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tion of the statiscal tables of the naturalist. As a rule, it may be assumed that the naturalist with limited materials, and therefore without the transition-forms between dissimilar individuals, is apt to magnify the number of species, while he who has large numbers of individuals from a great extent of country is compelled to admit a wider range of specific variation, and consequently a reduction of the number of species. Nevertheless, definite statistics respecting numbers of species ought to be available, and the difficulty alluded to would not be apt to recur often except in the largest museums. We are, indeed, obliged to accept one of two alternatives in the appreciation of the returns, viz:

First. The size of a museum is in excess of the power of management, and the working power is therefore too small; or,

Secondly. The scope of the museum or curriculum is beyond the capability of the administrative power, and therefore the educational appliances are, to a greater or less degree, inefficient or useless.

How many species of fossils are arranged in systematic order, (i. e., according to structure?)

How many species of fossils are arranged in chronological order, (i. e., according to stratigraphical distribution ?)

How many bottles of alcoholic specimens are in museum ?

How many species are in alcohol?

How many species are in skins, unmounted?

How many species are in skins, mounted?

How many species are anatomical preparations?

Partienlarize under following heads, giving first the number of species, then the number of specimens, thus: 808 | 4014, (i. e., 808 species, 4014 specimens.)

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A collection of a few hundred or even thousand specimens can scarcely be considered a formidable number, and as such small collections are generally obtained from a restricted geographical area, the difficulties referred to in respect to the appreciation of species would be rarely encountered; the statistics concerning such collections should, therefore, under proper management, be definite and precise; and such are the returns from several of the reporting institutions. In respect to the value of the collections generally, however, the superintendents are allowed to speak for themselves.

But one thing cannot be too much insisted upon, and that is that an undetermined collection is comparatively valueless for educational purposes and greatly inferior to a much smaller well-named collection, and that a collection respecting which only the numbers of specimens can be returned cannot belong to the latter category, and must therefore have comparatively little value, the value in great part being expressed by the correctness of the classification. Perhaps no more apt illustrations of the two classes of collections thus referred to-that is, the unarranged and the arranged-can be cited than two contrasted by the juxtaposition as establishments in the same city, viz, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the Wagner Free Institute of Science. In the one case we have definite figures for species as well as specimens, (at least so far as regards the more comprehensive groups,) while in the other we have only the statements that there is "a large number" or a large collection;" and, where definite numbers are supplied, as in the case of the mollusks, the discrepaucies in the returns on different pages-e. g., 40,000 specimens on one and 250,000 on the

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Have any catalogues of collections been published? And, if so, what ?*

Is a library attached to the museum?

To what classes of books is it restricted?

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N. B.-The classification adopted is not intended to be an expression of natural relations, but is only used because of its convenience from a conventional point of view.

*Please specify the publications as fully as possible, giving exact transcripts of title-pages.

other-throw doubts on the reliability of the figures; and, accepting either, we have a contrast between the collection and that of the academy, (which latter returns 76,479 specimens, exclusive of duplicates, representing 14,161 nominal species.) Here, notwithstanding the larger number of specimens returned by the institute, the collection is of slight value compared with that of the academy. When, indeed, it is remembered that specimens may be readily obtained by the thousands, as in the case of oysters, clams, unionidæ, fresh-water univalves, &c., it must be evident that more definite information than as to the numbers of specimens must be given before we have the elements for the estimation of the value of any collection.

THE RELATION OF ART TO EDUCATION.*

In my report for 1870 an attempt was made to collect from those best qualified to judge evidence as to the influence of such knowledge as can be acquired by the pupils in the public schools of the country upon their value as workmen in every kind of productive industry. The replies to the questions addressed to workmen, employers, and competent observers are full of interest in themselves and significant in the almost unanimous expression of the opinion that every advance in learning gives corresponding advantage to the laborer; the testimony being that a mere knowledge of the rudiments adds 25 per cent. to the earning capacity of the individual.

In the rapidly-changing circumstances of the present age the competition between the producers of the world grows ever more intense and demands watchfulness and energy on the part of every country, unless it is willing to fall behind in progress and in power. In addition to this fact a new complication has arisen, owing to the abandonment of the old system of apprenticeship, by which young persons were trained to become skillful workmen, and from the opposition of trades-unions to the training of youth in their various occupations, so that it has become almost impossible to procure for children such industrial training as will make them skillful artisans.

