The Evening Star FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2755, 15 December 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1871.

The Christinas Examinations at our schools, resemble stock-taking in commercial establishments : we estimate the results of the year’s labor. There is however this difference : the balance of the merchant can be totted up in figures, and, felt in the extension or restriction of trade—it is a question of profit or loss. Educational results can never be correctly estimated : they can scarcely ever be said to result in loss, excepting where positive error has been taught, and the ultimate profit can only be unfolded in eternity. In Otago, there are silent processes going on under our educational arrangements, only disclosed by such results as our school and art exhibitions. Some of these processes are singular instances of the influence for good which a Government can exert in fostering art and science. Eight years since, a school of art might have been established by private enterprise. There were artists of skill and experience resident here, but they -were unknown excepting to a few who themselves were artists, and there seemed to bo no appreciation of the value of drawing. By what singular process the love for imitative art has sprung into vigorous life, we can even hardly realise. The lovely scenery around Dunedin was there ; its mountains and romantic bay, its shady walks, tangled thickets, belts of forest, sandy dunes, bold or rocky foreshore, expanse of ocean, and ever changing clouds. But no one seemed to care to reproduce them as pictures. Scarcely a workman could be found who knew how to make a sti etching frame, or who could fix the canvas properly upon it: not a yard of prepared canvass was to be had at any shop in town ; but very few artists” brushes were purchasable, and a few tubes of colours had been neglected in the drawers of one of our shopkeepers until the oil in which they had been ground had dried : so they were useless. Eight years is but a short time in the history of a city, but it has been sufficient to work a marvellous change. The people who were indifferent to art have learnt to estimate its value. In all ranks of life there are now' students in drawing, and -we are happy to find that in the class to whom a thorough knowledge of it is peculiarly valuable, arc artists, whose free, bold style proves they possess genius as w r ell as trained hands and eyes. Those who have carefully examined the drawings exhibited by Mr Hutton will be struck with the evidence of taste and skill that many of the pictures present. Some of the best pictures are by ladies, who, from their rank in society are in a position to choose their own time, and to work when the light is the the most advantageous. As may be naturally expected, with time, freedom from daily toil, and opportunity of choice in their favor, the coloring will be generally true. We admire these high attainments in art, as evidences of sound and healthy pursuits : we admire them as evidences of cultivation of a taste for the refined and beautiful. But we feel equally or more gratified at seeing specimens done by men who have to work hard for their daily bread : who cannot give time during the day to lay on the coloring so as to secure the proper tint as seen by sunlight, but who have to contend with the disadvantage of doing their work by gas or kerosene light. The work done by some of these evening students is admirable, in breath of design and execution. The drawing is bold and free, and gives promise of rapid advancement. Our object is not so much to praise Mr Hutton and his pupils, worthy as they are of all the commendation we can give them, as to point to the means by which this love of art has been awakened ; so that as a community - we may see our way to securing whatever it is desirable to attain. So long as drawing was left out as a branch of public education, no teacher could live, for no pupils could be fonnd. Its value was not generally appreciated, or if there were some who desired to become acquainted with the art, no professor accredited as a competent teacher offered his services on terms which artizans co.njd afford. The Government supplied this want, and the latent love for an art absolutely necessary to progress developed. In our literary and art schools we have

the means put into the people’s him 1 ' 3 of acquiring knowledge which may be made ornamental or practical according to circumstances. But there are other branches bearing immediately on industry that the Government seems to think may be left untouched. What has succeeded in ornamental art surely might be done in practical science. If drawing is an advantage to the artizan, agricultural chemistry is to the farmer. Yet wc venture to assert not one in a thousand of our agriculturists could make such an analysis of the soil on which he works, as to be able to say what element was required to be added, to render it profitable for the growth of certain crops; and this, after all, is a very simple process. Mineralogy is of service at least to those who have the superintendence of mining; yet no means are adopted to give instruction in this branch of science. Mining is of infinite importance to us, and might be taught practically so far as gold working is concerned, with profit to the Province and to the increase of comfort and certainty of subsistence to the working population ; but we suppose while men may be taught what Homer sang or Plato dreamt, or to follow with the pencil the beautiful outlines of Ludovico or Hannibal Caracci, the bread and butter question is beneath the consideration of the State. What Davy or Liebig did, and how they did it is too practical we suppose. For ourselves, we confess we think how to work profitably should stand, to say the least, on the same footing as the others—many fathers and mothers, with six or seven hungry children looking to them for biead, would place it first. Vevbutu sap.