( cxi ) 



" SciEA'CE A>^D Art Depahthent, 



" Soi'TH EJEXSIiSTGIOIf, S.W., 



" mh Fehruary, 1876. 



' ' I have tlie honour to inform you tliat the Lords of the Committee 

 of Council on Education have framed a scheme, which has met with 

 the approval of Her Majesty's Government, for the purpose of aug- 

 menting and extending the facilities for Science and Art instruction 

 in Ireland ; and that their Lordships feel that they may look with 

 confidence for the cordial support and co-operation of the Royal 

 Dublin Society and of the Royal Irish Academy in those prelimi- 

 nary measures which are absolutely necessary to carry out a com- 

 prehensive plan, which they trust will be worthy of the metropolis 

 of Ireland, and will tend to foster and develop the natural genius 

 and taste of her people. 



" 2. Prom the representations which have been made to the Govern- 

 ment as to the general wishes of the country ; from the recommenda- 

 tions of the Commission, of which the Duke of Leinster — then the 

 Marquis of Kildare — was Chairman in 1868; and from the evidence 

 given before that Commission, it appears that the time has now 

 arrived when the wants of the community at large have outgrown the 

 useful action of private societies, and when a thorough rearrangement 

 and consolidation of existing institutions have become essential as a 

 condition precedent to further progress. 



" 3. With this view their Lordships propose to build, on a site 

 adjacent to Leinster House, a Science and Art Museum for Ireland 

 somewhat similar to that now existing in Edinburgh, for Scotland : 

 and to remove the jSTatural History Museum to the same building, 

 supplying it with funds and staff sufficient for its development into a 

 l^ational Museum of Ifatural History. 



" 4. The collections of the Geological Survey, and the Industrial 

 <3ollections still retained in the Eoyal College of Science, would be re- 

 moved to the same building — the former collections remaining, during 

 the continuance of the Survey, under its officers, for whom offices may 

 probably be provided in Leinster House. 



"5. The Library would be then transferred from Leinster House 

 into the biiilding now occupied by the ]N"atural History Museum, and 



q 2 



