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THE CIVIL KNGlNEEll AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



AuGuaxj 



of the people. The lessening of drunkenness and idleness, the milder 

 bearing of the people, the falliii<; ofrofstreel fi;;hts, the greater cleanliness 

 and neatness, if tliey lead to better health, are of still greater worth, as 

 they lead to belter minds. If we leach a workman to like the museum 

 better than the alehouse, we teach him something more; by awakening his 

 thoughts MS to what is only rare, we awaken his mind in his own calling, 

 and the thinking workman must be a better workman than the unthinking 

 workman. There are, however, riiauy callings in which the workman has 

 to deal with shape and colour, and if his thoughts are in any way trained 

 to see and feel what is beautiful, he has earned something which to him 

 is of the highest worth. 



That the people of England are not brought up to have a right feeling of 

 the beautiful and great in works of art, is seen painfully, nol only in our 

 public builrlings and in our shows of paiutings, but also in our workshops. 

 Whenever this has been looked into, there has been but one auswer by men 

 of skill aud knowledge, whether English or foreigners, and that is — that 

 the English people and English workmen have less taste than those 

 abroad. This is the pain whereby carelessness of a natural and moral 

 law is made known, and those who judge by the purse are punished in 

 the purse. The price we pay for foreign silks, satins, ribbands, lace, 

 clocks, walches, castings, jewellery, paper hangings, made flowers, and 

 other wares bought of the French, Flemings, Swiss, Italians, and Prus- 

 sians is so great, as to be a wonder to those who reckon it up, and bethink 

 themselves tiiat England is the great loom and workshop for the world, 

 the heart of trade, and the mistress of every craft whereby wealth can be 

 made. Me pay down in hard money a heavy fine for our want of learn- 

 ing ; but tills is not the only loss to which we are open, for we further 

 lose the supply of foreign markets, which, if we tried in the right way, we 

 could master, as we do all things that we once try. This is a money rea- 

 son, and a weighty one for a love of art. 



M'e cannot foster the love of the beautiful and great in art, without 

 fostering the love of the true and the good. It does not follow that a 

 painting, a carving, jor a building shall be all truth and nothing more, hut 

 there must be s mietliing which shall strike the mind as true ; and though 

 with this it will take iu much which is unirue or false, yet without some 

 truih is mixed up, it will not take in any share of untruth. In a building, 

 this seeming of truth may belong to the look, as, if a prison were built as 

 a playhouse it would not be liked, neither would a playhouse if built as a 

 church ; so, too, if a building were so made, that it seemed unsteady or 

 toppling, there would be a want of truth about it which would strike any 

 man. In a play or in a painting, it is acknowledged that there should be 

 this truthfulness, which when once given iu the leading parts, the looker-on 

 is willing to take the stage or the canvas as the real scene of the events, 

 and lo overlook the want of solidity in the colours, or the smallness of the 

 drawing — nay, to go in despite of his own knowledge that the player is 

 Jack Robinson, and believe him to be Alexander or Henry the Fifth. It 

 is, perhaps, a failing of mankind, that a small share of truth is often 

 enough for them, and that having that, they do not look further ; but as iu 

 works of art they are trained to look for the true, so is the love of truth 

 upheld; and the eyes of the loukeron being opened, and his mind 

 awakened, it cannot be otherwise than that he should get a greater love 

 of truth, and that it should follow him in his life. 



The truthful in art is its groundwork, and carelessness as to this is a 

 besetting sin of our artists, and therefore they do not carry the people 

 llong wiih them. The painter m dees a show of bright colour, aud thinks 

 ite does enough ; the architect puts in good stone and good inoriar, and then 

 prides himself that he has done all. " To kahn kai to prciwn," — the 

 handsome and the lilting — was the good rule of the Greeks in art; so 

 likewise did they say "good and beaiititui" — and, indeed, in a few words, 

 they teach the whole sum of art. \t ith a belter trained people, we should 

 have better drilled artists, for these latter would no longer dare to set 

 themselves against all right laws, and waste their own powers and our 

 means. The new school of art must be made from without, and not from 

 within; it must, as with the Greeks, not depeud upon the few of the 

 artists, but upon the firm will of the many. Although I'ericles took the 

 lead, the Athenians never forsook the path in which he had led them, and 

 the whole comiiionwc alth took its w.iy onward. On the other hand, single 

 lovers of the arts die, and the arts die with them. The wealth of the 

 Philips gifted .Spain with paintings, but not with painters; Charles the 

 First died before he had awakeu'^d a love for art in England ; but if Lewis 

 of Bavaria dies, the school of Munich will live in despite of chiirliih 

 followers. Lewis has not men ly bought paintings. ''"It he has raised up 

 ,1 school of artists, who are already sought throughout Europt'. 



