Dec. 2, I 



NA TURE 



99 



Syracuse, in the State of New York, can boast a priority 

 in this good work even over Boston. 



Though speaking everywhere most bitterly of England, 

 — an Americanism so out of date now that happily it is 

 more comical than irritating, especially when he goes 

 so far as to call the great works on political economy 

 which have made their way over the whole civilised world 

 " emissaries of English policy which she has succeeded 

 in introducing," — the writer everywhere holds up England 

 as an example in art education. The whole of the work 

 is credited to Sir Henry Cole and South Kensington, al- 

 though there were twenty Government-supported Schools 

 of Design in England in 1847. Still the writer cannot 

 resist the sneer that there would have been no art-teaching 

 in England if a Royal Prince had not urged it ! But 

 many times over he relates how visitors were struck with 

 the clumsy inartistic style of all English art-work at the 

 Exhibition of 1851 compared with that of many foreign 

 nations, .and the good result of an energetic and most 

 successful effort by the nation to remedy it is constantly 

 urged as appearing at the Philadelphia Exposition of 

 1876. There the Americans found themselves as far 

 behind England as England had been behind other 

 European countries in 1851, through the inartistic ignor- 

 ance of their manufacturing classes. Many practical 

 lessons and suggestions were there supplied to them, and 

 much of this volume is a record of their influence. 

 Appendix E gives a lengthy paper by Mr. Stetson review- 

 ing the work exhibited there by all the various foreign 

 nations and by each of the American towns, and it 

 records the influence of this Exhibition upon industrial 

 art. We should like to have heard something, however, 

 of the result of the New Orleans Exhibition, no report of 

 which has reached us, although so much was promised. 



While anxious by making drawing general to " utilise 

 all the pleasure which a slate and pencil give a child," 

 Mr. Clarke's unqualified love of liberty makes him object 

 to infringing on even a child's freedom, and actually trusts 

 to the extra interest that many gutter children would take 

 in gaining technical skill to render compulsion unneces- 

 sary. He urges with good reason that nowhere would 

 artistic skill be so well rewarded as in the United States 

 during its present rapid rise in wealth as well as in popu- 

 lation, and that skilled art labour is far more valuable 

 than the labour bestowed upon plainer, rougher work. 

 He does not however, in his promises held forth to all 

 alike who learn to draw, appear to realise the division of 

 labour between the designer and the numerous mechanics 

 who carry out the artist's ideas on the machine, but seems 

 to look upon all artistic work as carried out single-handed 

 from the design to the article ready for sale. No doubt 

 it is here, as General Walker (already quoted) remarks 

 that there are boys that have genius in their eyes and 

 fingers instead of a memory and quickness at book- 

 training, who would profit by artistic training. Many 

 such specially gifted artists have already made their mark 

 in America both in architecture and in engraving ; the 

 standard of magazine illustrations having been raised 

 even in England by competition with American produc- 

 tions. A larger class whose labour art-education makes 

 valuable are women who are anxious to secure to them- 

 selves an independence. They are the principal teachers 

 of drawing in all its branches, and find an excellent outlet 



for talent. Many artistic trades are also now carried on 

 successfully by them ; an account is especially given in 

 Appendix E of the wood-carving taught at a women's 

 school in Cincinnati introduced there by an English 

 workman of the name of Fry. Ladies there, among 

 others, make it a pursuit with great success. 



Besides other papers incidentally referred to in our 

 above remarks, various writings o^ considerable length 

 and of dates from 1845 to 1884 are given in Appendixes 

 A, C, and E, all urging the importance of art education, 

 and instructing those engaged in teaching it. 



Appendix F consists of 70 closely-printed pages giving 

 an account of South Kensington, its officials, history, Art 

 Training School, Museum, Art Library, art examples, 

 books, and casts ; with the reports for 1882 and 1884, and 

 copious extracts from the Art Directory to show in detail 

 the conditions and regulations under which "aid" is 

 granted in England. Some of the quotations in this 

 appendix are taken from the Directory of 1885. Mr. 

 Clarke assures his countrymen that " in its appointments, 

 and inlluence on art industrial education, South Kensington 

 Museum stands without a rival. It is a wonderful centre 

 of educational energy." " Other countries, even France, 

 are giving it their official indorsement by modifying their 

 art industrial instruction as rapidly as may be, and bring- 

 ing it more into harmony with that of the English." 



The final Appendix, H, claims to be a fitting end to 

 this volume, and a foreshadowing of the contents of the 

 future volumes. It is Lord Reay's address to the Inter- 

 national Educational Conference at the Health Exhibition 

 in 1884. 



The printing of this volume is far from so correct as 

 might be expected in a Government publication on 

 Education. W. Odell 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



American Journal of Mathematics. Vol. IX. No. i. 



(Baltimore, October 1886.) 

 We are glad to note that the successive parts now appear 

 with praiseworthy regularity, and the arrival of our number 

 can be predicted to a very close order of approximation. 

 The volume opens with a continuation of Prof. Sylvester's 

 lectures at Oxford on " The Theory of Reciprocants." 

 The story is resumed with the eleventh and proceeds to 

 the close of the sixteenth lecture. For the cumbrous 

 terminology " projective reciprocants " or " differential in- 

 variants " the lecturer now suggests " principiants." From 

 Lecture xiv. the abstract is devoted to the theory of pure 

 and projective reciprocants, or rather principiants, and 

 here we are introduced to the existence and propertiesof 

 the protomorphs of invariants and reciprocants with 

 which Mr. L. J. Rogers, one of the lecturer's audience, 

 has made us elsewhere familiar. For an account 

 of Dr. Story's new method in analytic geometry, we refer 

 our readers to the author's own description. Dr. F. N 

 Cole gives a full review in Klein's Ikosaeder of what that 

 eminent mathematician has done in his " Vorlesungen Uber 

 das Ikosaeder und die Auflosung der Gleichungen vom 

 funften Grade" (1884), and in his " X'ergleichendeBetracht- 

 ungen liber neuere geometrische Forschungen " (1872). 

 In Prof. Greenhill's paper on wave-motion in hydro- 

 dynamics the writer states that "one of the most im- 

 portant applications of the theory of hydrodynamics is to 

 the question of the motion of waves under gravity and 

 other causes," and his object is "to collect together the 

 chief results hitherto obtained, and to give also a general 

 connected account of the mathematical theory, at the 

 same time attempting to develop it in some directions." 



