In youth, again, one is careless about little things; they will right themselves: persons of the baser sort pervert the freedom of the country to their own uses; they make "corners" and "rings" and steal the money of the munic.i.p.ality; never mind; some day, when we have time, we will straighten things out. In youth, also, one is tempted to gallant apparel, bravery of show, a defiant bearing, gold and lace and colour. In cities this tendency of youth is shown by great buildings and big inst.i.tutions. In youth, there is a natural exaggeration in talk: hence the spread-eagle of which we hear so much. Then everything which belongs to youth must be better--beyond comparison better--than everything that belongs to age. In the last century, if you like, youth followed and imitated age; it is the note of this, our country, that youth is always advancing and stepping ahead of age. Even in the daily press the youth of the country shows itself. Let age sit down and meditate; let such a paper as the London _Times_--that old, old paper--give every day three laboured and thoughtful essays written by scholars and philosophers on the topics of the day. It is not for youth to ponder over the meaning and the tendencies of things; it is for youth to act, to make history, to push things along; therefore let the papers record everything that pa.s.ses; perhaps when the country is old, when the time comes for meditation, the London _Times_ may be imitated, and even a weekly collection of essays, such as the _Sat.u.r.day Review_ or the _Spectator_, may be successfully started in the United States. Again, youth is apt to be jealous over its own pretensions. Perhaps this quality also might be ill.u.s.trated; but, for obvious reasons, we will not press this point. Lastly, youth knows nothing of the time which came immediately before itself. It is not till comparatively late in life that a man connects his own generation--his own history--with that which preceded him. When does the history of the United States begin--not for the man of letters or the professor of history--but for the average man? It begins when the Union begins: not before. There is a very beautiful and very n.o.ble history before the Union. But it is shared with Great Britain. There is a period of gallant and victorious war--but beside the colonials marched King George"s red-coats. There was a brave struggle for supremacy, and the French were victoriously driven out--but it was by English fleets and with the help of English soldiers. Therefore, the average American mind refuses to dwell on this period. His country must spring at once, full armed, into the world. His country must be all his own. He wants no history, if you please, in which any other country has also a share.
In a word, America seems to present all the possible characteristics of youth. It is buoyant, confident, extravagant, ardent, elated, and proud. It lives in the present. The young men of twenty-one cannot believe in coming age; people do get to fifty, he believes; but, for himself, age is so far off that he need not consider it. I observed the youthfulness of America even in New England, but the country as one got farther west seemed to become more youthful. At Chicago, I suppose, no one owns to more than five-and-twenty--youth is infectious. I felt myself while in the city much under that age.
Let us pa.s.s to another point--also an essential--the flaunting of the flag, I had the honour of a.s.sisting at the "Sollemnia Academica," the commencement of Harvard on the 28th of June last. I believe that Harvard is the richest, as it is also the oldest, of American universities; it is also the largest in point of numbers. The function was celebrated in the college theatre; it was attended by the governor of the State with the lieutenant-governor and his aide-de-camp; there was a notable gathering on the stage or platform, consisting of the president, professors and governors of the university, together with those men of distinction whom the university proposed to honour with a degree. The floor, or pit, of the house was filled with the commencing bachelors; the gallery was crowded with spectators, chiefly ladies.
After the ceremony we were invited to a.s.sist at the dinner given by the students to the president, and a company among whom it was a distinction for a stranger to sit. The ceremony of conferring degrees was interesting to an Englishman and a member of the older Cambridge, because it contained certain points of detail which had certainly been brought over by Harvard himself, the founder, from the old to the new Cambridge. The dinner, or luncheon, was interesting for the speeches, for which it was the occasion and the excuse. The president, for his part, reported the addition of $750,000 to the wealth of the college, and called attention to the very remarkable feature of modern American liberality in the lavish gifts and endowments going on all over the States to colleges and places of learning. He said that it was unprecedented in history. With submissions to the learned president, not quite without precedent. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed a similar spirit in the foundation and endowment of colleges and schools in England and Scotland. About half the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and three out of the four Scottish universities, belong to the period. Still, it is very remarkable to find this new largeness of mind. Since one has received great fortune, let this wealth be pa.s.sed on, not to make a son into an idle man, but to endow, with the best gifts of learning and science, generation after generation of men born for work. We, who are ourselves so richly endowed, and have been so richly endowed for four hundred years, have no need to envy Harvard all her wealth, We may applaud the spirit which seeks not to enrich a family but to advance the nation; all the more because we have many instances of a similar spirit in our own country. It is not the further endowment of Oxford and Cambridge that is continued by one rich man, but the foundation of new colleges, art galleries, and schools of art. Angerstein, Vernon, Alexander, Tate, are some of our benefactors in art.
