Captains of Industry Part 21

"To the memory of George Hope, for many years tenant of Fenton Barns. He was the devoted supporter of every movement which tended to the advancement of civil and religious liberty, and to the moral and social elevation of mankind."

SIR HENRY COLE.

He was an "Old Public Functionary" in the service of the British people.

When President Buchanan spoke of himself as an Old Public Functionary he was a good deal laughed at by some of the newspapers, and the phrase has since been frequently used in an opprobrious or satirical sense. This is to be regretted, for there is no character more respectable, and there are few so useful, as an intelligent and patriotic man of long standing in the public service. What _one_ such man can do is shown by the example of Sir Henry Cole, who died a few months ago in London after half a century of public life.

The son of an officer in the British army, he was educated at that famous Blue-Coat School which is interesting to Americans because Lamb and Coleridge attended it. At the age of fifteen he received an appointment as clerk in the office of Public Records. In due time, having proved his capacity and peculiar fitness, he was promoted to the post of a.s.sistant Keeper, which gave him a respectable position and some leisure.

He proved to be in an eminent sense the right man in the right place.

Besides publis.h.i.+ng, from time to time, curious and interesting doc.u.ments which he discovered in his office, he called attention, by a series of vigorous pamphlets, to the chaotic condition in which the public records of Great Britain were kept. Gradually these pamphlets made an impression, and they led at length to a reform in the office. The records were rearranged, catalogued, rendered safe, and made accessible to students. This has already led to important corrections in history, and to a great increase in the sum of historical knowledge.

When the subject of cheap postage came up in 1840, the government offered four prizes of a hundred pounds each for suggestions in aid of Sir Rowland Hill's plan. One of these prizes was a.s.signed to Henry Cole.

He was one of the persons who first became converts to the idea of penny postage, and he lent the aid of his pen and influence to its adoption.

At length, about the year 1845, he entered upon the course of proceedings which rendered him one of the most influential and useful persons of his time. He had long lamented the backward condition of arts of design in England, and the consequent ugliness of the various objects in the sight and use of which human beings pa.s.s their lives. English furniture, wall-papers, carpets, curtains, cutlery, garments, upholstery, ranged from the tolerable to the hideous, and were inferior to the manufactures of France and Germany. He organized a series of exhibitions on a small scale, somewhat similar to those of the American Inst.i.tute in New York, which has held a compet.i.tive exhibition of natural and manufactured objects every autumn for the last fifty years.

His exhibitions attracted attention, and they led at length to the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851. The merit of that scheme must be shared between Henry Cole and Prince Albert. Cole suggested that his small exhibitions should, once in five years, a.s.sume a national character, and invite contributions from all parts of the empire. Yes, said Prince Albert, and let us also invite compet.i.tion from foreign countries on equal terms with native products.

The Exhibition of 1851 was admirably managed, and had every kind of success. It benefited England more than all other nations put together, because it revealed to her people their inferiority in many branches both of workmans.h.i.+p and design. We all know how conceited people are apt to become who have no opportunity to compare themselves with superiors.

John Bull, never over-modest, surveyed the Exhibition of 1851, and discovered, to his great surprise, that he was not the unapproachable Bull of the universe which he had fondly supposed. He saw himself beaten in some things by the French, in some by the Germans, in others by the Italians, and in a few (O wonder!) by the Yankees.

Happily he had the candor to admit this humiliating fact to himself, and he put forth earnest and steadfast exertions to bring himself up to the level of modern times.

Henry Cole was the life and soul of the movement. It was he who called attention to the obstacles placed in the way of improvement by the patent laws, and some of those obstacles, through him, were speedily removed.

During this series of services to his country, he remained in the office of Public Records. The government now invited him to another sphere of labor. They asked him to undertake the reconstruction of the schools of design, and they gave him an office which placed him practically at the head of the various inst.i.tutions designed to promote the application of art to manufacture. The chief of these now is the Museum of South Kensington, which is to many Americans the most interesting object in London. The creation of this wonderful museum was due more to him than to any other individual.

It came to pa.s.s in this way: After the close of the Crystal Palace in 1851, Parliament gave five thousand pounds for the purchase of the objects exhibited which were thought best calculated to raise the standard of taste in the nation. These objects, chiefly selected by Cole, were arranged by him for exhibition in temporary buildings of such extreme and repulsive inconvenience as to bring opprobrium and ridicule upon the undertaking. It was one of the most difficult things in the world to excite public interest in the exhibition. But by that energy which comes of strong conviction and patriotic feeling, and of the opportunity given him by his public employment, Henry Cole wrung from a reluctant Parliament the annual grants necessary to make South Kensington Museum what it now is.

