proceed further with his studies, or at least take other certificates, concerns itself especially with the studies which fit him for this duty. He must produce thoroughly satisfactory studies in drawing of ornament, foliage, geometric models, and the figure from the flat, of geometrical, mechanical, architectural, and perspective drawings; solve written papers on geometry, perspective, and color; execute in a given time before the examiners, works in perspective, mechanical, architectural, and model drawing; and he must have satisfactorily taught a parochial school.

The second certificate is for the study of painting, and embraces the practice of painting in oil, tempera, and water-color from ornament and objects of stilllife; also the study of ornament, artistic botany, and the practice of elementary design. At the examination the student is required to solve written papers on the history and application of ornament, and to execute a time-sketch from a group of still-life before the examiner. In the second certificate, therefore, it is sought to provide by the systematic study of ornament for the education of the ornamental designer, while the requirements of the general student are not neglected.

The third certificate is attached to the study of the figure, and the examination conducted on a similar plan; the papers being on anatomy.

The fourth and fifth certificates are devoted to modeling; one of ornament, the other figure, the works being similar in character, and the written papers the same as in the second and third certificates.

The sixth group of certificates relate to more advanced technical instruction, including mechanical and architectural drawing, and various applications of art to manufacturing purposes, as painting on porcelain, &c. &c.

This, then, is the course of study, through a part or the whole of which a student in training must pass previous to being recommended for appointment. It remains for me to describe the manner of study.

All art-education divides itself into two groups; that which a student may be taught to know, and that which he must be taught to see. In the first may be included geometry, perspective, mechanical and architectural drawing, ornament (partially), and anatomy (partially); while the actual imitation of an object or the learning to see would embrace all studies, whether of drawing, painting, or modeling, in which artistic reproduction was sought to be achieved.

In accordance, therefore, with this, the instruction consists of class-teaching by class-lectures with blackboard illustratious, and that careful individual instruction without which all art-education must be merely nominal. The one principle being ever borne in mind that a student should be taught to know why he does what he does-the examinations being designed to ascertain this. The means by which the students are trained in teaching remain to be pointed out.

It must be evident that to provide a sufficiently wide field of practice for a large number of students in training, as well as to secure the same kind of artteaching as that which they would be required to give when employed as masters, schools similar in their nature must be attached to the Training School.

These were fortunately provided by the parochial schools of London for that class of tuition, and by the establishment in different districts of London by individuals unconnected with the Department, of schools of art, for affording instruction in the evening to adults and others. By this means was the field for training provided, not only without cost to the State, but the instruction being paid for at a low rate, the cost of the Training School was reduced.

This, then, is the course of instruction, the method of study, and the means of training adopted with the view of supplying the whole country with teachers, who, trained to commence with the child of the poorest or the more wealthy, when at school, are fitted also to impart to the mechanic and artizan the more special instruction adapted to their wants, and besides this are qualified by a careful course of instruction and training to give that general instruction in the elementary practice of art which it is sought to diffuse as widely as possible amongst the people.

But while dwelling on the results of this school in the training of masters for provincial schools, it is necessary not to forget its action as a school of art for the metropolis. The education which it affords to the student in training is

open to the general public by the payment of fees ranging in amount from 17. to 4l. per session of five months. It has also classes for schoolmasters, and affords instruction to the detachment of Royal Engineers employed here.

No question connected with these schools has given rise to more discussion than that, whether design could be taught, should be taught, or was taught in them.

The designs produced in a school should and must be exercises of the students, and simply studies in composition. They are exercises in design to teach the student to become a designer, and this object will be much more certainly achieved by a careful and systematic study of ornament and of nature with a view to ornament, than by a more confined attention to mechanical necessities. Of one thing we may be sure, that if a student can be made or become a good designer artistically, he will find but little difficulty in overcoming the mechanical obstacles.

In one way alone can these schools ever become great schools of ornamental art-it must be by the undertaking of actual work to be done by masters, assisted by students. By such means, the coupling together instruction in art and its practical application, bringing all the studies of the school to bear upon the work in hand, not only may the students become first-rate ornamentists, but the ornamental art of the time become greatly improved, inasmuch as they would carry into their work more artistic feeling and power, and be less strictly confined within the pecuniary limits of profitable labor.

