The Life of John RuskinCollingwood, W. G. (William Gershom)
Philosophy
The Life of John Ruskin
Collingwood, W. G. (William Gershom)
Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Ruskin, John, 1819-1900
The chief objects of "St. George" come under three heads, as we have
just noticed: agricultural, industrial, and educational. The actual
schools would not be needed until the farms and mills had been so far
established as to secure a permanent attendance. But meanwhile provision
was being made for them, both in literature and in art. The "Bibliotheca
Pastorum," was to be a comprehensive little library--far less than the
100 books of the _Pall Mall Gazette_--and yet bringing before the St.
George's workman standard and serious writing of all times. It was to
include, in separate volumes, the Books of Moses and the Psalms of David
and the Revelation of St. John. Of Greek, the Economist of Xenophon, and
Hesiod, which Ruskin undertook to translate into prose. Of Latin the
first two Georgics and sixth Æneid of Virgil, in Gawain Douglas'
translation. Dante; Chaucer, excluding the "Canterbury Tales"--but
including the "Romance of the Rose"; Gotthelf's "Ulric the Farmer," from
the French version which Ruskin had loved ever since his father used to
read it him on their first tours in Switzerland; and an early English
history by an Oxford friend. Later were published Sir Philip Sidney's
psalter, and Ruskin's own biography of Sir Herbert Edwardes, under the
title of "A Knight's Faith."
These books were for the home library; reference works were bought to be
deposited in central libraries, along with objects of art and science.
It was not intended to keep the Guild property centralised; but rather
to spread it, as its other work was spread, broad-cast. A number of
books and other objects were bought with the Guild money, and lent or
given to various schools and colleges and institutions where work akin
to the objects of the Guild was being done. But for the time Ruskin
fixed upon Sheffield as the place of his first Guild Museum--being the
home of the typical English industry--central to all parts of England,
near beautiful hill-country, and yet not far from a number of
manufacturing towns in which, if St. George's work went on, supporters
and recruits might be found.
The people of Sheffield were already, in 1875, building a museum of
their own, and naturally thought that the two might be conveniently
worked together. But that was not at all what Ruskin wished. Not only
was his museum to be primarily the storehouse of the Guild, rather than
one among many means of popular education; but the objects which he
intended to place there were not such as the public expected to see. He
had no interest in a vast accumulation of articles of all kinds. He
wanted to provide for his friends' common treasury a few definitely
valuable and interesting examples--interesting to the sort of people
that he hoped would join the Guild or be bred up in it; and valuable
according to his own standard and experience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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