|
|
 |
Moving on parallel
lines with public libraries are art galleries, science schools, and
technical institutions. Never in the history of the country has there
been a time when it was more necessary to foster, by public help,
the industrial arts and sciences than now. This is not a mere matter
of opinion, but one of certain and commanding importance. Paramount
circumstances ask, with united voice, that augmented educational facilities
should be placed within the reach of citizens. The strong and well-equipped
nation will win in industrial competitions, and its strength and fitness
will mainly depend on the quantity and quality of the education received
and utilised. |
| The
first requisite is the best reachable economic methods of production,
and the second is a careful use of the products realised. We have
in many ways been following slowly when and where we should have led.
Up to within the last few years it has been more difficult to get
from Parliament a shilling for education than a pound for the Army
or Navy. We spent more national treasure-or, rather, wasted it-in
the ill-conceived and blunderingly-executed war to crush the Boers
than was voted by Parliament for educational purposes during the whole
of the last century! We must now improve our ways and quicken our
pace, or lose national vantage-ground. Animated with this conviction,
I have, for many years last past, endeavoured to multiply agencies
for the extension and application of the arts and sciences; and to
that end I have provided the Art Gallery for the Newlyn Colony of
Artists; the Technical Institute, Hayle; a similar institution at
Helston ; the Art Gallery, Camberwell; the Central Technical Schools
for Cornwall, Truro; and mainly the Art Gallery, Whitechapel, and
the Camberwell Polytechnic. |
|
