i 882.1 
On Technical Education. 
223 
kindred subjefts was given before a Select Committee of the 
House of Commons on Schools of Art, in 1864, by the then 
largest calico printer in the world, Mr. Edmund Pottei. I 
attribute,” he stated, “the original superiority of French 
designs for calico-prints, altogether to the atmosphere of 
taste which an artist lives in in France. I remember sen ding 
over two young men to Paris to design for my own house ; 
we had them there for some time, and while they were there 
their designs were equal to the French, but when they came 
bach to us there was not the same artistic atmosphere surrounding 
them, and their designs went back again. It is not likely, as 
was suggested just now, that a man would have the same 
taste in the back streets of Manchester that he would have 
in Paris, with the chances of refreshing his sight with everything 
fresh and beautiful. I take it that Paris is the best market 
in the world for the designs of our class, at least it has so 
^ M r . Potter stated that he believed the entire payment at 
that time by the English calico-printers for French designs 
alone was upwards of £50,000 a year. Notwithstanding the 
murky atmosphere of our manufadtunng ; towns, if an atmo- 
sphere of art were created by the establishment of Art 
Museums, we might expea to return to the more fortunate 
position we were in previous to 1840. At that period there 
was considerable employment for En S 1 'sh designers. Most 
of the calico-printers kept up large establishments, and theie 
were many men receiving from £100 to £500. a year as 
designers for the trade; and in a large school in Lormon 
that existed at that time, there were individuals conrn.aed 
with the school who realised as much as £1000 a year by 
designing patterns. But when the Manchester people asked 
for a small portion of the grant voted yeariy by the State for 
art education, they were informed their lordships could not 
grant it, as State aid would sap the self-reliance of the 
Drovinces • they must therefore depend upon themselves , 
and this opinion has been prafticaUy adhered tc » up to the 
present time. The Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851, 
answered the deputation of provincial municipal representa- 
tives who waited upon them at Marlborough House in 
Tuly 1877, in pretty much the same terms, when the deputa- 
tion asked them to give the provinces a part of the money 
they still had at their command for the purpose of fostering 
artLd its applications. But self-reliance, self-dependence 
are never raised up as obstacles to the granting of State 
money for Art Museums, Art Collections, &o in the 
wealthiest City in the world; and these grants go on 
