This debate has shown a general agreement that this Bill is a move in the right direction. Most Senators assume that any move in the right direction is something to be commended without reservation. But I would suggest this is something on which we might pause, even if there is agreement that in taking the College from under the umbrella—which is sometimes a dripping umbrella—of the Department of Education and setting up an independent board. We must pause before agreeing that this Bill is in principle a good thing.
Sometimes if a move in the right direction is only a small step it may be worse than no move at all. Even to move in what is acknowledged the right direction, to go only a tiny part of the way, may have serious effects. At times it would be better that that small step were not taken because there is a human tendency to think that because something is being done that enough is being done, that this particular problem can now be laid aside, and allowed to gather whatever is the statutory amount of dust that must fall on a problem before it is taken down off the shelf again for examination. So we must examine carefully not only whether the primary step taken in this Bill is in the right direction but whether it is sufficiently far in that direction to overcome the psychological disadvantages that may accrue in that people will be content to say to themselves: "Well, that problem is solved for the moment".
As other Senators have indicated, the probing of this particular question, the discussion as to how far the Minister should go in divesting himself of responsibility for the school of art, is something more appropriate for Committee Stage. We have before us, to be discussed in relation to this Bill, both a short-term problem of a serious nature in regard to the College of Art and also a long-term problem of an equally serious nature. Yesterday we facilitated the Minister in taking this Bill on short notice because all of us in the House are desirous, with all the faults of the past system, with the faults that may still exist in what comes under this Bill, that the present suspension of education in the College of Art should be ended as soon as possible. We are all anxious to see the solution to the short-term problem.
We must remember, at the same time, our long-term problem. Probably in nothing have we failed so greatly as an independent nation in the past 50 years as in regard to the arts. We can look back and we can justify from history, we can justify from the condition of our people, particularly from the 17th century onwards, the fact that all our artistic instincts have gone into a verbal rather than a visual tradition. We can boast of our impact on English literature through this focussing of all our artistic instincts and all our artistic endeavour in this one particular direction. This can explain the position in which we found ourselves 50 years ago; it cannot justify the inaction and inactivity which has failed to redress that balance during the past 50 years.
In regard to artistic matters we are an unhealthy nation. In regard to matters of visual education we are behind new countries whose material and economic advantages are considerably less than ours. We must remedy this. The move that we take in passing this Bill during these few weeks is tackling a small part of a very large problem that faces us. I think more than any other country we tend to separate art and artists from the other sectors of our national life. We are guilty here of a heresy that has vitiated our attitude to art and left us in the condition in which we are. We, more than any other people perhaps, look on every artist as a special kind of man or woman, whereas we would be a much healthier community if we looked on every man and woman as potentially a special kind of artist. We tend to deny to the members of our community their full humanity because we tend to separate out art as something which belongs only to one group of people in the community.
We are rightly proud—and it has been mentioned during this debate—of our artistic achievements of the past, but our culture will wither and become merely a historical survival unless we can correct this attitude of mind, unless we can realise that every member of the community has a potentiality, different in magnitude, of course, in each case, but nevertheless real in every case, to be some special kind of artist.
The moves in regard to primary school education and in regard to adult education are extremely welcome but they must be supported in other directions and the preoccupation with this great lack in our national life must permeate every part of our life as a community. Consequently, I think there is a great danger that we will in solving the immediate short-term problem of the college, what has happened there over the past few years, what is the position at the moment, be content to solve this problem and to leave the larger problem unsolved.
I do not want to delay too greatly on this aspect of the Bill. I do not want to anticipate any discussion that the Seanad might have on a motion which is on the Order Paper in order to discuss the 18th Report of the Arts Council. I hope that the Cathaoirleach will not think I am anticipating that when I point out that we have not yet debated the 18th Report whereas the 19th Report has now been published. We must face this problem; we must tackle this problem of the reorganisation of the College of Art as part of this general problem.
