On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2). Ruskin John

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СКАЧАТЬ that it will not produce the improvement which you desire?—Far from it—I understood the Dean of St. Paul's to ask me whether any general effect had been produced upon the minds of the public. I have only been teaching a class of about forty workmen for a couple of years, after their work—they not always attending—and that forty being composed of people passing away and coming again; and I do not know what they are now doing; I only see a gradual succession of men in my own class. I rather take them in an elementary class, and pass them to a master in a higher class. But I have the greatest delight in the progress which these men have made, so far as I have seen it; and I have not the least doubt that great things will be done with respect to them.

      Chairman. Will you state precisely what position you hold?—I am master of the Elementary and Landscape School of Drawing at the Working Men's College in Great Ormond Street. My efforts are directed not to making a carpenter an artist, but to making him happier as a carpenter.

      Note.—The following analysis of the above evidence was given in the Index to the Report (p. 184).—Ed.

      114-5-6. Sculpture and painting should be combined under same roof, not in same room.—Sculpture disciplines the eye to appreciate painting.—But, if in same room, disturbs the mind.—Tribune at Florence arranged too much for show—Sculpture not to be regarded as decorative of a room.—National Gallery should include works of all kinds of art of all ages, arranged chronologically (cf. 132). Mediæval sculpture should go with painting, if it is found impossible to combine art of all ages.

      117-8. Pictures should be protected by glass in every case. It makes them more beautiful, independently of the preservation,—Glass is not merely expedient, but essential.—Pictures are permanently injured by dirt.

      119-20-21. First-rate large pictures should have a room to themselves, and a gallery round them.—Pictures must be hung on a line with the eye.—In one, or at most two, lines.—In the Salon Carre at the Louvre the effect is magnificent, but details of pictures cannot be seen.

      122. Galleries should be decorated not splendidly, but pleasantly.

      123. Great importance of chronological arrangement. Art the truest history (cf. 125 and 132).

      124. Best works of inferior artists to be secured.

      125. All the works of a painter, however incongruous their subjects, to be exhibited in juxtaposition.

      126. Love of detail in pictures among workmen.—Great refinement of their perceptions.

      127. Accessibility of new National Gallery.

      128. There should be two galleries—one containing gems, placed in as safe a position as possible; the other containing works good, but inferior to the highest, and located solely with a view to accessibility.

      129. Impossible to protect sculpture from London atmosphere.

      130. Inferior gallery would be useful as an instructor.—In this respect superior to the great gallery.

      131-32. Copies of paintings much to be deprecated.

      133. Good collection of casts a valuable addition to a national gallery.—Also architectural fragments and illustrations.—And everything which involves art.

      134. If it is impossible to combine works of art of all ages, the Pagan and Christian division is the best.—"Christian" art including all art subsequent to the birth of Christ.

      135. Great importance of arranging and setting off sculpture.

      136. Recent purchase by Government of the great Paul Veronese.

      137. "Restoring" abroad.

      138. Witness is Master of the Elementary and Landscape School of Drawing at the Working Men's College in Great Ormond Street.—Progress made by students highly satisfactory.

      SELECT COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.2

Evidence of John Ruskin, Tuesday, March 20, 1860

      139. Chairman. I believe you have a general acquaintance with the leading museums, picture galleries, and institutions in this metropolis?—Yes, I know them well.

      And especially the pictures?—Yes.

      I believe you have also taken much interest in the Working Men's College?—Yes, much interest. I have been occupied there as a master for about five years.

      I believe you conduct a class on two days in the week?—On one day of the week only.

      You have given a great deal of gratuitous instruction to the working classes?—Not so much to the working classes as to the class which especially attends the lectures on drawing, but which of course is connected with the working classes, and through which I know something about them.

      140. You are probably able to speak with reference to the hours at which it would be most convenient that these institutions should be opened to the working classes, so that they might enjoy them?—At all events, I can form some opinion about it.

      What are the hours which you think would be the most suitable to the working classes, or those to whom you have imparted instruction?—They would, of course, have in general no hours but in the evening.

      Do you think the hours which are now found suitable for mechanics' institutes would be suitable for them, that is, from eight till ten, or from seven till ten at night?—The earlier the better, I should think; that being dependent closely upon the other much more important question, how you can prepare the workmen for taking advantage of these institutions. The question before us, as a nation, is not, I think, what opportunities we shall give to the workmen of instruction, unless we enable them to receive it; and all this is connected closely, in my mind, with the early closing question, and with the more difficult question, issuing out of that, how far you can get the hours of labor regulated, and how far you can get the labor during those hours made not competitive, and not oppressive to the workmen.

      141. Have you found that the instruction which you have been enabled to give to the working classes has produced very good results upon them already? I ought perhaps hardly to speak of my own particular modes of instruction, because their tendency is rather to lead the workman out of his class, and I am privately obliged to impress upon my men who come to the Working Men's College, not to learn in the hope of being anything but working men, but to learn what may be either advantageous for them in their work, or make them happy after their work. In my class, they are especially tempted to think of rising above their own rank, and becoming artists,—becoming something better than workmen, and that effect I particularly dread. I want all efforts for bettering the workmen to be especially directed in this way: supposing that they are to remain in this position forever, that they have not capacity to rise above it, and that they are to work as coal miners, or as iron forgers, staying as they are; how then you may make them happier and wiser?

      I should suppose you would admit that the desire to rise out of a class is almost inseparable from the amount of self-improvement that you would wish to give them?—I should think not; I think that the moment a man desires to rise out of his own class, he does his work badly in it; he ought to desire to rise in his own class, and not out of it.

      The instruction which you would impart one would suppose would be beneficial to the laborer in the class which he is in?—Yes.

      142. And that agrees, does it not, with what has been alleged by many working men, that they have found in their competition with foreigners СКАЧАТЬ