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Miscellaneous. 
.Aistelancous. 
WOLVERHAMPTON SCHOOL OF DESIGN. 
-The manufacturers of Wolverhampton 
seem intent upon impressing the people 
of their neighbourhood with a sense of 
the value of a good School of Design to 
the great manufacturing district around 
them. At the county meeting held on 
the 15th of December, a committee was 
appointed to take charge of the matter 
in hand, and the first public act does 
credit to the gentlemen composing it. 
They felt the necessity of doing some- 
thing to teach those who were ignorant of 
the subject, and to dispel the apathy which 
always, at first, stands so much in the way 
of the establishment of any new public 
institution of an educational character. 
They determined to have a public lecture 
upon the subject, and it was delivered on 
the 5th of January by Mr. George Wallis, 
the master of the Birmingham School 
of Design.    The lecture was entitled 
"Schools of Design, in relation to Art, 
Manufactures, and General Education," 
and was illustrated by a series of drawings 
illustrative of the historic styles of orna- 
ment: and, moreover, it was very nu- 
merously attended.    Mr. Wallis com- 
menced with a reference to the Great 
Exhibition, and dwelt upon the necessity 
of the establishment of means for the 
art-education of the industrious classes. 
He then gave an exposition of the ele- 
mentary principles of drawing and design, 
and maintained the importance of teach- 
ing drawing in all primary schools, and 
that its practice in certain elementary 
forms should be prior to any attempt to 
teach a child to write. He referred to 
paucity of men of great talent in orna- 
mental as compared with other branches 
of art, as an evidence that while the 
imitative art of drawing was largely 
cultivated, the inventive faculty or design 
had been seriously neglected; and he 
laid great stress upon adaptation as the 
first principle of design. The lecturer 
then described the relations of the art- 
workman, a class of which we have sadly 
too few in this country, but which it was 
a primary duty of Schools of Design to 
furnish us, as well as the draughtsman 
and designer. He observed that com- 
paratively few of our students would 
learn design, in the highest acceptancy 
of the term; that many would become 
useful to themselves and their country 
under the head of draughtsman, but that 
our great aim should be to make as many 
as possible of art-workmen, since fifty 
art-workmen, or perhaps, he might say, 
ten times that number, would be required 
to do all that one thoroughly able de- 
signer could be capable of inventing for 
them. Art, Mr. Wallis maintained, must 
be made a portion of handicraft; and 
inasmuch as we apprenticed our youths 
to learn a trade to those who practised 
it, so Schools of Design were necessary 
for the tuition of these youths in those 
great essentials which he was endeavour. 
ing to impress upon their minds. And 
in conclusion, he urged all present to 
support the committee appointed to carry 
out the plans proposed in the establish- 
ment of a School of Design for Wolver- 
hampton and South Staffordshire, inas- 
much as it would be better to depend 
upon themselves than upon any aid the 
Government could give, since out of their 
own intelligence and proper management 
the true results could alone arise, the 
functions of a government being neces- 
sarily limited in such cases. 
THE LECTURES OF MR. WORNU TO THE 
STUDENTS OF THE BIRMINGHAM SCHOOL 
OF DESIGN.-On the evenings of the 1st 
and 2d of December Mr. Wornum de- 
livered lectures "On the Analysis of Or- 
nament," including within the above title 
the various characteristics and types of 
Egyptian, Grecian, Roman, Byzantine, 
Saracen, Gothic, Renaissance, Cinque- 
Cento, and Louis-Quatorze styles. The 
several varieties  were illustrated  by 
drawings, and the lectures were listened 
to throughout with marked attention by 
the best audiences we have yet seen, 
in so far as they were composed of a few of 
the leading manufacturers and the ma- 
jority of the students attending the 
School. One feature afforded us much 
pleasure, viz., that the lecturer insisted 
upon the necessity of those attending 
the School cultivating their minds by a 
perusal of theliterary treasures which are 
now, thanks to the efforts of enterprising 
publishers, placed within the reach of the 
humblest artisan, and may be found in 
the lending libraries which are or should 
be attached to every school; as also 
making themselves acquainted with all 
forms of natural objects, animate and 
inanimate, not to be slavishly copied 
because they are suggestive. This we 
have long insisted upon as an essential 
element; and we are convinced it will be 
found   as part and parcel wherever 
success has been achieved. Towards the 
conclusion, the lecturer, in passing in 
review the various styles of art, entered 
something very like a protest against the 
Gothic: that it is liable to degenerate 
into a slavish copying of ancient objects,