Even in a narrower sense, of the scope of what was the National College of Art and is now to be a National College of Art and Design, we can take too narrow a viewpoint. Education in art and education in design must not be isolated and the very change in the title of the body which is in this Bill is a reflection of that. This raises the whole question of whether in emphasising further the design element we are not fragmenting the question of education in design. There is a wide spectrum of activity in design and consequently a wide spectrum in design education. We can move across that spectrum from the fine arts that are, and apparently will remain, the concern of the College of Art to craft design which has been their concern. Then we move further across the spectrum to other subjects in which design is an extremely important element, to architecture, to industrial design and to engineering design. I should like to ask the Minister whether there is any policy in regard to design education, or whether we are merely in this Bill going to confirm the present division of design education whereby the design element in the fine arts and in crafts is going to be in one institution and design in architecture and engineering and industrial design is to remain in another sector in the universities and in the higher technological colleges. This is another problem which we must tackle if not on this occasion at least in the very near future.
The splitting of design education is a dangerous thing and leads to a tendency to consider that there are two types of processes whereas the fundamental human processes that underlie design, be it in the area of industrial design or in the fine arts, are very similar. What is different is the material on which that human process acts. But the elements are the same. The difficult part of design education is not to educate a person in the nature of the materials on which he works—this is the easy part—but the fostering of the creative element. It is the fostering of the ability to design. It is the attempt to distinguish those who have real talent in this direction. The difficulties that face a teacher of design in this particular regard are the same problems, whether they are the problems that face a teacher in the present National College of Art or the problems that confront me and my staff in training our students in engineering design. There is a unity here. This is the problem that we must face. That is why I ask the Minister if in changing the title here and emphasising design a decision is implied in regard to the location of the teaching of industrial design in this country. This has been the subject of a number of comments. It was the subject of a seminar in Killarney last year and still is the subject of study.
This problem of design education taken as a whole must be faced and must be solved. In looking at this problem we must keep our options wide open. Many Senators have spoken yesterday and today about the relation of the new college to the Higher Education Authority. I should hope that we would see a wider range of options considered, whether they are to be considered by the Higher Education Authority or by some other body. I was disappointed to find in the report of the Commission on Higher Education, that saw the problem of art education quite clearly, an apparent dismissal, without much discussion, of the possibility of bringing not only design education but education in the fine arts within the university structure. I should hope that this particular alternative would not be ruled out in any discussion in the future. The universities themselves would be better places if they not only had their faculties of arts but faculties of fine arts as well. After all, universities are supposed to be designed for the universal person, the full human being. If we continue to exclude students in fine arts or training in fine arts from the universities we are cementing this heresy that I spoke of earlier that artists are a special group—by some people they are considered a special type of freak—that must be treated on a separate basis. We, as a nation, have a greater failing in this regard than many other nations. The consequences of continuing to separate the training of students in arts and science and the professions from the training of artists may have more serious consequences in this country than elsewhere.
There is no doubt that among its other effects creativity creates problems. Those most gifted from this point of view may well create more problems in an educational institution than others. Let us look beyond these secondary effects and realise what a precious thing creativity is. It may be that the events of the past two years in the College of Art are the price that we have to pay for the fact that we have talented young people willing to devote their lives to art and to the pursuit of beauty not only in the teaching of it in the schools but also as a way of life. Maybe this is the price we have to pay for having such people in our community. It is a small price if we realise what would be the loss to the community if we did not have such individuals.
It is for these reasons that I think that we must, when passing this Bill urgently at the Minister's request in order to get things moving again in the College of Art, avoid the temptation as marking off this problem of education in art and education in design as a problem disposed of. The Minister, while his in-tray of matters to be dealt with is overflowing, should resist the temptation when this Bill is passed and the new board set up to transfer his notional file of education in art and design to an out-tray to be filed away and not dealt with again. We are happy to facilitate the Minister in solving the short-term problem but we will not be happy if he refuses to face the long-term problem. It is one that makes us imperfect and crippled as a nation. In regard to the visual arts we are less than what we should be as a community. This problem as well as the immediate problem must be faced, whether by this Minister or by another Minister or by the community, or else our culture of which we are proud will become a thing merely of tradition, a diminishing asset.
