts " was a sufficiently wide 

 one, inasmuch as the premiums offered under this head were ultimately 

 grouped under 196 classes. Many prizes were awarded for drawing, 

 and among the recipients was Richard Cosw r ay, who afterward became 

 a Royal Academician, and a portrait-painter of repute. It was soon 

 found necessary to confine the objects of study to certain models, and, 

 as no public museum or National Gallery then existed, individual col- 

 lections, such as that formed by the Duke of Richmond, were selected 

 for study. 



On the consolidation of the Society, the artists of London applied 

 for permission to hold an exhibition in the Society's rooms. This per- 

 mission was granted, and exhibitions continued to be held for several 

 years. This annual inspection of the works of rival artists, who 

 formed themselves into separate bodies, excited emulation, directed 

 public attention toward their works, and ultimately secured for them 

 the royal patronage and protection. These first exhibitions of pictures 

 by native artists in the rooms of the Society of Arts may, therefore, be 

 regarded as the origin of that exhibition of the Royal Academy which 

 now forms one of the great events of the London season. 



