266 



NATURE 



{July 1 8, 1889 



which he explained ; but he regarded a congeries of Colo- 

 nial and Indian commercial samples, reference libraries, 

 conference and commercial intelligence rooms, deposited 

 at South Kensington, as "fish out of water." Its proper 

 habitat, according to the Professor, would be in the midst 

 of men of business — in the City. To this a " Member of 

 the Committee of Management of the Imperial Institute" 

 responded by a letter in the Times, supporting the location 

 of the Institute at Kensington, with arguments of ecoiiomy, 

 &c. He repeated, with a fervour which we are told 

 might be ascribed to an original Commissioner for the 

 Exhibition of 1851, and which should therefore have 

 prevented the Commissioners from proposing to sell any 

 part of their estate for building private houses, that the 

 land at South Kensington had been " bought for the 

 purpose of affording sites for public institutions by the 

 far-seeing wisdom of the Prince Consort." 



To elucidate the intentions of the Imperial Insti- 

 tute, Sir Frederick Abel gave a public address in 

 the spring of 1887, in the course of which he said 

 that " the organization of facilities, combined with mate- 

 rial aid, to be provided to young artizans who shall 

 afford some legitimate evidence of superior natural 

 intelligence, and a striving after self-improvement, to 

 enable them to abandon for a time the duty of bread- 

 winning, and to work at one or other of the technical 

 schools in London or the provincial centres, will be an- 

 other object to which the resources of the Institute 

 should be applied very beneficially." Not only was this 

 to be in respect of " technical education," it was also to 

 benefit " commercial education." Briefly put, one of the 

 aspirations of the Imperial Institute was to establish 

 Scholarships and Exhibitions for technical and com- 

 mercial education. We can well understand the neces- 

 sity at the time for publicly developing as fully as possible 

 the intentions of the Institute. Half a million of money 

 was openly quoted by its promoters as the amount 

 necessary to the launching of the Institute. The recently 

 published accounts show that the expectations of the 

 promoters have, not been completely reahzed, for not 

 more than ^300,000 has been collected for the Institute, 

 and of that, some ^140,000 has been set aside as an 

 endowment fund to work and support the Institute. We 

 may take it, then, that the Institute will start with an 

 income of about ^5000. Two years of " general adminis- 

 tration," as it is termed, have cost ^9134, of which ^^5236 

 went in salaries and wages. If these data of the expen- 

 diture, which has been incurred before the Institute is in 

 working order, give any insight into what it will cost when 

 at work, it is obvious that some portion of the Institute's 

 proposed functions must be suspended. 



But with this explanation of the situation, and notwith- 

 standing the authoritative contradiction to the suggestion 

 that the Commissioners are going to provide funds for the 

 Imperial Institute, the Commissioners' opponents argue 

 that, since many of the members of the Imperial Institute 

 Committee are also Commissioners for the Exhibition of 

 1 85 1, it is outside huaian nature to suppose that the 

 ambitions of the one body exert no influence upon the 

 actions of the other. And so, ^without actually putting 

 money into the coffers of the Imperial Institute, the 

 Commissioners may do as good, by undertaking the 

 foundation of those Scholarships and Exhibitions which 



the Imperial Institute may not see its way to. It has 

 been our wish, in thus frankly stating the objections and 

 arguments which are raised to the Commissioners' 

 proposals, to examine and discuss them in all fairness. 



We may now at any rate dismiss the topics relating to 

 the Imperial Institute, and offer a few remarks upon the 

 Commissioners' proposals to establish Scholarships and 

 make grants in aid of " provincial local institutions." 

 The Commissioners are incorporated " to increase the 

 means of industrial education, and extend the influence 

 of science and art upon productive industry." One of 

 their first steps, towards giving effect to the new pro- 

 posals, must be to arrange for pulling down considerable 

 portions of the buildings which house scientific and 

 artistic collections. These operations will no doubt tem- 

 porarily interfere with the study of those collections by 

 the public from all parts of the country. This, however, is 

 a minor point as compared with an apparent omission, on 

 the part of the Commissioners, in framing their proposals, 

 to take into account what the public have actually done 

 towards establishing a system of science and art Scholar- 

 ships, and towards securing grants in aid of provincial 

 local institutions. A great organization, developed in 

 the course of many years' experience, has arisen ; it has, 

 and must continue, to co-operate with local effort in 

 extending the influence of science and art upon produc- 

 tive industry, so long as there is any local effort and any 

 Parliament to appreciate that fact. This organization 

 comes under the administration of the Vice-President of 

 the Committee of Council on Education ; its history and 

 modus operandi are known to such Commissioners as 

 Mr. Mundella, Sir Lyon Playfair, and Sir William Hart 

 Dyke. The two former, it is almost needless to say, 

 held the office of Vice-President before Sir William 

 Hart Dyke, the present Vice-President. All these, how- 

 ever, have helped in continuing the policy of Mr. Lowe 

 (now Lord Sherbrooke) and the late Mr. W. E. Forster — 

 a policy, the central feature of which is to multiply the 

 forms of Parliamentary aid to local bodies which take 

 the initiative in themselves providing local means to ex- 

 tend the influence of science and art upon productive in- 

 dustry. Mr. Mundella, Sir Lyon Playfair, and Sir William 

 Hart Dyke surely have brought their experiences before 

 the Commissioners, in the discussions, upon the new 

 proposals for Scholarships, and aid to provincial institu- 

 tions. They must have told the Commissioners of the 

 flourishing and growing co-operation between local effort 

 and State aid ; they must have explained the methods 

 of its administration, and proved that experience and 

 funds are necessary to pay for and organize an exe- 

 cutive staff for the discharge of the same or similar 

 functions towards science and art and local provincial 

 institutions as are now discharged by Government. 

 Roughly put, the Government aids to local effort are : 

 (i) building grants for science and art schools ; (2) grants 

 towards the equipment of such schools ; (3) grants towards 

 the purchase of objects for local Museums ; (4) grants 

 towards founding local Scholarships and Exhibitions ; 

 (5) grants of national Scholarships and maintenance 

 allowances whilst the holders of these Scholarships are 

 undergoing instruction at one or other of the more 

 prominent science and art institutions of the country ; 

 and (6) grants of Travelling Scholarships. The total cost 