The endowments of Owens College, the Mason College, the Firth College, University College, London, are gifts of private persons. Since we do not produce rich men so freely as America, our endowments are neither so many nor so great; but the spirit of endowment is with us as well.
Presently one observed at this dinner a note of difference, which afterwards gave food for reflection. It was this: All the speakers, one after the other, without exception, referred to the free inst.i.tutions of the nation, to the duty of citizens, and especially to the responsibilities of those who were destined by the training and education of this venerable college to become the leaders of the country. Nothing whatever was said, by any of the speakers, on the achievements in scholarship, literature, or science made by former scholars of the college; nothing was said of the promise in learning or science of the young men now beginning the world. Now, a year or so ago, the master and fellows of a certain college of the older Cambridge bade to a feast as many of the old members of that college as would fill the hall. It was, of course, a very much smaller hall than that of Harvard; but it was still a venerable college, the mother, so to speak, of Emmanuel, and therefore the grandmother of Harvard. The master, in his speech after dinner, spoke about nothing but the glories of the college in its long list of worthies and the very remarkable number of men, either living or recently pa.s.sed away, whose work in the world had brought distinction to themselves and honour to the college. In short, the college only existed in his mind, and in the minds of those present, for the advancement of learning, nor was there any other consideration possible for him in connection with the college. Is there, then, another view of Harvard College?
There must be. The speakers suggested this new and American view. The college, if my supposed discovery is true, is regarded as a place which is to furnish the State, not with scholars, for whom there will always be a very limited demand, but with a large and perennial supply of men of liberal education and sound principles, whose chief duty shall be the maintenance of the freedom to which they are born, and a steady opposition to the corruption into which all free inst.i.tutions readily fall without unceasing watchfulness. This thing I advance with some hesitation. But it explains the inflated patriotism of the carefully-prepared speech of the governor and the political (not partisan) spirit of all the other speakers. Oxford and Cambridge have long furnished the country with a learned clergy, a learned Bar, and (but this is past) a learned House of Commons. The tradition of learning lingers still; nay, they are centres of learning beyond comparison with any other universities in the world. Harvard also, I suppose, provides a learned clergy; but its princ.i.p.al function, as its rulers seemed to think, is to send out into the world every year a great body of young men fully equipped to be leaders in the country.
This is its chief glory; to do this effectively, I take it, is the chief desire of the president and the society.
It cannot be denied that this is a very important duty, much more important, for a special reason, in the States than it is in Great Britain. I used to marvel, before making these observations, at the constant flying of the stars and stripes everywhere; at the continual reminding as to freedom. "Are there," one asks, "no other countries in the world which are free? In what single point is the freedom of the American greater than the freedom of the Briton, the Canadian, of the Australian?" In none, certainly. Yet we are not forever waving the Union Jack everywhere and calling each other brothers in our glorious liberty. Well: but let us think. In so vast a population, spread over so many States, each State being a different country, there will always be ignorant men, men ready to give up everything for a selfish advantage: there must always be a danger, unless it be continually met and beaten down, that the United may become the dis-United States.