Let the masters of the schools take up the manufactures of their localities, or the practice of ornamental art of the highest class, and let the schools become atéliers, artistic workshops as well as schools, employed upon actual works, and meeting all the requirements of such employment, and we shall soon have a body of ornamentists and designers who would be unsurpassed in any country. I have thus endeavored to place before you a concise statement of the objects and working of the Training School, as they may stimulate education in the elementary practice of Art, both in the provinces and the metropolis, by furnishing well-educated masters for Art Schools, who should embrace within the range of their tuition alike the young and the adult, the humble and the lofty, those who seek instruction only for money profit, and those who love Art from a higher motive; masters for schools which may become the means of diffusing a greater knowledge of and love for Art.

I believe in the desirability of doing this for the advantage of the country merely in a mercantile point of view, and that this object deserves the liberal support of the government and the nation from this cause.

But I believe, also, that the diffusion of Art knowledge and Art power may appeal to national support on other and higher grounds, and that its true value is not to be estimated by tables which are supposed to show "The progress of

'the nation."

To one in whose nature a deep and true love of Art is implanted, (and without this no one can be a true artist,) Art becomes almost a holy thing, something to be dedicated to noble aims, and not to be trailed in the mire and the dirt of mere displays of pomp and vanity; a something that should minister to the pleasures or purposes of the soul, and not merely play the agreeable to the

senses.

By such an one the extension of these schools is viewed in a different manner; he dwells with hope upon the results they may have upon the general feeling for Art, and the love of its manifestations upon the people of this country. He believes that they are one step in the furtherance of that hope that will arrive at fruition when one of the noblest gifts of God shall be worthily devoted to His service, when the noble deeds and thoughts of the great and good men of all times, all countries, and of all faiths, may find worthy expositors and appreciating audiences; when in this our country, Art, standing noble and aloft before all men, drawing to itself the noblest intellects and the purest feelings, may appeal to all, and in a voice that shall find an universal echo in all hearts, say, it is my mission to speak to your souls through your senses-to cause your hearts to flame or melt, but always to noble ends; and to speak an universal and eloquent language only the more effectively to disseminate great deeds and noble thoughts.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF BRITISH ART.*

The design and execution of this feature of the operations of the Science and Art Department, harmonize so well with our views for a National Gallery at Washington, or a State or Municipal Gallery in any of our chief cities, that we give copious extracts from Mr. Redgrave's Introductory Address.

Mr. Sheepshanks' Gift of Pictures and Drawings.

I am to address you this night on the munificent gift made to the public by Mr. Sheepshanks, of a choice collection of pictures and drawings by British artists; given, to use his own words, "with a view to the establishment of a collection of pictures and other works of art, fully representing British Art, and worthy of national support;" to be placed in a well-lighted and otherwise suitable gallery, and called "the National Gallery of British Art." "And whereas," he recites in the deed of gift, "I conceive that such a collection should be placed in a gallery in an open and airy situation, possessing the quiet necessary to the study and enjoyment of works of art, and free from the inconveniences and dirt of the main thoroughfares of the Metropolis, I consider that such a gallery might be usefully erected at Kensington." And he goes on to add, "in the hope that other proprietors of pictures and other works of art may be induced to further the same object, the said pictures and drawings shall be deposited in such gallery with any other pictures or works of art that may be subsequently placed there by other contributors, as it is not my desire that my collection of pictures and drawings should be kept apart or bear my name as such." Many other points are recited in the deed, which will be referred to in the progress of the address, but at present I would group what I have to say to you under the three principal heads to which the document in question has led us, viz.:

1. The formation of a National Collection of Pictures truly representing "British Art;"

2. The erection of a suitable gallery to contain them; and

3. The advantages of the site selected for the Sheepshanks Gallery, and the bearing it has on the question of Art Galleries for the Metropolis generally.

National Gallery of Art.

