1G7 



PART II. 



ON THE NECESSITY OF A DIFFUSION OF TASTE 

 AMONG- ALL CLASSES. 



§ 1. [The creditable efforts now making in England to disse- 

 minate taste through the country, and to encourage the various 

 branches of ornamental art, give a more than usual interest to 

 the subject, and invite every inquiry that may bear upon it. 



The practical views of the age have acknowledged the 

 necessity of affording to all portions of the community the 

 same means of educating the eye ; and few will now deny 

 the propriety of uniting the decorative with the useful, in 

 objects of every-day requirement. For what hope can there 

 be of general improvement in the "arts of production," if 

 those who create them are ignorant of the simplest notions of 

 taste, and cannot even comprehend the beauty of a design if 

 presented to them ? It is not by the education of the higher 

 classes alone, nor by the patronage of the great, that taste is 

 to be spread through a country: they may contribute as far 

 as lies in their power towards this object, and the efforts now 

 making by some men of rank and wealth are both creditable 

 and useful ; but for the community to have a feeling for art of 

 any kind, the study must be general, and the minds of those 

 who make, as well as of those who require, works of taste, 

 must be imbued with a true appreciation of the beautiful. 

 I do not, however, by this remark, wish to imply that men 

 of rank and wealth, in England or any country, are distin- 



II 4 



