The Metropolitan School of Science enjoys rare advantages from the ready aeeess which the students have to the treasures accumulated in the museum at Jermyn Street. These consist of the extensive and admirably arranged collections formed during the progrets of the geological survey of the United Kingdom," illustrative of the structure of the British islands, and of the applications of geology to the useful purposes of life," under the able directors and indefatigable staff of the survey. To these have been added a numerous selection of models of mines, mining tools, and working models of mining machinery ; of tools, and models, and specimens of machinery for general purposes; of historical specimens of manufactures in glass, earthenware, and the metals; and of foreign and colonial mineral productions. Many of the xpecimens are of great rarity and beauty, but their main interest lies in their technical or scientific value, and the whole are carefully classified and conveniently arranged. The museum is open gratuitously to the public during five days of the week. In 1S59 it was visited by 25,309 persons.
The maps and sections of the geological survey, and a large collection of plans and sections of mines, &c., belonging to the Mining Record Office, are deposited in the building in Jermyn Street. The chemical laboratories are those of the Royal College of Chemistry in Oxford Street, which, as already mentioned, became in 1854 the property of the Government.
In connection with the Metropolitan School of Science, special schools of science, or classes for instruction in science, have been established since 1853 in several of the large manufacturing, mining, and pottery towns. These schools, in accordance with the principle laid down by the government on the formation of the Department of Science and Art, are in a great measure self-supporting, the Depart ment exercising a certaiu amount of control, and, in return, affording a limited pecuniary aid to certified masters of the schools. Certificates are also granted by the Science Inspectors to any teachers who pass a satisfactory examination in-1, practical and descriptive geometry, with mechanical and machine drawing ; 2, physics, mechanical and experi mental ; 3, chemistry ; 4, geology ; 5, natural history : and those who are successful "receive certificate allowances of 201., 15/., or 10/., in each, while engaged in teaching." Navigation Schools have also been established in connection with the Department. They are intended to afford instruction to officers of the mercantile marine on the subjects of their examination for certificates of the Board of Trade, and similar instruction to youth about to enter on a seafaring life. Besides three in London, Navigation Schools have been opened in nine of the principal outports, and they seem on the whole to have met with a fair amount of success. In 1859 there were 2490 students in the Navigation Schools.
The Art Schools are of older date than the Schools of Science, and, appealing to a wider circle, have almost necessarily made greater numerical progress. no Art branch of the Department has, as we have already said, its head-quarters at South Kensington, on the estate purchased by the Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851, and is a development or reorganisation of the old Schools of Design. As at present organised, the special objects of the Art section of the Depart ment are in the words of the official programme—" 1. To train male
and female teachers to give instruction in Art, to certify them when qualified, and to make them annual fixed payments, varying according to their acquirements. 2. To aid and assist committees in the pro vinces desirous of establishing Schools of Art. 3. To hold public inspections and examinations, and to award medals and prizes to the most deserving candidates. 4. To collect together works of art, pictures, &c., in the central Museum, and books and engravings in the central Library. 5. To circulate among the Schools of Art objects from the Museum, and books and engravings from the Library." The buildings at South Kensington include the offices of the Depart ment, the Training School for Masters and Mistresses, the Normal Central School of Art, the Art Library, and the Museum.
" The Training School has for its special object the education of Art-teachers, male and female, but it also aids in supplying certificated Art-masters or mistresses to teach drawing to schools in connection with the Committee of Council on Education. The course of studies embraces, besides all the ordinary branches of Art-Education, instruc tion in various direct applications of Art-power to mechanical and manufacturing industry. It comprehends the following subjects :— Free-hand, architectural, and mechanical drawing ; practical geometry and perspective; painting in oil, tempera, and water-colours; and modelling, moulding, and casting. These classes include architectural and other ornaments, flowers, landscape, objects of still-life, &c., the figure from the 'antique and the life, and the study of anatomy as applicable to Art ; and some technical studies, such as enamel paint ing, and drawing and engraving on wood. The students have full access to the Museum and Library, either for consultation or copying, as well as to all the public lectures of the Department. Special classes are arranged iu order to qualify schoolmasters and schoolmistresses of parochial and other schools to teach elementary drawing as a part of general education." In connection with the Central School of Art there are nine Metropo litan District Schools, and one school fur female students only. The provincial Schools of Art have increased greatly MI number since the formation of the Department. These schools aro, like the Schools of Science, in the main self-supporting, but the Department assists in paying the certified teachers, and in various ways aids in providing the school materials, and in rendering assistance to the institution. They are now in all eighty-six in number ; and at the last return they were the means of affording instruction in drawing and painting to above 84,000 students—but this number includes, besides students in the art schools, pupils in training colleges, and children in various classes of primary schools "under instruction in drawing," who can hardly iuu fairness be ranked as Art-students. The Department, in fact, now, besides the training which it affords in its central and metropolitan schools, and the special Provincial Schools of Art in connection with it, proffers the services of a certified teacher in drawing to any school or schools, furnishing an aggregate of 500 children for instruction in drawing; and it further offers the aid to such schools of examinations and prizes, at stated periods.
The Museum of the Department at South Kensington will be noticed under SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM.