The designs were handsome, beautiful, chaste,
and original, and would do any English
manufacturer's heart good to see them, if he
only had the good sense to set a just value
on the advantage of finding such things close
to hand in his own country.

The two attics above are arranged in the
same way as the rooms on the second floor,
the senior students being packed in the little
back room, while the junior are in the larger
room in front. These rooms are only eight
feet high. In the front attic there are twenty
students. The oppressive atmosphere was
scarcely endurable on first entering. No
ventilation whatever had been provided. It
reminded me of what we read of the "sweating
system" among the poor journeymen
tailors.

The principal designs in the attics were
similar to those below, viz., for carpets, rugs,
skreens, ladies' dresses, table covers, lace
handkerchiefs, ribbons, shawls, &c., and I am
quite sure, from the excellence displayed in
many of them, that the instructions and
assiduity of Mrs. M'Ian must be of the
highest order. The day being so very dark,
I took my leave, proposing to make another
visit when the light should be favourable.

This School has now been established
eight years, and comprises seventy students.
Considering that the majority of them on
first entering the School could not draw at
all, and had to be instructed in the first
rudiments, the progress displayed by so
many confers the greatest credit upon their
instructor. The merits of this institution
ought to be much better known than they
are, and the example should be followed in
the provinces. It is surprising how few such
Schools exist in England, or in any other
country. There has been one only in Paris
during these many years (I mean, a Female
School) but this is not properly a School of
Design, and is simply a drawing-school, where
they chiefly copy prints, and seldom draw
from the "round." A similar school,
however, to the present, has been established by a
lady in Philadelphia, who wrote to Mrs.
M'Ian for information as to the methods and
general routine adopted. Besides the
advantages of such a school to the manufacturer,
it is evidently an excellent thing to society to
provide such a means for rendering young
women able to obtain an honourable independence,
and it also supersedes the necessity for
engaging male teachers of drawing in ladies'
schools, which has often been found very
objectionable. if not injurious.

A bright sunny morning happening to
favour the Metropolis a day or two after,
I renewed my visit to the Government
School, over the sponge and soap shop. I
made no doubt but I should now see all the
drawings and designs .to the greatest advantage,
at least, so far as light was concerned.
The fostering shop—itself a very good one,
and perfectly respectable, though a strange
place for a Government Institute—looked
bright and well-to-do, and the side passage
was several shades less dark, though still
very gloomy, and exactly like the entrance to
a wine merchant's office and cellarage.

In my anticipations I was not deceived.
Though there was no room to see any large
designs to advantage—the eye being within a
foot or two of the specimens, and to step back
a pace or two from them being impossible
in the room of the senior students—the grace
and variety of the designs, and the beauty
of the colouring, were on this occasion very
apparent. But how was it that the two
front rooms—the largest by far—had been
appropriated to the beginners and junior
classes, while the senior students were thus
packed in pens and cribs—back second-floors
of only nine-and-a-half feet high, and back
attics of only eight feet high by eleven
feet in width? The elucidation of this, I
regret to say, does not place the wisdom
and care of a paternal Government in the
highest light, even so far as a knowledge of
drawing is concerned.

When there happens to be a bright morning,
the very strength of the light in the larger
rooms, renders them the more unsuitable for
students in drawing—the windows being
precisely in the wrong aspect. When the sun
shines in these front rooms, the shadow from
one student's head darkens fitfully, or in
moving shades, the drawing-board of the
student next on the other side—and so on, all
down the rows across the room. The process
of making a copy from a cast, or other model,
throwing its own variable shadow, is also
rendered most painful and perplexing to a young
student,—because a drawing that is correct in
light and shade at one period, becomes
incorrect in the next quarter of an hour—the
cast or model, in the advance of the light,
having undergone a corresponding change in
its shadows. Hence, all young students who
are copying intricate and difficult reliefs,
continually find themselves hopelessly thrown
out, and reduced to despair.

Now, this is very surprising—inexplicable
to any plain man like myself. For are there
not two or three Royal Academicians
connected with the Board of Trade, and do
they never remonstrate with the honourable
and learned Board? Moreover, there is a
lady, as Directress of the School, who is an
accomplished artist. Why does not Mrs.
M'Ian complain loudly of all this to the Board
of Trade, or to somebody high in office? Is
Mrs. M'Ian afraid a paternal Government
will "bite her head off," if she dares to open
her mouth!

The fires in the rooms are all kept low,
yet to-day being a bright day, the heat
and oppressiveness of the atmosphere is
scarcely to be endured. In the back pens,
where the senior students are packed
together, the air is half suffocating—and see!
there is poor Miss * * * carried out fainting.