328 biographical Sketch of Baron Edelcrantz. (TVIay, 



1804 he became Director of the Royal Spectaclerne, and he 

 retained this charge until 1810. On the 5th May, 1805, he was 

 appointed Superintendent to the Royal Museum, and perpetual 

 President of the Academy for the Cultivation of the liberal Arts. 

 The zeal with which he laboured for the improvement of this 

 Academy is amply testified by the many Discourses which he 

 composed, as well on other occasions, as also on the festival 

 days held by the Society. And it was owing to his exertions in 

 the Diet of 1809, that the pensions and salaries granted to 

 artists were enlarged, and that twelve appointments (of which 

 one-third, composing a first class, were placed on a handsomer 

 footing than the others) were attached to the State for the sup- 

 port and encouragement of students. 



The number and variety of Academies of which he was made a 

 member, mark his varied tastes and pursuits, and the general 

 esteem in which he was held. In 1806, he was chosen an ordi- 

 nary member in the Mathematical Section of the Royal Aca- 

 demy of the Military Sciences. He had already been elected 

 one of the Academy of Music. In 1808, he became a Member 

 of the Royal Academy of Literary History and Antiquities : on 

 which latter occasion his " Introductory Discourse " is worthy 

 of particular attention.* 



Nor must we here omit to mention a striking proof of the 

 unwearied regard with which Edelcrantz examined and weighed 

 all the various interests of the sciences and the arts, in the plan 

 which he submitted to the Royal Academy of Sciences for the 

 estabhshment of an Institution for Technological Education. 

 This is a subject surely of the most extensive interest, and of the 

 deepest importance ; but how few of those who have once 

 themselves overcome the difficulties that obstruct the access to 

 science are able to look back upon them, and deign to study for 

 their removal, that future tyros may no longer labour as their 

 predecessors have done. Both the mode in which he proposed 

 to arrange the system of instruction, and the person whom he 

 recommended as quahfied to fill the situation of Instructor, were 

 implicitly chosen by the Academy. 



But some societies of which Edelcrantz was a member often 

 required a more constant attendance and exertion on his part, 

 than even those which we have enumerated. Thus he had at 

 different periods been member of two Building Committees ; 

 Chairman of the Committee for re^ulatins: the Mint: and more- 

 over had the superintendence of the payment of the salaries 

 connected with that establishment. He was President of the 



* Besides the .\cademies and Societies we have just mentioned, Edelcrantz was a 

 member of every economical society in the kingdom ; he was chosen one of the Society 

 of the Admirers of Natural Philosoiihy (Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde) at 

 Berlin in 1 80a ; of the Societe d'Emulation, and of the Societe d' Agriculture at Paris 

 in 1803 ; Honorary Member of the Bo<vrd of Agriculture, and of the Society of Arts, 

 Agriculture, and Commerce, at London ; of the Societa Italiana atLiv«mo in 1818, &c. 



