Not to be confused

‘The Ruskin’ and ‘Ruskin College’ are both in Oxford, both named after the nineteenth-century art critic and social thinker, John Ruskin, and, unfortunately, very often confused.

Ruskin College is not part of The University of Oxford but was founded in 1899:

to provide university-standard education for working-class people so that they could act more effectively on behalf of working-class communities and organisations – trade unions, political parties, co-operative societies, working men's institutes and so on… Education is power. We remain deeply committed to the belief that education can and does transform individual lives and societies.

It accepts people with potential but without qualifications, provides the support they need to overcome the barriers to education that they have faced and gives them access to a world from which they would otherwise be excluded. Right now I can’t think of any place of learning I admire more.

But this is not Ruskin College, it’s 'The Ruskin', the School of Drawing and Fine Art (dating from 1871) belonging to the University of Oxford...

Edit - it seems that what I wrote below was unfair. I'll leave it here to make sense of the comments, but please see mamabanana's comment about 30 down.

... whose admission policies are as different as can be from Ruskin College’s. This is where the elite hangs out. As I passed today I saw that there was a sale of student work so for the first time ever I went inside to look at the building, the painting, drawing and photography. I was bemused. There were a few interesting pieces but most seemed to be bored doodles or working-up-a-dead-end-idea pages from sketch books. I could have bought stuff by some putative future big names for £4 apiece but I’ve seen more impressive work in schools and certainly on blip.

Hmmph. I shall have to visit Ruskin College (again!) soon.