In consequence of these difficulties in the way of parents securing for their children training in remunerative labor, it is felt that the public schools must give instruction that will fit the children for work; that something more and other than the present training is now necessary. Special schools of training for special professions and industries will doubtless be provided as the need arises, but the great bulk of the population is to be trained for usefulness in the public schools of the country; and the obvious duty of those in whose charge these schools are placed is to devise a plan by which, during the few years of average attendance, the pupils may be so trained as to be best prepared for the duties of life. It is found that merely to read, to write, and to cipher does not do this. Indispensable as this preliminary is to the acquisition of other knowledge, something more is requisite, if, as a manufacturing and commercial people, we are to hold our own among the nations. In addition to the increased competition arising from steam-carriage, new and cheaper methods of manufacture, and increased productiveness, another element of value has rapidly pervaded all manufactures, an element in which the United States has been and is wofully deficient: the art-element. The element of beauty is found to have pecuniary as well as esthetic value. The training of the hand and eye which is given by drawing is found to be of the greatest advantage to the worker in nearly every branch of industry. Whatever trade may be chosen, knowledge of drawing is an advantage and in many occupations is rapidly becoming indispensable.

While the United States lack many things that give to the nations of Europe great advantage in art-culture, they possess, on the other hand, in their system of free public schools admirable facilities for the speedy, general, and efficient introduction of any desirable system of training.

Drawing easily taught in public schools. As to the difficulty of acquiring a knowledge of drawing, "whoever," says a competent authority, "can learn to write can learn to draw;" and it has been shown that the teachers of the public schools are very readily qualified to teach the first lessons in drawing. This training is of value to all the chil

*For statistics of museums of archæology and art, see Table XVIII of the appendix.

dren and offers to girls as well as to boys opportunity for useful and remunerative occupation, for drawing in the public schools is not to be taught as a mere accomplishment: the end sought is not to enable the scholar to draw a pretty picture, but to so train the hand and eye that he may be better fitted to become a bread-winner.

As to the importance of the study, the French imperial commission, in its summary of the inquiry on professional education, says: "Among all the branches of instruction which, in different degrees from the highest to the lowest grade, can contribute to the technical education of either sex, drawing, in all its forms and applications, has been almost unanimously regarded as the one which it is most important to make common."

In Great Britain and in the leading countries of the Continent the governments are making strenuous efforts to train their citizens in all those kinds of knowledge which will make them more skillful artisans and add to the value of their productions. The contests between nations have become largely industrial, and while the commerce and trade of the world are the prize for which they contend, the great international industrial exhibitions are the arenas in which they measure their progress and note their deficiencies. It may be worth our while to observe the methods by which they seek to remedy these deficiencies and to judge of their value by recorded results. The effect of the first world's fair, held at London, in 1851, was to satisfy the English manufacturers and people that, in all that related to the application of art, of beauty to manufactures, they were completely distanced; only one nation, the United States, among the civilized nations being below England in this respect.

Technical art-schools in Great Britain.-"The first result of this discovery was the establishment of schools of art in every large town. At the Paris Exposition of 1867 England stood among the foremost and in some branches of manufacture distanced the most artistic nations. It was the school of art and the great collection of works of industrial art at the South Kensington Museum that accomplished this result. The United States still held her place at the foot of the column."-(Papers on Drawing, by Prof. Ware, of the Boston Institute of Technology.)

At the English International Exhibition of 1862 the enormons strides which art-education had made in England since the previous great exhibition of 1851, and which was reflected in every object of industrial art, set the French manufacturers at work inquiring the cause, fearful that their own industrial-art-supremacy was endangered. A French commission was at once sent over to find out how it had been done, and the city of Paris, upon the report of the commission, began at once to reorganize the municipal art-schools by adopting many of the features of the South Kensington Museum and Training School for Art-Masters.

