FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES 57 



by them. If designs are not forthcoming for the English 

 manufacturer, and he is thus unable to compete with 

 foreigners, who should provide schools of design but the 

 manufacturers and the pupils who are the parties directly 

 interested? It seems to me as entirely beyond the proper 

 sphere of the State to interfere in this matter, as it would be 

 to teach English bootmakers or English cooks at the public 

 expense in order that they may be able to compete with 

 French artistes in these departments. In both cases such 

 interference amounts to protection and class legislation, and 

 I have yet to learn that these can be justified by the urgent 

 necessity of our producing shawls and calicoes, or hardware 

 and crockery, as elegantly designed as those of our neigh- 

 bours. And if our men of science want more complete 

 laboratories, or finer telescopes, or more costly apparatus of 

 any kind, who but our scientific associations and the large 

 and wealthy class now interested in science should supply 

 the want? They have hitherto done so nobly, and I should 

 myself feel that it was better that the march of scientific 

 discovery should be a little less rapid (and of late years the 

 pace has not been bad) than that science should descend one 

 step from her lofty independence and sue in forma pauperis 

 to the already overburthened taxpayer. In like manner, if our 

 mechanics are not so well able as they might be to improve 

 the various arts they are engaged in, surely the parties who 

 ought to provide the special education required are the great 

 employers of labour, who by their assistance are daily building 

 up colossal fortunes ; and also that great and wealthy class 

 which is, professionally or otherwise, interested in the con- 

 structive or decorative arts. 



" I maintain further, not only that money spent by 

 Government for the purposes here indicated is wrongly spent, 

 but also that it is, in a great measure, money wasted. The 

 best collectors (whether in art or science) are usually private 

 amateurs; the best workers are usually home-workers or the 

 employes of scientific associations, not of Governments. Could 

 any Government institution have produced results so much 

 superior to those of our Royal Institution, with its Davy, 