Whatever had been done in other countries, England had made no approach to the formation of a collection of pictures for the use of the public until the present century was somewhat advanced. It is true that some of her early monarchs had encouraged art, and that even at the commencement of the sixteenth century many men of high talent, both Germans, Flemings, and Italians, had been invited to this country by Henry the Eighth, and in the next century by Charles the First, and that both these monarchs munificently rewarded art, and employed agents abroad to purchase for them the rarest pictures and statues that could be obtained in the countries where they were produced. Many of our chief nobility, also, at these periods were great collectors, and the country was gradually enriched by the possession of works of the highest class. Yet it was only as private individuals, and to adorn their palaces and mansions, that monarchs and noblemen encouraged artists and purchased their works, and the idea of making them available for the instruction and gratification of the public was a thought of later growth, even abroad, and does not appear to have been contemplated in our own country until the commencement of the present century. The matter was pressed upon the attention of the Legislature on the occasion of a proposed gift of pictures by Sir G. Beaumont, which ended in the purchase in 1824 of the Angerstein Collection, to form the nucleus of a National Gallery.

Introductory Lecture-On a National Museum of British Art in connection with the Sheepshanks Gallery By Richard Redgrave, Inspector-General of Art.

Long before this period, art in this country had made rapid strides; Hogarth, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Moreland, Wilson, and others, had laid the foundation of the British School, and the public, already instructed by the annual gatherings of works of art in the Royal Academy, the British Institution, and the old Water Color Society's rooms, had been somewhat accustomed to exhibitions of pictures, and had learned to appreciate artists and their works.

Thus it may be fairly said that the newly-formed gallery, instead of producing in the public a taste for art, was itself rather an evidence that the public was educated to demand and require it. The gallery at its first formation contained about forty pictures, chiefly of the Italian School, and although among them were some six or eight pictures the work of British artists, it was the works of the old masters that were looked upon as forming the British National Gallery of Art.

Here, then, was a great step in advance-the establishment in this country of a National Gallery of Pictures, open for the instruction and gratification of the people generally. It is quite evident, however, that there was little belief at that time in British Art. The collection was substantially formed of the works of ancient masters; and neither then nor since has any Government aid been given to add, by purchase, to the few British pictures it contained, while large sums have been spent and the collection nobly increased in the other direction. Now, of the value of a collection of the fine works of the great masters in art, and of the desirableness of making a collection of such works, while it is in any way possible, there can be no doubt; but this is not the subject of my present address. To artists, the examination and study of such works are of inestimable importance, while to others, educated to understand the high qualities they undoubtedly contain, their contemplation is a great pleasure.

British Art.

True art, when it arises spontaneously in any country, reflects the feelings and ideas of the people and age to which it is addressed. Thus all early art used in the service of the Church was necessarily of a deeply religious character. Yet how distinct is that character at the same period in Italy and in Flanders? In the hands of Giotto, Ghirlandaio, Angelico, and Francia, it is spiritual and ideal; embodying rather the soul of religious sentiment than approaching the actual. In the Low Countries, on the contrary, the heads of saints and historic personages, nay, even of the Saviour himself, instead of being ideal impersonations of the holiness or virtues which were the characteristics of the apostles and martyrs, as of the Lord of All, seem rather to aim at the actual. The living persons of the painter's day are the actors of the great scene of man's redemption. Instead of abstract passions or sentiments, the men that Hemling, Van Eyk, or Vander Weiden saw around them are repeated on their canvas; touched, however, with the fullest expression of love or hate, of awe or reverence, of which man's soul is capable. The Rhineland plains, the Burgundian cities, fill up the background where the Magi worship or where the shepherds bow to their new-born Lord; while the spires of Aix or Cologne represent for them the City of the great King. The people of the painter's day gazed and saw no anomaly in all this; they felt, in faces like their own, the spirit of life that the painter had breathed into his canvas; they acknowledged in his creations men of like passions with themselves, and were stirred with a feeling of the sorrows and misfortunes of those whose history was thus represented.

When art was really born in this country, religion rather repudiated than sought it. It offered to deck our churches, but was rejected. Obtaining no encouragement, no patronage, in this direction, it has sought a place in men's homes, and addressed itself to their affections; and it is to the credit of our national character, as well as to our artists, that it has never pandered to sensuality or descended to the base and low in the subjects of its choice.