Why, European statesmen used to look forward confidently to the disruption of the States from the Declaration of Independence down to the Civil War. It was a commonplace that the country must inevitably fall to pieces. The very possibility of a disruption is now not even thought of: the thing is never mentioned. Why is this? Surely, because the idea of federation is not only taught and ground in at the elementary schools, but because the flag of federation is always displayed as the chief glory of the nation at every place where two or three Americans are gathered together. The symbol you see is unmistakable: it means Union, once for all; the word, the idea, the symbol, it must be always kept before the eyes of the people; it is in the wisdom of the rulers that the stars and stripes are forever flaunted before the eyes of the people.
And it is not only the ignorant and the selfish among Americans themselves; it is the vast number of immigrants, increasing by half a million every year, who have to be taught what citizenship means. The outward symbol is the readiest teacher; let them never forget that they live under the stars and stripes; let them learn--German, Norwegian, Italian, Irish--what it means to belong to the Great Republic. Is this all that a two months" visitor can bring away from America? It is the most important part of my plunder. What else has been gathered up is hardly worth talking about, in comparison with these two discoveries which are, after all, perhaps only useful to myself: the discovery of the real youthfulness of the country and the discovery of the real meaning and the necessity of the spread-eagle speeches and the flaunting of the flag in season and out of season. It may seem a small thing to learn, but the lesson has wholly changed my point of view. The fact is perhaps hardly worth recording; it matters little what a single Englishman thinks; but if he can induce others to think with him, or to modify their views in the same direction, it may matter a great deal.
And, of course, an Englishman must think of his own future--that of his own country. Before many years the United Kingdom must inevitably undergo great changes: the vastness of the Empire will vanish; Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa will fall away and will become independent republics; what these little islands will become then, I know not. What will become of the English-speaking races, thus firmly planted over the whole globe, is a more important question. If a man had the voice of the silver-mouthed Father, if a man had the inspiration of a prophet, it would be a small thing for that man to consecrate and expend all his life, all his strength, all his soul, in the creation of a great federation of English-speaking peoples. There should be no war of tariffs between them; there should be no possibility of dispute between them; there should be as many nations separate and distinct as might please to call themselves nations; it should make no difference whether Canada was the separate dominion of Canada, or a part of the United States; it should make no difference whether Great Britain and Ireland were a monarchy or a republic. The one thing of importance would be an indestructible alliance for offence and defence among the people who have inherited the best part of the whole world. This alliance can best be forwarded by a promotion of friendship between private persons; by a constant advocacy in the press of all the countries concerned; and by the feeling, to be cultivated everywhere, that such a confederation would present to the world the greatest, strongest, wealthiest, most highly cultivated confederacy of nations that ever existed. It would be permanent, because here would be no war of aggression in tariffs, or of personal quarrel; no territorial ambitions; no conflict of kings.
Naturally, I was not called upon to speak at the Harvard dinner. Had I spoken, I should like to have said: "Men of Harvard, grandsons of that benignant mother--still young--who sits crowned with laurels, ever fresh, on the sedgy bank of Granta, think of the country from which your fathers have sprung. Go out into the world--your world of youthful endeavour and success; do your best to bring the hearts of the people whom you will have to lead back to their kin across the seas to east and west--over the Atlantic and over the Pacific. Do your best to bring about the Indestructible fraternity of the whole English-speaking races. Do this in the sacred name of that freedom of which you have this day heard so much, and of that Christianity to which by the very stamp and seal of your college you are the avowed and sworn servants. Rah!"
[1893.]
ART AND THE PEOPLE. [Paper read at the Birmingham Meeting of the Social Science Congress.]
