Henry Gilbert Haward

“ But it is necessary that I should not confine my statement to art. The Society held exhibitions of manufactured articles and of machinery from its earliest foundation; and ultimately established a permanent museum of models, which, accumulating from year to year, at length buried each other in the dust of age, and fell, like the Society itself, into decay.
Exhibitions, as now held, are institutions of our own times, and they have grown out of the efforts made by a few far-seeing men, who combined in 1845 for the purpose of resuscitating the Society of Arts ”

“ In this age of competition in every department of industry, and at a time when such extraordinary development is taking place in almost every system, whether it minister to our personal comfort or to our enjoyment, it will be useful and interesting to bear in mind the importance of small beginnings. With this view it is proposed, now that the Society of Arts has put forth a declaration of its intention to hold a second Great Exhibition in 1862, to point out a few historic facts in reference to past exhibitions. ”

“ The museum at South Kensington, however, has been called into existence since that date, and the Society of Arts may be said to be the founders of the new museum-which consists of educational apparatus, animal products, and mechanical appliances, with the addition of specimens of the English school of art. At the close of the Exhibition of 1851, it was felt that if England was to maintain her position in the race of industrial competition, it was necessary that an increased amount of attention should be paid to the education of her artisans. ”