It is greatly to be regretted that the fear engendered by the hard battle our forefathers had to fight against the corruptions of Christianity excluded religious subjects from the artist's choice; for I am convinced that they would have treated such subjects, if with less spirituality and grandeur than the Italian, at least with the earnestness of early Flemish art, touched perhaps with a deeper and warmer glow of the religion of the heart. But while a demand for such

subjects is a thing to be hoped for, our artists have labored in the cause of religion, and he who comes first on the list of English painters was at least a deep and earnest "preacher of righteousness." I allude to William Hogarth. All will allow how truly English was his art, how peculiar to his own age and time, yet containing truths for all time. Arising at a period when the habits of society were less refined than at present, and vice more outwardly expressed and tolerated than would now be permitted, he was the merciless satirist, the scourger of profligacy in all ranks, and read to all the most stirring and terrible lessons as a moralist, without forgetting that he was a painter.

After Hogarth-Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Wilson, must be considered as founders of the modern British School; for the two first, as portrait-painters, it is hardly possible to take too high a rank. Those who have been enabled to see their works in the late Manchester Exhibition will feel how thoroughly such portraits as the "Nelly O'Brien" or the "Lady Althorp and Child" of Reynolds, or "Mrs. Graham" or the "Blue Boy" of Gainsborough, are worthy to be placed side by side even with those of Titian or Vandyk.

I have said that it is a characteristic of English pictures to appeal to the affections and home-feelings of the people; and the subjects chosen are generally some touching incident of daily life, or from our own poets or writers: thus they are open to the understandings of all. How much more are the general public likely to be touched and softened by such pictures as Landseer's "Random Shot" or "Shepherd's Chief Mourner" than by the Boar Hunts of even a Rubens or Suyders! In the "Random Shot," the lesson is almost too painful; yet, like a tragedy, it delights while it afflicts us. A young fawn stands on the snow-drifted moor beside the dead body of its dam. The foot-prints in the white snow are dabbled with the mother's blood-she has been smitten by the cruel hunter's careless shot into the herd. Who is there that, shuddering at the slow death in prospect for the harmless little one, does not forswear the hunter's sport, which leads even by an accident to such an end as this? Or take the other beautiful work, "The Shepherd's Chief Mourner," one of the pictures in our noble gift. What a history does it contain of companionship on the hills in storm and sunshine, of toils and watchings, of hunger and unrest endured together; the whole of the shepherd's simple life is seen on that little canvaslonely it was but for that one friend, now left to mourn over his master's grave. Examine the details of the picture; they will tell you at a glance that master's age, his religion, and his hopes, of his hard fare and bare lodging, apart from his fellow-men and kind, but finding strong affection in the brute creation; "The righteous man is merciful to his beast," saith that Scripture which lies open at his lonely coffin's side, and that he was merciful, the attachment even after death of his faithful colly shows. Here is a subject that it wants neither rank nor education to comprehend: the wayfaring man, though a fool, can not fail to understand it, for a dog is the companion of the humblest, and even the beggar has one by his side. The commonest minds may be touched to tears by the tale of a life and history that a single glance tells.

Or if you would see how our painters touch the incidents of every-day life, look at the pictures by Webster, which are also included in the spontaneous gift of Mr. Sheepshanks. In the "Going to" and "Coming from the Fair" of this painter you see the simple pleasures of the agricultural population, not a stilted theatrical display of country life such as we should find depicted in the false pastorals of Watteau and Lancret, wherein kings and queens, and lords and ladies, play at Colin and Lubin, at Phyllis and Corydon-but true-hearted, honest country ploughmen, with kindly hearts and full of love for little children. How different from the drunken boors and frows of the Dutch school, maudlin and filthy in their cups, pouring a dram perchance down the throats of their fractious children to stunt them into the same dwarfed mis-shapen growth as themselves Look again at this painter's picture of "Sickness and Health;" how simple, yet how touching! It may not be painted with the charming facility of Teniers, nor have the lustrous jewel-like richness of Ostade, but how is it touched with the sweet affections, the joys, and sorrows of home! At a cottage door, beneath a sheltering tree, and looking out on fields and flowers, sits, propped up with pillows, a sick child. The languor and self-indulgence of returning health is in every limb. A smile plays over her pale face as she