There is a pa.s.sage in one of the letters of Edward Denison which exactly interprets the dejection and oppression certain to fall upon one who seriously considers and personally investigates, however superficially, the condition of the poor in great cities. He writes from Philpott Street, Commercial Road, East London, and he says: "My wits are getting blunted by the monotony and ugliness of the place. I can almost imagine the awful effect upon a human mind of never seeing anything but the meanest and vilest of men and man"s work, and of complete exclusion from the sight of G.o.d"s works." The very exaggeration of these words shows the profound dejection of the writer, at a moment when his resolution to continue living in a place where there was neither nature nor art, nor beauty anywhere, weighed upon him like a penal sentence, so that the vileness of the surroundings entered into his soul and made him feel as if the men and women in the place, as well as their works, were all alike, mean, vile, and sordid. Edward Denison wrote these words seventeen years ago. The place in which he lived is still ugly and monotonous, a small cross-street leading from the back of the London Hospital into the Commercial Road, about as far from green fields and parks or gardens as can be found anywhere in London; there are still a good many of the vilest of man"s works carried on in the neighbourhood, especially the making of clothes for Government contractors, and the making of shirts for private sweaters. But something has been attempted since Denison came here--the pioneer of a great invasion. Many others have followed his example, and are now, like him, living among the people. Clubs have been established, concerts and readings have been given, and excursions into the country, convalescent homes and a thousand different things have grown up for the amelioration of the poor.
Better than all, there are now thousands of educated and cultivated men and women who are perpetually considering how existing evils may be remedied and new evils prevented. With philanthropic efforts, with the social questions connected with them, I have now nothing to do. We are at present only concerned with a question of Art: we are to inquire how the love and desire for Art may be introduced and developed, and to ask what has already been attempted In this direction.
I would first desire to explain that I know absolutely nothing about the state of things in any other great city of Great Britain than one.
What I say is based upon such small knowledge that I may have gained concerning London, and especially East London. As regards Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Glasgow, and any other place where there is a great industrial population, I know nothing. If, therefore, exception be taken to any expressions of mine as applied to some other city, I beg it to be remembered that East London alone is in my mind. Even concerning East London exception may be taken to anything I may advance. That is because it is impossible to make any general proposition whatever of humanity considered in the ma.s.s except the elementary ones, such as that all must eat and sleep, to which objection may not be raised. Thus, I know that it is true, and I am prepared to maintain the a.s.sertion, that the lower cla.s.ses in London care nothing about Art, and know nothing about Art, and have only an elementary appreciation of things beautiful. It is equally true, on the other hand, that there are everywhere some whose hearts are yearning and whose hands are stretched out in prayer for greater beauty and fulness of life. It is also, as a general statement, true that there are no amus.e.m.e.nts in East London, which contains two and a half millions of people, has no munic.i.p.ality, and is the biggest, ugliest, and meanest city in the whole world. Yet it is equally true that there are in it inst.i.tutes for education and science, art, and literature, mutual improvement societies, clubs at which there are evenings for singing, dancing, and private theatricals, and rowing, swimming, and cricket clubs. It is again, as a general rule, true that the lower cla.s.ses are ignorant of science, yet there are everywhere scattered among the working men single cases of earnest devotion to science. And it is painfully true that they do not seem to feel the ugliness of their own streets and houses; yet no one who has been among the holiday folks in the country on a Bank Holiday or a fine Sunday in the summer can deny their profound appreciation of field and forest, flowers and green leaves, sunshine and shade. It is, lastly, perfectly true that their lives, compared with those of the more cultivated cla.s.ses, do seem horribly dull, monotonous, and poor. Yet the dulness is more apparent than real: ugly houses and mean streets do not necessarily imply mean and ugly lives. Their days may be enlivened in a thousand ways which to the outsider are invisible.
Among these are some which directly or indirectly make for the appreciation of Art.
It seems safe, however, to advance one proposition. There is a cla.s.s in and below which it is impossible that there can exist a feeling for Art of ally kind, or, indeed, for religion, for virtue, for knowledge of any kind, or for anything beyond the necessity of providing for the next day"s food and shelter. Those miserable women who work from early morning to late night, condemned to a slavery worse than any we have abolished; those hungry men who besiege the dock-gates for a day"s work, and have nothing in the whole world but a pair of hands; that vast cla.s.s which is separated from starvation by a single day--what thought, interest, or care can they have for anything in the world but the procuring of food? When the physical condition of English men and women is worse, as Professor Huxley has declared it to be, than the condition of naked savages in the Southern Seas, how can we look for the virtues and the aspirations which belong essentially to the level of comparative ease? Until we have mastered the problem of finding steady work for all, with adequate wages and decent homes, we need not look for Art in these lowest ranks. We have to do, therefore, not with the very poor at all, but with the respectable poor--the families of skilled mechanics, _employes_ in regular work, workmen in breweries, ship-yards, and factories independent handicraftsmen, clerks, cashiers, accountants, writers, small shopkeepers, and all that great host which is perpetually occupied in increasing the wealth of the country by labour which, at least, permits them to live in comfort.
