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general ugliness of the streets adds greatly to that feeling. One 
of the most effectual means of contending against such influences 
is to call in the help of the fine arts. Houses occupied by persons 
in moderately easy circumstances can always be made interest- 
ing and attractive by means of the fine arts, without any 
extravagant expenditure; but for the poor the benefit of them 
ought to be of the most public character. If you had not so 
much coal-smoke the example of certain old cities might be 
mentioned where art was an out of door luxury possessed by 
every citizen like the uncontaminated sunshine. In Lancashire 
I fear such examples would be nothing but an unpractical 
mockery. but there is no reason in the world why you should 
not have simple and spacious public rooms where the humblest 
of your townsmen might bring his mind into contact with the 
very greatest minds of past and present times which have 
expressed themselves through the arts of design. Besides those 
works which belonged to the museum permanently you might 
admit others which would be lent to it, and wealthy people in 
your own neighbourhood might be induced to part with interest- 
ing things for a limited space of time. South Kensington owes 
much of its attraction to its loan collections, which are changed 
often enough to keep up the public interest. I have not advocated 
the purchase of paintings, yet [ may observe that by waiting and 
watching opportunities a few examples in oil and water colour 
might be got together if the object were merely to have specimens 
of what good work is like, and not to have showy pictures by 
famous men. Studies axe easily bought, and they are often even 
more instructive than finished pictures. With regard to modern 
art manufactures, nothing in the world is easier than to procure 
examples, and there has never been a time when so much study 
and taste and cultivated artistic skill went into manufacture as 
at the present day. You may even get copies of many fine old 
designs in modern materials. Let me observe that mere quantity 
in a public collection is a good thing in itself, because when 
there is quantity people can always find something that they 
have before overlooked, so that a large collection is practically 
inexhaustible, whereas a little one is not. The object of a 
provincial museum ought not to be the possession of a few very 
costly rarities, but rather to place within reach of the townspeople 
as many interesting and instructive examples as can possibly be 
got together, even though some of them may be of little pecuniary 
value. You will be tired of hearing me talk about South Ken- 
sington, but | am firmly convinced that in the South Kensington 
Museum an example has been set to the world of good sense 
applied to the arrangement of instructive art collections which 
may be imitated in all populous places with the very greatest 
advantage. The South Kensington principle, in a word, is this— 