European nations competing in establishment of art-schools.-The French imperial commission in 1865, in their report, after proposing oral lectures for the instruction of apprentices and workingmen, say that " drawing, with all its applications to the different industrial arts, should be considered as the principal means to be employed in technical instruction." To the fact that drawing has been heretofore so generalry taught in France, they attribute the superiority of a large portion of the manufactures of the country. Referring to the efforts made by England, and to the Art-Museum at South Kensington, they say:

By the extent of the resources placed at the disposal of this special and new department, created for the purpose of enabling English industry to compete with ours, an opinion may be formed of the importance rightly attributed in England to the participation of the art of design in all industrial productions.

They also report upon the condition of technical education on the continent. They find that drawing is generally taught in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Bavaria, and Würtemberg. As showing the extraordinary attention given to drawing in this small kingdom, they remark:

There have been established in the kingdom of Würtemberg more than four hundred drawing-schools; and this organization, which does not date back more than ten years, has already led to very decided improvement in the manufactures of the country.

Our facilities for art-training.—While in the countries of Europe whatever relates

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to the people in education, as in other matters, is under the control and general direction of the central government, so that what the central power decides to do is readily and immediately set in motion throughout the entire country, in the United States there is wisely no such central control. This power inheres to the States and to the local communities within the States. This very circumstance, though somewhat, it may be, delaying the adoption of useful measures, yet renders the wise adaptation of training to the peculiar industries and needs of the various parts of the country far more probable. It is readily seen that the kind of special technical training would vary as it was applicable to a manufacturing, a mechanical, a farming, or a mining community. Indeed, this has already been exemplified in a marked degree in the different developments of the schools of science in the several States, adapting themselves, in their chief courses of instruction, to the industrial demands of their localities. So we may hope to have, in the art-future of this country, as have the different European countries, art-capitals famous for their peculiar developments.

Why public schools should teach drawing.-Now, drawing is the very alphabet of art, (for art is but a language,) the one essential requisite preliminary to any artistic or technical training; and if it is desirable that the children of the public schools shall be fitted to become, if they wish it, skilled workmen in any branch of industry, it is necessary that they shall be taught to draw correctly. To those to whom art means higher things, as they suppose, than its application to every-day-utensils and mere manufactures-who look for grand galleries of pictures and statues and to all the higher refinements of cultured art-it may be a suggestive reflection that among a people ignorant of drawing, and whose daily surroundings, as is true of the American people, afford few suggestions of art in any of its forms, high art must ever remain an exotic and native artists be rarer than the fabled phoenix. Great collections, museums, art-galleries, much as they may contribute to the self-satisfaction of cliques and cities, will be of the slightest possible value and barren of results, either upon the industries of the people or their art-culture, so long as drawing is not generally understood.

Whoever succeeds in having all the public-school-children of the country properly trained in elementary drawing will have done more to advance the manufactures of the country, and more to make possible the art-culture of the people, than could be accomplished by the establishment of a hundred art-museums without this training. Just as libraries are worthless to those who cannot read, so are art-galleries to those who cannot comprehend them. Just as all literature is open to him who has learned to read, so is all art to him who has learned to draw, whose eye has been trained to see, and his fingers made facile to execute.

We have begun at the wrong end. We asked for art-galleries, when we needed drawing-schools; but the evil is not irremediable. Let drawing be generally taught, and our art-galleries and museums, poor as they are, will at once grow more and more valuable, for they will then begin to be of use.

Already many cities and towns have awakened to the necessity of some art-training, and some teaching of drawing has been attempted in the public schools so that several of the cities sent specimens of the drawing of their public-school-children to be exhibited at Vienna, and these attracted much attention from foreign observers, as, in fact, did everything relating to our system of public free education.

Drawing taught in the schools of Massachusetts.-The legislature of Massachusetts passed an act in 1870 making drawing one of the studies of the public schools and also making the establishment of free drawing-classes for adults obligatory upon all towns and cities containing over ten thousand inhabitants. In pursuance of this law, Mr. Walter Smith, art-master, London, late head master of the Leeds School of Art and Science and Training School for Art-Teachers, was invited both by the city of Boston and by the State of Massachusetts to come from England and introduce the new study into the schools of the city and of the Commonwealth. He was appointed Statedirector of art-education, and has been unremitting in his efforts to introduce drawing

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