All these people have leisure; most of them, except the shop a.s.sistants, have no work in the evening; they are all possessed of some education. There is no reason at all why they should not, if they could be only got to desire it, become students in some of the branches of Art.
Let us, then, always with reference to this one city and this one cla.s.s of its inhabitants, ascertain what has been done already to create a love of Art. The most important thing as yet attempted is the Bethnal Green Museum. It is, for our purposes, also the most instructive, because it has. .h.i.therto been, I consider, a complete and ignominious failure. That is to say, it was established and is maintained as an educational museum, it was especially designed to create and develop a knowledge of Art and it has not done so. It was opened in 1872 with, among other things, the magnificent collection of pictures lent by Sir Richard Wallace; during the twelve years of its existence it has exhibited other collections of considerable interest: but the education, the free library, and the cla.s.srooms promised at the outset have never been forthcoming. It is, in fact, a dumb and silent gallery. One may compare it to a Board School newly built, provided with all the latest appliances for education--with books, desks, seats, blackboards, and everything, including crowds of pupils, but left without a teaching staff, the pupils being expected to teach themselves. Why not? There are the books and there are the desks, So with this museum. You cannot learn anything of Art without the study of artistic work. Here is the artistic work. Why do not the people study it? They certainly come to the place; they come in large numbers; on free days when it is open until ten at night they average over two thousand a day all the year round. And if you take the trouble to watch them, to follow them about, and to listen to their conversation, you will presently discover with how much intelligence they are studying the artistic work before them.
The failure of Bethnal Green should teach us what to avoid. Let us therefore walk round the halls and galleries of this museum. In the central hall there is placed, each object with a ticket containing a brief description of it, a really n.o.ble collection of cabinets, carved and painted; with these are rare and costly vases, of English, Russian, Danish, and German workmanship; there are a few statuettes, some paintings on china, things in glazed earthenware, and gla.s.s cases containing Syrian and Albanian necklaces and jewellery. In the lower side galleries there is, first, a collection of food products, showing specimens of wheat, rice, starch, salt, and so forth, with models of vegetables and fruit executed in wax; and next, a collection of woollen stuff and fabrics of all kinds, with feathers, stags" heads, antlers, and so forth. In the upper galleries there is a collection of paintings and engravings. Here and there are suspended tablets which are inscribed with bits of information, chiefly statistical. On my last visit to the place I could not observe that anyone was studying these tablets. This is, roughly speaking, all that the Bethnal Green Museum contains. The directors of this inst.i.tution, opened with so much promise, which was going to educate the people and endow them with a sense of Art and a love of beauty, think they have done all they promised when they show a collection of cabinets and vases, a few bottles containing rice and wheat, a few turnips in wax, a few cases with pretty fabrics, and collection of pictures. There is no music; there is no sculpture; none of the small arts are represented at all; there is not the slightest attempt made to educate anybody. If you want any other information or help besides that given by the tablets you will not get it, because there is n.o.body to give it. A policeman mounts guard over the cases, a woman sells the publications of the South Kensington Department, and you can rend on a board the number of visitors for every day in the year. But there is no one to go round with you and talk about the things on exhibition. There are no lectures nor any cla.s.ses, there are no handbooks to teach the history of the Fine Arts and to ill.u.s.trate the collection in the museum. There is not, incredible to say, even a catalogue. _There is no catalogue_.
Imagine an exhibition without even an official guide to its contents.
Here, says the Department, is the Bethnal Green Museum with its doors wide open: let the people walk in and inspect the contents.
