Note 126 — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, for the year 1827. Part II. ◊

The individual, social, and political importance of making the art of drawing a branch of general education, is a subject which the author can never cease to urge upon the attention of his fellow-countrymen, and of all the civilised world. It is more than ten years since he first endeavoured to lead the public eye to its regard. In England, and with a view to the subsistence of a large and always increasing population, it is an EDUCATION IN THE ARTS which is the great want; and the art of drawing, besides being the assistant of all knowledge whatever, is peculiarly so of all other arts than itself, or of all other works of the hand. A recent Sermon, by the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, preached at Wells, for the benefit of the Diocesan National Schools, bears ample testimony to the deficiency, and even the dangers, to the poor not less than to others, in all the present popular education; and, so far, therefore, to the soundness of the author’s principles, and to the fitness of his remedy. His own design, however, is not only to remedy an evil arising from the present practice, but also to produce an independent good; and, not merely to aid the poor, nor merely to promote the political welfare of this kingdom, but to increase the resources, physical and intellectual, of all classes, and to promote the welfare of the whole world.