Magnificent buildings, filled with a vast collection of precious and interesting objects, greet the visitor. There are collections of armor, relics, porcelain, enamel, fabrics, paintings, statues, carvings in wood and ivory, machines, models, and every conceivable object of use or beauty. Some of the most celebrated pictures in the world are there, and there is an art library of thirty thousand volumes. There are schools for instruction in every branch of art and science which can be supposed to enter into the products of industry. The prizes which are offered for excellence in design and invention have attracted, in some years, as many as two hundred thousand objects. During three days of every week admission to this superb a.s.semblage of exhibitions is free, and on the other three days sixpence is charged.

The influence of this inst.i.tution upon British manufactures has been in many branches revolutionary. As the London "Times" said some time ago:--

"There is hardly a household in the country that is not the better for the change; there is certainly no manufacture in which design has any place which has not felt its influence."

The formation of this Museum, the chief work of Sir Henry Cole's useful life, was far from exhausting his energies. He has borne a leading part in all the industrial exhibitions held in London during the last quarter of a century, and served as English commissioner at the Paris exhibitions of 1855 and 1867.

This man was enabled to render all this service to his country, to Europe, and to us, because he was not obliged to waste any of his energies in efforts to keep his place. Administrations might change, and Parliaments might dissolve; but he was a fixture as long as he did his duty. When his duty was fairly done, and he had completed the fortieth year of his public service, he retired on his full salary, and he was granted an honorable t.i.tle; for a t.i.tle _is_ honorable when it is won by good service. Henceforth he was called Sir Henry Cole, K. C. B.

To the end of his life he continued to labor in all sorts of good works--a Training School for Music, a Training School for Cookery, guilds for the promotion of health, and many others. He died in April, 1882, aged seventy-four years.

CHARLES SUMMERS.

Strangers visiting Melbourne, the chief city of Australia, will not be allowed to overlook four great marble statues which adorn the public library. They are the gift of Mr. W. J. Clark, one of the distinguished public men of that growing empire. These statues represent, in a sitting posture, Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, and the Princess of Wales. They are larger than life, and, according to the Australian press, they are admirable works in every respect.

They were executed by Charles Summers, a sculptor long resident in that colony, where he practiced his art with great success, as the public buildings and private houses of Melbourne attest. Many of his works remain in the colony, and he may be said to be the founder of his form of art in that part of the world. The history of this man's life is so remarkable that I think it will interest the reader.

Sixty years ago, Charles Summers was a little, hungry, ragged boy in English Somersets.h.i.+re, who earned four cents a day by scaring the crows from the wheat fields. I have seen myself such little fellows engaged in this work, coming on duty before four in the morning, and remaining till eight in the evening, frightening away the birds by beating a tin pan with a stick, not unfrequently chasing them and throwing stones at them. He was the son of a mason, who had eight children, and squandered half his time and money in the tap-room. Hence, this boy, from the age of eight or nine years, smart, intelligent, and ambitious, was constantly at work at some such employment; and often, during his father's drunken fits, he was the chief support of the family.

Besides serving as scare-crow, he a.s.sisted his father in his mason's work, and became a hod-carrier as soon as he was able to carry a hod.

Sometimes he accompanied his father to a distant place in search of employment, and he was often seen on the high-road, in charge of the drunkard, struggling to get him home before he had spent their united earnings in drink. In these deplorable circ.u.mstances, he acquired a dexterity and patience which were most extraordinary. Before he was twelve years old he began to handle the chisel and the mallet, and his work in squaring and facing a stone soon surpa.s.sed that of boys much older than himself. He was observed to have a strong propensity to do fancy stone-work. He obtained, as a boy, some local celebrity for his carved gate posts, and other ornamental objects in stone. So great was his skill and industry, that, by the time he was nineteen years of age, besides having maintained a large family for years, he had saved a sum equal to a hundred dollars.

Then a piece of good fortune happened to him. A man came from London to set up in a parish church near by a monumental figure, and looked about for a skillful mason to a.s.sist him. Charles Summers was mentioned as the best hand in the neighborhood, and upon him the choice fell. Thus he was introduced to the world of art, for this figure had been executed by Henry Weekes, a distinguished London sculptor. The hards.h.i.+ps of his childhood had made a man of him at this early age, a thoughtful and prudent man. Taking with him ten of his twenty pounds, he went to London and applied for employment in the studio of Henry Weekes. This artist employed several men, but he had no vacant place except the humble one of stone polisher, which required little skill. He accepted the place with alacrity and delight, at a salary of five dollars a week.

He was now in his element. The lowliest employments of the studio were pleasing to him. He loved to polish the marble; the sight of the numerous models was a pleasure to him; even wetting the cloths and cleaning the model tools were pleasant tasks. His cheerfulness and industry soon made him a favorite; and when his work was done, he employed his leisure in gaining skill in carving and cutting marble. In this he had such success, that, when in after life he became himself an artist, he would sometimes execute his idea in marble without modeling it in clay.

