§15. SITES OF MUSEUMS. 195 



Nowhere is wholesome recreation so much required as in 

 England, where the frequent occurrence of wet weather so 

 often prevents the working man from seeking it in the 

 country, and drives him to idle amusements and to drink. 

 For it is folly to pretend that men who have been working 

 six days will not seek, and do not require, some kind of re- 

 creation ; and if a good one is not provided for them they 

 will too frequently be tempted to what is bad. So far from 

 tending to irreligion, it will make them less animal and more 

 intellectual, consequently, more soberminded and religious; 

 and we shall do better to provide a remedy for ignorance and 

 drunkenness, than persist in their encouragement. 



Let us shut the gin-palaces, and give the people innocent 

 recreation and instruction ; we shall then confer on them a 

 benefit, and shall discover that Englishmen are not worse 

 than French or Italians, nor less Protestant than the Prussians 

 of Berlin ; while we shall find them less drunkards than they 

 are now, and capable of understanding what we now expect 

 them to see without having it presented to their sight.] 



15. But besides these impediments thrown in the way of 

 artisans, and others by the closing of our public collections on 

 the very day when they have leisure for visiting them, we 

 seem to have devised others, in the expense and loss of time 

 consequent on their removal to an inconvenient distance from 

 London ; and the experiment of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham 

 has shown how much more the public and its public-spirited 

 originators would have benefited had its site been more acces- 

 sible. And though the idea of collecting all objects of art in 

 one building is very sensible, and the facilities afforded to those 

 who visit the South Kensington Museum reflect great credit 

 on the organisers of that valuable institution, its position 

 in the outskirts of London is certainly less convenient than 

 the more central sites of Marlborough House and the British 

 Museum ; and those who object to the transfer of all works of 



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