days. But we have changed all that. We have put use in one pigeon-hole and beauty in another, and it is only by accident that they get mixed.
Now the severance of the artist and the workman — the craftsman, and the dismemberment, and absorption of the latter to a large extent by machinery, have had results incalculably injurious to art, whatever service they may have done in other ways. As to machinery it is but a question of adaptation of means to ends, since machinery simply gives extra hands and feet to humanity — good enough to do heavy and useful drudgery, and works of necessity in a hurry — feed, clothe, and warm, pump, and light nights for instance — to be the servant and labour- saver of man, in short, but never his master and profit-grinder as it has become — and certainly never intended to take pleasurable art-work out of his hands, or speciously simulate the workmanship of those hands, and take, with its variety, its interest and beauty away.
It is a curious thing that while every day we are extending our railways and pushing our commerce, making travel easier, and opening up unknown countries to what we are pleased to call the advantages of civilisation — while we are facilitating methods of getting about on the one hand, on the other we are obliterating those interesting varieties and local distinctions which make travel chiefly interesting, so that while we increase our facilities of travel we remove its inducements as fast as we can — at least from the art point of view.
One of those things the disappearance whereof we deplore is the art of the people, — the peasant costume with its embroidery and jewellery always so full of character and colour, relics of long antiquity and tradition — the odds and ends of which are carefully scraped together and served up to the tourist, long after they have ceased to be realities in the life of the people. This native art, found in all unexploited countries, is highly interesting as showing how naturally a people collectively express their sense of beauty in colour and form, how naturally with leisure and fairly easy conditions of life the art instinct asserts itself.
It is on the unquenchable spontaneity of this instinct that I should rely to give new birth to new forms of art even were all types and conditions of the art of the past destroyed. Fresh as I am from the examination, at South Kensington, of vast multitudes of designs in any and every style under the sun, I could almost bear such a catastrophe with equanimity, since no aspiring designer could then crib Persian or Chinese or Greek patterns, and spoil them in the translation.
All the learning and archæology in the world will not fill us with an instinct for art, since art (to recur to our definition), being a form of vital force, must spring from life itself. It depends on realities, and draws its best inspiration from everyday life. It is bound to reflect the character of that life, and in so doing gives the history of the people, and the spirit of the age of which it is the outcome. We have only to consider how much of our knowledge of past ages and races we owe to the relics of ancient art which have been preserved to us; and this brings us to the consideration of another aspect of the importance of art to a community, and one not likely to be overlooked under socialistic conditions — I mean its educational value.
At present I think this is very much neglected. While we crowd our galleries and exhibitions with masses and masses of pictures every year, our public halls and the walls of our schools are left blank for the most part. This seems to suggest that we are thinking more of our shop windows than of the windows of our minds — especially those of the rising generation. But why should not the capacity of children for receiving ideas through the eye be taken advantage of? Why should not the walls of our schools be pictured with the drama of history? Why should they not be made eloquent with the wonders of the earth by true and emphatic drawings of the life and character of different countries and peoples?
It has been said that the worst drawing conveys a more definite idea of a thing than the best description. Bringing it down therefore even to the plainest utilitarian level, the importance of drawing is obvious enough. A socialistic society would, however, not be likely to gauge its value by so narrow a standard, and when the object of education was recognised as the development of the faculties of the individual, with a view to service of the community and reasonable enjoyment of life, as distinct from the specialising them for a competitive commercial existence, art would surely be recognised as a most important factor in that result, and accorded due place.
If we imagine a truly socialised community — a state of equal condition (not necessarily of mental capacity or other quality) — wherein every able-bodied member served the community according to his capacity, it might necessitate a portion of time (determined by the numbers of the conmiunity and their necessities) spent in some form of manual labour. This in itself would be an advantage and physical benefit to each individual, nor so long as enough leisure was secured would mental capacity be likely to suffer in its true sense, or the art instinct or capacity either. On the contrary, there is
