146. Have you any other suggestion to offer calculated to enlighten the Committee on the subject intrusted to them for consideration?--I can only say what my own feelings have been as to my men. I have found particularly that natural history was delightful to them; I think that that has an especial tendency to take their minds off their work, which is what I always try to do, not ambitiously, but reposingly. I should like to add to what I said about the danger of injury to _chefs-d'oeuvre_, that such danger exists, not only as to gas, but also the breath, the variation of temperature, the extension of the canvases in a different temperature, the extension of the paint upon them, and various chemical operations of the human breath, the chance of an accidental escape of gas, the circulation of variously damp air through the ventilators; all these ought not to be allowed to affect the great and unreplaceable works of the best masters; and those works, I believe, are wholly valueless to the working classes; their merits are wholly imperceptible except to persons who have given many years of study to endeavor to qualify themselves to discover them; but what is wanting for the working man is historical painting of events noble, and bearing upon his own country; the history of his own country well represented to him; the natural history of foreign countries well represented to him; and domestic pathos brought before him. Nothing assists him so much as having the moral disposition developed rather than the intellectual after his work; anything that touches his feelings is good, and puts new life into him; therefore I want modern pictures, if possible, of that class which would ennoble and refine by their subjects. I should like prints of all times, engravings of all times; those would interest him with their variety of means and subject; and natural history of three kinds, namely, shells, birds, and plants; not minerals, because a workman cannot study mineralogy at home; but whatever town he may be in, he may take some interest in the birds and in the plants, or in the sea shells of his own country and coast. I should like the commonest of all our plants first, and most fully illustrated; the commonest of all our birds, and of our shells, and men would be led to take an interest in those things wholly for their beauty, and for their separate charm, irrespective of any use that might be made of them in the arts. There also ought to be, for the more intelligent workman, who really wants to advance himself in his business, specimens of the manufactures of all countries, as far as the compass of such institutions would allow. 147. You have traveled, I believe, a good deal abroad?--Yes. And you have seen in many foreign countries that far more interest is taken in the improvement of the people in this matter than is taken in this country?--Far more.