When he had been in this studio about a year, his employer was commissioned to execute two colossal figures in bronze, and the young man was obliged to spend much of his time in erecting the foundry, and other duties which he felt to be foreign to his art. Impatient at this, he resigned his place, and visited his home, where he executed medallion portraits, first of his own relations, and afterwards of public men, such as the Mayor of Bristol, and the member of Parliament for his county. These medallions gave him some reputation, and it was a favorite branch with him as long as he lived.

Returning to London, he had no difficulty in gaining employment at good wages in a studio of a sculptor. Soon we find him competing for the prizes offered by the Royal Academy of London to young sculptors; the chief of which is a gold medal given every two years for the best group in clay of an historical character. A silver medal is also given every year for the best model from life.

At the exhibition of 1851, when he was twenty-four years of age, he was a compet.i.tor for both these prizes. For the gold medal he executed a group which he called Mercy interceding for the Vanquished. For the silver medal he offered a bust of a living person. He had the singular good fortune of winning both, and he received them in public from the hands of the President of the Academy, Sir Charles Eastlake. Cheer upon cheer greeted the modest student when he rose and went forward for the purpose. He was a young man of great self-control. Instead of joining in the usual festivities of his fellow-students after the award, he walked quietly to his lodgings, where his father and brother were anxiously waiting to hear the result of the compet.i.tion. He threw himself into a chair without a word, and they began to console him for the supposed disappointment. In a few minutes they sat down to supper; whereupon, with a knowing smile, he took his medals out of his pocket, and laid one of them on each side of his plate.

From this time he had no difficulties except those inherent in the nature of his work, and in his own const.i.tution. His early struggle with life had made him too intense. He had scarcely known what play was, and he did not know how to recreate himself. He had little taste for reading or society. He loved art alone. The consequence was that he worked with an intensity and continuity that no human const.i.tution could long endure. Soon after winning his two medals his health was so completely prostrated that he made a voyage to Australia to visit a brother who had settled there. The voyage restored him, and he soon resumed the practice of his art at Melbourne. The people were just building their Houses of Parliament, and he was employed to execute the artistic work of the interior. He lived many years in Australia, and filled the colony with his works in marble and bronze.

In due time he made the tour of Europe, and lingered nine years in Rome, where he labored with suicidal a.s.siduity. He did far more manual labor himself than is usual with artists of his standing, and yet, during his residence in Rome he had twenty men in his service. It was in Rome, in 1876, that he received from Melbourne the commission to execute in marble the four colossal statues mentioned above. These works he completed in something less than eighteen months, besides doing several other minor works previously ordered.

It was too much, and Nature resented the affront. After he had packed the statues, and sent them on their way to the other side of the globe, he set out for Melbourne himself, intending to take England by the way for medical advice. At Paris he visited the Exhibition, and the next day, at his hotel, he fell senseless to the floor. In three weeks he was dead, at the age of fifty-one years, in the very midst of his career.

"For him," writes one of his friends, "life consisted of but one thing--_art_. For that he lived; and, almost in the midst of it, died.

He could not have conceived existence without it. Always and under every circ.u.mstance, he was thinking of his work, and gathering from whatever surrounded him such information as he thought would prove of service.

In omnibuses, in railway carriages, and elsewhere, he found opportunities of study, and could always reproduce a likeness from memory of the individuals so observed."

I do not copy these words as commendation, but as warning. Like so many other gifted men of this age, he lived too fast and attempted too much.

He died when his greatest and best life would naturally have been just beginning. He died at the beginning of the period when the capacity for high enjoyment of life is naturally the greatest. He died when he could have ceased to be a manufacturer and become an artist.

WILLIAM B. ASTOR.

HOUSE-OWNER.

In estimating the character and merits of such a man as the late Mr.

Astor, we are apt to leave out of view the enormous harm he might have done if he had chosen to do it.

The rich fool who tosses a dollar to a waiter for some trifling service, debases the waiter, injures himself, and wrongs the public. By acting in that manner in all the transactions of life, a rich man diffuses around him an atmosphere of corruption, and raises the scale of expense to a point which is oppressive to many, ruinous to some, and inconvenient to all. The late Mr. Astor, with an income from invested property of nearly two millions a year, could have made life more difficult than it was to the whole body of people in New York who are able to live in a liberal manner. He refrained from doing so. He paid for everything which he consumed the market price--no more, no less--and he made his purchases with prudence and forethought. As he lived for many years next door to the Astor Library, the frequenters of that n.o.ble inst.i.tution had an opportunity of observing that he laid in his year's supply of coal in the month of June, when coal is cheapest.

There was nothing which he so much abhorred as waste. It was both an instinct and a principle with him to avoid waste. He did not have the gas turned down low in a temporarily vacated room because he would save two cents by doing so, but because he justly regarded waste as wicked.