Page 73

Institutions: Mr. T. M. Gibson's Report on the Sehool of Design. 73 
rnstftutfons. 
REPORTS OF THE COMMONS' COMMITTEE ON THE SCHOOL OF DESIGN.-m-rn REPORT 
PROPOSED BY THE CHAIRMAN, THE RIGHT HON. MILNER GIBSON. 
(Continued from page 42.) 
Buperintendence ofArtists over Artists. 
BEFoRE Your Committee proceed to 
investigate how the numerous duties 
before recited have been carried out, they 
will notice an objection taken by most of 
the witnesses to the constitution of the 
Committee of Management, which is 
alleged to have affected materially the 
good working of the school. The ad- 
dition of artists to a committee, which is 
Virtually the Board of Trade itself, is 
held by all the witnesses except the two 
members of the committee themselves, 
to be a radical defect in the constitution 
of the committee, and to have been the 
cause of inefficiency and discord, espe- 
cially in the London School. Whether 
these artists be considered as a separate 
body, charged with the superintendence 
of the instruction, or whether they are 
merely advisers among the general com- 
mittee, it is obvious that the conduct 
and superintendence of the instruction 
must be regarded as virtually regulated 
by them, or their presence on the com- 
mittee can have no object     Mr. Dyce 
says (Ev. 824), " The general impression 
is, that these professional gentlemen are 
the authority that presides over the 
school." They are the governing body. 
They are responsible for the manage- 
ment of the schools, while their re- 
sponsibility is in fact removed by their 
being identified with the Board of Trade. 
"Practically their management is with- 
out responsibility." (829.)  "It seems 
(825) to me to bring back the old sys- 
tem with all its evils; the old system 
being to have a director who stood be- 
tween the council and those who were 
practically engaged in teaching in the 
school." "Is it your opinion that, con- 
stituted as the committee now is, it will 
not work successfully?-I have already 
said that I resigned because I thought 
the system was impracticable." 
Mr. Cole contends that there is a 
fallacy in having artists at all on the 
Committee of Management.       He says 
(Report, dated December 29th, 1848, 
Appendix) : "It always militates against 
successful action in any business to 
charge two agencies with doing practi- 
cally the same thing. It even does so 
when the work to be done is clear and 
well defined; but when the work is of a 
somewhat experimental sort, when there 
exists no complete agreement either as 
to the thing to be done or the mode of 
VOL. I1. 
doing it, as is and has always been the 
case with the School of Design, the cer- 
tain results are failure. To invent and 
carry out to fruition a course of instru- 
tion in a department so new in this 
country as that of teaching ornamental 
art, can only be accomplished by those 
who make the work their first considera- 
tion, and are constantly engaged in it. 
It is a subject for daily watching, not a 
subject to theorise about and make 
rules for doing, but to do, and afterwards 
make rules if they are wanted.    It is 
obvious that the Committee of Instruc- 
tion cannot and will not themselves 
attempt to carry into practice the dog- 
mas of instruction they propound, or if 
they do they become, in fact, the masters. 
The committee can only theorise and 
make rules, and they must necessarily 
do so upon less experience than the 
masters possess whom they are ap- 
pointed to direct. This plan seems sef- 
evidently unworkable, even if the artists 
of the Committee of Instruction were 
as well informed of the actual state of 
the school in all respects as the head 
masters. When the Board of Trade 
selected masters for the School of Design 
from members of the Royal Academy, 
it became morally impossible to find 
other artists to place over them who 
should be recognised as superiors, even 
if all the superintendents themselves had 
been members of the Royal Academy, 
which they are not. Moreover, as re- 
spects ornamental design, the special 
object of the school, I would add that 
the head masters of the school have all 
distinguished themselves by some dis- 
play of knowledge and practical ability in 
ornamental art; whilst their appointed 
superiors, the Committee of Instruction, 
have given no public sign of having 
turned their attention to the subject." 
Mr. Dyce remarks (822), " That mas- 
ters who are constantly engaged in the 
school must have more experience than 
the members of the committee, however 
intelligent they may be generally, of the 
working of the school." 
Mr. Horsley, formerly head master of 
the class of colour, agrees in these views ; 
he says that the artists on the Committee 
of Management do not "possess a greater 
amount of aggregate professional inform- 
ation than the masters of the school, who, 
being in constant attendance upon it, 
must know more of what the school is 
doing" than the artists on the committee. 
L