3-053-650 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mr. Henry Cole, C.B, late Secretary of the Science and Art Department and Director of the South Kensington Museum, 1873. 'Six months ago...Mr. Cole announced his intention of retiring from the public service, of which he would in April have completed fifty years...Since 1852 he had witnessed the conversion of twenty limp Schools of Design into 128 flourishing Schools of Art; 500 night classes for drawing had been established for artisans; 180,000 boys and girls were now learning elementary drawing; 1250 schools and classes for science instruction had spontaneously sprung up; the South Kensington Museum had been securely founded as a national centre for consulting the best works of science and art, and as a means of circulating art-objects throughout the kingdom. He hoped still to be able to prosecute his work as a volunteer; to assist in the establishment of local Museums, which might draw their supplies from South Kensington, and to do his part in establishing Annual International Exhibitions of Industry as a permanent institution, relying not upon State aid, but on the voluntary support of an educated public, and realising a yearly competitive examination of the practical fruits of the working of the National Schools of Science and Art'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.