ART EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA- 545 



On our perusal of the Catalogue it will be found that the com- 

 mittee are indebted to many gentlemen, both in New South Wales 

 and Victoria, for Aaluable donations of books and money ; it 

 will also be observed by the I'ules and bye-laws preceding the 

 Catalogue that the admission of members is practically un- 

 restricted — employment in the railway service, good behaviour, 

 and jjayment of the nominal fee is all that is required to secure 

 the great advantages. The committee, from the outset, took the 

 broad view that true learning was essentially and in the best sense 

 democratic, and on crossing the threshold of our Library all men, 

 from the lowest employe to the highest officer gi'asp the hand of 

 fellowship and unite for one object — the pursuit of learning. 



2.— ART EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA. 



By John Plummer. 



During the last few years there has been a marked extension of 

 popular art taste throughout Australia, one illustration of which is 

 aflbrded by tlie vast improved character of many engravings appear- 

 ing in the pictorial journals, as contrasted with those which formed 

 the rule some fifteen or twenty years ago. Another illustration 

 is furnished by the largely increased circulation in Australia of 

 British and other art publications. If a third were required, it 

 would be found in the remarkable degree of success attending the 

 pi'oduction of a recent somewhat expensive illustrated work, 

 descriptive of the various Australian colonies, which deservedly 

 takes rank Avith the choicest British or Continental publications 

 of a similar character. These are a few only of the many indica- 

 tions of a general art-awakening in Australia : of the existence 

 of a natural love of art, wliich, properly encouraged and developed, 

 may aid in the creation of an Australian school of art, a school 

 as thoroughly distinctive in its leading features as any of those 

 which have arisen, in ancient or modern times, in the older 

 centres of civilisation. All nations possess, more or less, a natural 

 love of art, but it is more readily developed in some than in others. 

 But under any circumstances, the work of development is, at first, 

 necessarily slow. 



No art student deems his education complete until he has 

 visited Italy and become familiar with its countless art treasures ; 

 but although the climate and scenic features of that lovely country 

 irresistibly aid in inspiring the soul of the artist with a keen 

 sense of the beautiful, very many years elapsed before a real 

 Italian school of painting became establislied, and the way 

 Jl 



