Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1875 — Educational Value of Museums. [ARTICLE]

Educational Value of Museums.

At the annual meeting of the Sheffield School of Art Mr. George Goodwin spoke of the value of collections of antique art as suggestive? and excitants. He said: A museum is a silent lecturer, and, especially when it consists of objects allied to the manufactures and pursuits of the locality, will often produce effects little expected. I remember hearing the late J. M. W. Turner, the greatest landscape painter we know of, say that it was the contemplation of an engraved silver salver belonging to one of his father’s friends, and the rampant lion on which he was led to draw, that first inspired him with a love for art. Our sleeping visions, waking dreams, Receive their 6kape and hue from what Surrounds our life. A chord often is struck when least expected, and the world is made all the better because one mind has been awakened by the work of another. Our governing bodies are not so alive to this fact as they should be, and no other proof in defense of this assertion is needed than the armory in the Tower of London. We have there a collection of arms and armor of great interest and value, in some respects, indeed, unique, without a single person in charge of it who knows anything of the subject, or who is competent to increase it when opportunities offer. The result is that fine specimens are allowed to leave the country, there being no one at the Tower able to judge of their value and arrange for their purchase. Abroad, as at Turin, for example, the national collection of armor is finely housed and every fability is afforded for the study of it. I mention the Tower armory in particular as an instance of neglect, because in Sheffield, the capital of steel, it ought to have peculiar interest. Apart from the value of delight, apart from the effect of art in refining and elevating life, the material value of art to a country is immense. Look to the crowds of pilgrims taken from all parts of the world, year after year, into Italy, for example, by the fame of those grand works with which preceding centuries have endowed her. Look to the noble heritage left to our own country by the Middle Ages in the cathedrals and churches, full of beauty —“sermons in stones” —with which the land is studded. It is marvelous, the interest with which every piece of stone, glass, and metal, every piece of furniture—a lock, a chest, a lamp, a tobaccopipe—no matter what, the produce of particular periods, is regarded; technical skill, imagination, humor, feeling, have all been enlisted in their production and have led to this result. We moderns have fallen back in this respect.