Studio: international art (2.1894)

The Birmingham Municipal School of Art

all public elementary schools within the city ; in the value and pros-
evening classes at the Central School, twenty-six free perity of the
admissioners under the ' Middlemore ' bequest and manufactures
six ' John Henry Chamberlain' scholars; the fol- of the district."
lowing free admissioners and scholars, under the Statistics,
scheme provided by the late Miss Ryland, namely: however, are
Forty free admissioners to the Branch Schools, dull reading,
seventy to evening classes at the Central School, and in place
and fourteen scholarships, with free admission to of further quo-
the Central School, of a total annual value of tations, the list
^170; and one scholarship, with free admission of honours Bir-
to the Central School for three years, given by mingham has
Messrs. Richard and George Tangye, in memory of taken may be
the late John Skirrow Wright, and of the total left to prove
monetary value of^iSo. that its routine
" It will be thus seen that all the rate-aided Art work is well ac-
instruction within the city controlled by the com- complished. an initial by Florence rudland
mitteee has not only a great educational influence The matter

upon the city, but has a direct bearing upon the which is of more than local interest is the vitality

the School shows in studying the applied

Arts. In metal-work, jewellery, enamels,
book illustration and designs for manu-
factures generally, we are face to face
with the original motive of the whole
South Kensington scheme, which was
founded undoubtedly not so much to
create a rival to the Academy, the Slade,
or private schools of Painting and Sculp-
ture, but to raise the general level of
commercial design, and send out capa-
ble artisans and craftsmen to infuse once
again into English goods the beauty they
most certainly possessed in the past. A
nation is hardly re-awakened to beauty in
one generation, but the time that should
be allowed for such an experience—the
questions, whether design can be taught,
and whether the power of invention can
be implanted in those who had it not—
although of great importance, cannot be
touched upon here. Many people be-
lieve that you can no more teach designs
than you can teach poetry. The rules
of drawing, the trick of correct versifica-
tion, may be imparted to one who lacks
the original motive power ; but the in-
stinct which shapes dead forms to living
ornament or rearranges worn out words
to new and living poems must be from
within. Hence to expect to reap a
yearly harvest of designers from any Art
School were as foolish as to expect a
regular crop of poets turned out yearly
from Oxford or Cambridge. If, how-
ever, you are satisfied with a lower order
of artists, and are willing to admit that
the taste derived from the study of good
precedents, the knowledge of the right
way to construct patterns and a certain
conventional sense of fitness in decora-
tion are worth cultivating, if only that
the chance genius who falls within the
scheme shall thereby receive careful
training, then the problem comes into
from a pen-drawing by e. h. new everyday reach, and in Birmingham we

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