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EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
advance which we have made has diminished, and even has a tendency to disappear.
“ In the midst of the successes obtained by our workmen, it is our duty to remind them that defeat is possible; that it may be even foreseen at *10 distant date, unless they exert at once all their efforts to maintain a superiority, which can be kept only on the condition of incessant self-improvement.
“ English industry in particular, which, from the artistic point of view seemed greatly in arrear at the Exhibition of 1851, has, during the last ten years, made amazing progress, and should it continue to advance at the same rate, we might soon be left behind. This state of things appears to us to merit the most serious attention of the French government and manufacturers. * * *
“ It is particularly in that which concerns the application of art to industry, that England manifests the happiest and most notable improvement. A new school has been founded, on a plan admirably devised for the advantage of industry, and neither care nor money has been spared to render it worthy of its mission.
“ With regard to the influence exercised within so short a period by this great institution, we fully admit the testimony <A our colleagues, the English members of the jury. When questioned by us as to the causes to which they ascribed the progress so obvious, this year, in the products of their manufactures, all have assigned a chief place to the new resources which are opened to industry by the schools of South Kensington.
“ Such are the rivals whom our workmen have encountered in the Exhibition of 1862. It is impossible to hide from ourselves that the impulse given to English industry has not yet acquired its complete development, and we must look forward to see it make new efforts, and yet more brilliant advances.
“By the side of this increasing energy among the English, we regret to discover among our countrymen a little too much confidence, a sort of indifference and relaxation, which are not uncommon results of long-continued success. The position is, however, serious ; nay, even threatening ; it calls for prompt remedies.”
Quotations might be made from the same sources until space was exhausted, and prove, as Herr Jacob Falke has expressed it, that " The reputation of the South Kensington Museum, or at least the acknowledgment of its merits, is greater in foreign countries where people look on with impartial eyes, than in England herself.” (See "Die Kunst-