AMERICAN PREFACE.
V
applied to industry. Is not this a noteworthy change of public
policy on the part of European governments ?
Let us briefly consider, yet witli something of detail, what the
leading European nations liave done and are doing for the
advancement of the art-industrial education of their people.
ART-INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION IN ENGLAND.
For this new conflict England is, with the utmost deliberation,
thoroughly arming herseif. At first she began with half meas-
ures, which need not here he further described than b\ sajing
that she undertook to educate her workmen only elfter they becaine
workmen, and gave little thought to artistic qualities, reh ing
upon cheap production, good material, and honest workmanship,
to find a profitable market for her manufactures. She was the
first to challenge the world to a comparison of industrial products,
and in 1851 held the first Universal Exhibition at London. The
result every one knows. As to products involving taste, that n liich
adds so much to market value, she found herseif far below hei
European rivals, and above the United States alone. Pro fit ing
b}- her unexpected and humiliating defeat, she at once abandoned
her old educational policy, which was based maiul} - upon the let-
alone principle, and went vigorously at work in the faith that
instruction in art, as applied to industry, could be reduced to
rational methods, could be treated according to recognized educa
tional principles, and so need not longer be left to the fnney of
each individual, nor to the blind caprice of the hour. Therc was
formed in the Privy Council a new section, under the name of
“ Science and Art Department,” which has, for its special object,
the populär dissemination of a knowledge of science and art
as applied to industry. Thus far the department has more espe-
cially devoted itself to the advancement of drawing and the arts
of design. In 1852 the South Kensington Museum, which
receives an annual grant from the government of about live hun
dred thousand dollars, was founded in London at an original cost
of some six millions of dollars. Besides giving general instruc
tion in fine and industrial art, and sending out numerous travel-
ling collections of art objects for local Service, this school pro-
vides special training, free of cost, to tliose whom the government