Where the love of the beautiful is strengthened, the mind likewise is 

 strengthened, for it takes a healthy action instead of an unhealthy one. 

 Discontent is one of the worst signs of a low state of being, as is seen in 

 Ireland, where what is good and useful is altogether lost sight of Id 

 brooding over f lociful ills. A healthy mind is ever ready to draw the 

 most good from everything; an unhealthy one to draw the most evil. So 

 in criticism this may be seen; while the older, higher, and better taught 

 critic is ready to find wl.atever is good, the younger and worse trained 

 critic thinks he does best if he can hit upon a blot — which moreover he is 

 sure to be able to do in any one of man's works. These must always he 

 faulty from their very beginning ; we know this, and it needs small skill 

 to show it ; but every one is not well enough trained to find a beauty and 

 to feel it. How often is it found that an old and great painter will find a 

 beauty in the work of a younger man, for which the brethren of the latter 

 give him no praise, but the rather run him down for his faults. The 

 greater our knowledge, the greater our pleasures ; it Is not, as is thought 

 by some, that the round of our pleasures is hemmed in by our greater 

 knowledge, but that the more we know, the better our feelings are trained, 

 the greater love do we get for what is good and right, and the less we care 

 for what is bad aud wrong. 



The kind of schooling which has been most used by enlightened people 

 in olden times and in new times, has been such as to open the minds of 

 youth to the great principles we have named. The teaching of Homer 

 among the Greeks and liomans, and of the Classics among ourselves, 

 better answers to a liberal, free, and easy way of training, than does the 

 drier way of mathematical study, which there are many people « ho now 

 upliohl. In schooling, what is taught is less lo be looked at than how the 

 mind is trained, for the ir.an of hereafter will not be made by a faultless 

 knowledge of English grammar or an exact and correct way of reckoning, 

 but by those powers of mind which will enable him to do his part among 

 his fellow men. Public training should be in agreement with that of the 

 schools — the man should be able to follow up what he began as a child ; 

 or if, as a child, his training has been careless, there is the more need that 

 it should afterwai'ds be in a right way. 



Wo have thought it right to stand up for the British Museum, as a 

 school for the people, inasmuch as the matter is little understood, and 

 many able men are very careless about what so far from being a trifle is a 

 tiling of very great earnest. In whatever light we look at the matter, if 

 we choose to think, we are always brought back to the same point — that 

 the public training of the people in the right way is of the highest need, 

 and that a museum, well laid out, is among the best school:^ and best 

 means of doing this. Indeed, we have no fear in saying that every pound 

 laid out iu the British Museum has been already brouitit back by what 

 we have earned in our workshops, to say nothing of the very great good 

 which is done to the minds of its hundreds of thousands of yearly 

 visitors. 



It is pleasing to see that the part of the Museum given to olden art is 

 now large and well provided ; but it is not laid out as if those at the head 

 of it had a clear sight of what it ought to be. To gather bit by bit works 

 of art here and there, is not enough for any end of public teaching. The 

 more the Museum is made useful, the more its worth will be felt, and the 

 more will be done to make it greater and better. Although the Museum 

 holds the works of many people, it neither gives any full view of the 

 works of one people, nor of the way in which art has grown and been 

 followed up. It is wanting as a whole, and the feeling made is that it is 

 a gathering of bits of wreck, worthless to their former owners, and of 

 which the now ovvners do not know how to make use. This is not to be 

 said of all to the same length ; but it is to be said, more or less. 



Although the Greek rooms hold the Phigaleian ami Elgin marbles, and 

 have many later works of worth, they give, even to the scholar, but a small 

 knowledge of what Greece and (ireek art are; they rather want the book 

 to help them out, instead of helping the book out. There is an earnest, it 

 is true, of the will to do and of what may be done; but we want a great 

 deal more. When a working man has t-cen all the marbles of the Parthe- 

 non, he has no better thought of the (iieeks than he had before. The 

 Egyptian rooms, which are much better olF, will teach him much more as 

 to the Egyptians. The letting in of some casts from the Parthenon, of 

 the casts from the Egiua marbles, and of the models of the Parthenon, 

 have opened the way for more. We would have the Greek rooms laid 

 out with casts from other museums ol the works which are missing here; 

 there should be mudels of such temples as can safely be laid down ; like- 

 wise models of tombs. Iu the Greek rooms we would place the vases, 

 bronzes, and coins. Why these are put away we do not understand. 



