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108 Original Papers: Drawing Schools and Mechanics' Insttiaons. 
"The establishment of Schools of Design has not caused the drawing 
classes of Mechanics' Institutions to be deserted; first, because Schools
of 
Design   are as few   compared    with  the number of Mechanics' Institu-
tions; secondly, because the fees to the former, moderate as they are, 
usually exceed those of provincial Mechanics' Institutions, in which juniors
rarely pay more than five shillings a-year, and if there is any additional
fee 
to the drawing class, it very seldom exceeds one shilling a quarter; and,
thirdly, that on the surface the School of Design does not appear to the
young aspirant, unless having pattern-drawing directly in view, to be the
estab- 
lishment for the satisfaction of his wishes. It will generally be found that
where there is a drawing class in a Mechanics' Institution, it is rather
a 
favourite resort of the young members ; and I am convinced that if some good
plan could be devised for conducting pupils through the rudimentary discipline
of the hand and eye in Mechanics' Institutions, they might be made most 
valuable instruments in the art-training of the people. 
"In the London Mechanics' Institution, so much, and in many cases so
unjustly decried, the art, and the science too, of drawing have been cultivated
with much diligence and profit to the pupils for upwards of twenty years.
To 
begin at that which should form the basis of all designing and composition,
linear or geometric drawing and perspective, I believe there has rarely been
a 
period in the career of that institution during which there have been less
than 
from forty to fifty young men studying practical geometry, taught in a sort
of 
lecture lesson from the black board, every diagram being copied by the pupils,
step by step, from the master's production. In many instances the teacher
of 
this class has been previously its most attentive pupil ; its course has
included 
the mode of constructing all the ordinary geometrical figures based on the
division and combinations of the circle, and the modes of generating the
conic 
curves, various practical applications to mouldings being pointed out by
the 
way. The outlines of perspective have also been usually comprised in the
course 
"Most of the pupils of this class being joiners, plasterers, house-painters,
smiths, engineers, carvers, &c., they usually continued their studies
in the 
architectural and mechanical drawing class: here the teacher having ascer-
tained the occupation or wants of the several pupils, placed in their hands
drawings to copy consisting of plans of buildings, elevations, staircases,
&c., 
details of architectural ornament, or portions of machinery if that were
the 
branch of the art desiderated. The pupil worked both at the class and at
home, but did little more than imitate the copy, and only elicited any prin-
ciples by catechising the teacher; however, as a good portion of these pupils
were in earnest about their work and had generally gone through the geo-
metrical course, besides eagerly reading Peter Nicholson's works and others
of 
a like description, many most respectable architectural draughtsmen acquired
the elements of their art in this class; and if inquiry were made among the
large builders in London, it would be found that very many of their clerks
of works and cleverest foremen had been pupils of the London Mechanics' 
Institution's drawing classes. So much for the exact or line-and-rule branch
of the graphic art as taught in these classes. 
"Great facilities have also been offered for the study of figure drawing,
and 
a fine series of dissections of the muscles of the human body, drawn by Lance,
and presented to the Institution by the late Mr. Haydon, have been turned
to 
good account; indeed, the class for the study of the figure has for many
years 
been one of high standing in this Institution, and has included drawing from
casts as well as from fiat copies. Recently a more ambitious effort has been
made in the formation of a class for studying from the living model. 
"There has also been for sixteen or seventeen years a landscape-drawing
class, which has usually been very popular. Modelling, the teachig of which
was commenced in the infancy of the Society by Maurice Garvey, has, with
occasional intermission, been taught to the present time, and I have seen
many specimens of much delicacy of execution produced by the pupils of this
class.