REPORT OF MR. HINTON.
151
Science may be applied to their work, and to induce them to follow it up.”
The exhibit made by it at Vienna, though not at all equal to the high position it occupies in the world, showed that it had also been enabled to help to bring about a solution of another important problem; i. e., the enlargement of the confines of woman’s work. Many of the students at South Kensington are ladies, who have, through its agencies and teachings, been enabled to earn a fair competence for their work; this, in some instances, being entirely new to the industries of England. Examples of woman’s work were shown in the hall occupied by the South Kensington Museum at the Exposition, consisting of designs for Lace, Fans, Etchings—-an old art revived—Decorative Wall-paper, and other Art-industries.
The remainder of the objects exhibited do not call for any special notice, consisting as they did of the usual collection of articles that go to make up a Museum, similar in character to those shown by the Vienna Museum, differing m detail but not in the general tone.
Instances were not lacking among the seven hundred and • fifty British exhibitors, serving to illustrate with more potency than the official display of student’s work, the beneficial influence of the South Kensington School of Art.
Here is an illustration: Messrs. Doulton, of London, a mid their multifarious display of sanitary earthenware, drain-pipes, plumbago crucibles, terra-cotta, and domestic utensils, such as water-pitchers, drinking-mugs and jars, showed a set of this latter kind of ware that consisted of real objects of Art, both as to form, coloring, and the designs upon them. These have all been made within the Hist two years. The material used is the same as that from which the old brown " Tobies ”• are made, so common in the English country ale-houses, and with which nearly every °ne is familiar, in the form of the earthenware teapots, sold % all dealers in like commodities.
One of the firm (Mr. James Doulton) illustrated in a 1110 st forcible and direct way the value of Art-taste in works °f industry, by a simple method. Selecting two pitchers from his collection he said: "This is an old-fashioned jug