Page:The Obligations of the Universities Towards Art.djvu/13

 The roof of Merton Chapel was then fresh with the decorations executed by John Hungerford Pollin, one of the Fellows of the College. Ere the scaffolding was removed, John Everett Millais had taken advantage of it to copy some of the old glass in the window, as an accessory in a picture he was painting. This contact of representatives of University learning and taste with artistic knowledge and proficiency was not merely of transient importance.

A few years later Dr. Henry Acland had succeeded in his efforts to extend the teaching of the University to Science, and the new Museum by Woodward and Deane was in progress. This brought Dante Gabriel Rossetti, my fellow-student at the Royal Academy, and my recent painting pupil, on a visit to the University. He commenced certain mural decorations in the 'Union,' for which he enlisted the efforts of Spencer Stanhope, who had taken to painting after completing his undergraduate term, with those of certain young London artists, who had volunteered their gratuitous services.

William Morris and Edward Burne Jones were by Rossetti's encouragement on that occasion induced to adopt the career of Art. The Schools of Design soon after were found to be a necessity to the city. A few years later John Ruskin was installed as Slade Professor to the University, and on Mr. Combe's death, his widow gave 'The Light of the World' to Keble College, and