SCIENCE AND ART, DEPARTMENT OF. This department of the Committee of Privy Council on Education owes its origin to the suggestions contained in the Second Report of the Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1951. After raging the necessity of the industrial classes of this country receiving more systematic instruction in science and art in order to enable them to maintain their pre-eminence in the neutral markets of the world, the Commissioners impressed on the government the advantages which would result from bringing the various institutions connected with Science and Art that were supported by the public funds, into close connection with each other, instead of leis remaining under different departments of the government. The government took a favourable view of the suggestion • and, as a part A the "comprehensive scheme for the advancement of the fine arts and of practical science," announced from the throne at the opening of the session of 1852-53, the Lords of the Treasury. in March, 1853, gave their formal concurrence to the proposed arrangement of the Privy Council to "unite in one department, under the Board of Trade, with the Departments of Practical Art and Science, the kindred and analogous institutions of the Government School of Mines and Science, the Museum of Practical Geology, the Geological Survey, the Museum • Irish Industry, and the Royal Dublin Society, all of which are in part supported by parliamentary grants;" and, the Treasury minute proceeds, "my Lords have given directions that the estimates for all these insti tutions shall be brought together under the general head of 'Board of Trade Department of Science and Art.'" The immediate purpose of this amalgamation, it was declared, was to bring the whole of these institutions under one common superintendence, to establish a Central Metropolitan School of Practical Science as well as of Art, and to en courage and extend the formation of minor local institutions which should be in connection with, and assisted by, the central institutions, but as far as possible self-supporting and under the management of the local authorities.
As was said the institutions thus brought together under one department, were all in part supported by parliamentary grants. 8111119 voted for each in the year previous to the amalgamation were : Government School of Nines and Science, 800l.; Museum of Practical
Geology, 5272/. ; Geological Survey, 5500/. ; Museum of Irish Industry, 3343/. ; Royal Dublin Society, 6340/. • Department of Practical Art, • including the provincial Schools of Design, 17,920/. ; in all, 39,181/. : but the sum, actually granted was 41,586/. ; additions having been sanctioned of 150/. to the School of Mines, and 2255/. to the Depart ment of Practical Art.
Of these institutions the character may be briefly indicated. The Government School of Mines and of Science applied to the Arts was founded in 1851, in consequence of memorials addressed to government by the mining districts of the United Kingdom, in which it was shown that the schools for the instruction of persons engaged in mining pursuits by various Continental governments had much increased the economy, efficiency, and safety of mining operations in the countries in which they had been established, and that the want of similar schools had long been felt in the mining districts of this kingdom. The Government School of Mines was accordingly opened iu connection with the Museum of Practical Geology in 1851. It is now merged in the Metropolitan School of Science applied to Mining and the Arts, which forms one of the two great branches of the department which is the subject of this article. The Museum of Practical Geology, which will be noticed more fully presently, was in 1850 removed to the building erected for its reception in Jermyn Street, St. James's. Ever since the establishment of the Museum, the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom has been carried on in connection with it. To these institutions we may add the Royal Collegb of Chemistry, founded iu . 1845, it having been, in 1853, ihnsferrecl to the Department of Science and Art, The Department of Practical Art was a development, or rather reconstitution, of the central Schools of Design, originally founded in 1837, in accordance with the recommendations of a committee of the House of Commons. The Department of Practical Art was created but a short time before its amalgamation with the other institutions in the Department of Science and Art, and before it had come into full operation as a separate institution.