REPORT OF MR. HINTON.
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not always so easy that the Austrian Direction need be blamed for failing to exhaust the whole subject of the influence of Art antUIndustrial Museums upon public taste and industry, as their first circular relating to this subject would have led its readers to believe they intended to do, if it were possible of accomplishment. What they did achieve was certainly deserving of the highest commendation. What they will yet do, after the hurly-burly rush and hurry of the Exhibition is over, will, it is to be hoped, serve to further elucidate the value or defects of this important factor in education.
There can be but little doubt but that the gentlemen who will have the task assigned them by the Austrian government of making up the official report on Group XXII. will compile from the statistics and detailed information furnished them from many sources a most valuable and interesting document. This must be waited for with patience, as such reports do not usually appear until a lapse of six or twelve months after the close of the exhibition that has called them into* being. The fact is to be regretted, for such official data would be extremely valuable in this or any other report dealing with the same subject.
One official document can be given—that referred to above, as it preceded the Exhibition and endeavored to convey, in a rapidly sketched outline, what the Austrian Direction desired might be done. This was "Special Programme, No. 12, for Group XXII.”
This paper is in itself an evidence of the deeply-rooted bold Art and Industrial Museums and art-teaching, as applied In industry, have taken in Austria ; and, having been written, if is thought, by Herr Jacob Falke, the acting head of the Vienna Museum,*it may be taken as the utterance of one who is no mean authority on the subject whereof he writes.
This special programme runs as follows, omitting the excess °f title that prefaces it:—
“ Among the instructive establishments of our time which have most rapidly proved to be of great utility, the Museums of Fine Arts applied to Industry must certainly be included, and almost every city of importance possesses such an institution. This fact alone would suffice to justify the attempt we will make to show their organization and influence.