So, if we invited the people to inspect a collection of cuneiform inscriptions, we might just as well expect them to carry away a knowledge of a.s.syrian history; or by exhibiting an electrical machine we might as well expect them to understand the appliances of electricity. It is not enough, in fact, to exhibit pictures: they must be explained. It is with paintings and drawings as with everything else, those who come to see them having no knowledge carry none away with them. The visitors to a museum are like travellers in a foreign country, of whom Emerson truly says that when they leave it they take nothing away but what they brought with them. The finest wood carving, the most beautiful vase, the richest cla.s.sic painting, produces on the uncultivated eye no more valuable or lasting impression than the sight of a sailing ship for the first time produces on the mind of a savage.
That is to say, the impression at the best is of wonder, not of delight or curiosity at all. In the picture galleries, it is true, the dull eyes are lifted and the weary faces brighten, because here, if you plea, we touch upon that art which every human being all over the world can appreciate. It is the art of story-telling. The visitors go from picture to picture and they read the stories. As for landscapes, figures, portraits, or slabs, they pa.s.s them by. What they love is a picture of life in action, a picture that tells a story and quicken their pulses. You may observe this in every picture gallery--even at the Grosvenor and the Royal Academy--even among the cla.s.ses who are supposed to know something of Art: for one who studies a portrait by Millsis, or a head by Leighton, there are crowds who stand before a picture which tells a story. At the Royal Academy the story is generally, but not always, read in silence; at Bethnal Green it is read aloud. You will perhaps observe the importance of this difference. It is because at the Royal Academy everybody has the feeling that he is present in the character of a critic, and must therefore affect, at least, to be considering the workmanship, and pa.s.sing a judgment on the artist. But at Bethnal Green the visitors feel that they have been invited to be pleased, to wonder, and to admire the beautiful stories represented on the canvas by clever men who have learnt this trade. As for how a story may be told on canvas, the way in which the conception of the artist has been executed, the truth of the drawing, the fidelity of colouring--on these points no questions are asked and no curiosity is expressed. Why should they?
Painting they regard as one of the arts which may be learned for a trade, like matchmaking or shoemaking. Remember that it never occurs to people to learn the mysteries of any trade beside their own. On my last visit to this museum, for instance, I chanced upon two women who were standing before a vase. It was a large and very beautiful vase, of admirable form and proportions, and it was decorated on the top by a group representing three captives chained to the rock. Their comment on this work of art was as follows: "Look," said one, "look at those poor men chained to the rock." "Yes," replied the other, "poor fellows! ain"t it shocking?"
To their eyes the only thing to be looked at was the group of figures, and the only suggestion made to their minds by the vase related to the story, thus half told, of the captives. As for the vase itself, it was nothing; the workmanship and painting were nothing; the sculpturing of the figures was nothing.
It is constantly argued that the mere contemplation of things beautiful creates this artistic sense--the sense of beauty. This is undoubtedly true if one were to dwell entirely among beautiful things.
But how if for one thing which is beautiful you are made to contemplate a hundred which are not? Suppose you offer a girl of untrained eye a choice of costumes, of which one is artistic and the rest are all hideous, how can you expect her to know the one--the only one--which she sought to choose? Or, again, if you allow a boy to read and learn as much bad poetry as good, what can you expect of his standard of taste? In other words, when the surroundings of life are wholly without Art, an occasional visit to a collection of paintings cannot create an intelligent appreciation of Art.
Again, there are many branches and diverse forms or Art. For Instance, there is music, there is singing there is acting, there is sculpture, poetry, fiction; and besides these there are working in metals, engraving in wood and copper, leather work, bra.s.s work, fret work, and decoration. None of these arts are ill.u.s.trated and recognised in the Bethnal Green Museum, Yet, when we speak of the spreading of Art among the poor, surely we do not mean only drawing, design, and painting.
The popularity of this museum has been argued as a proof of its efficiency. It attracts, as I have stated already, over 2,000 on every free day all the year round. On the one day in the week when an entrance fee of sixpence is required it attracts from twenty to forty.
This means that out of two millions of people in East London there is so little enthusiasm for Art that only forty can be found each week to pay sixpence in order to enjoy quiet galleries and undisturbed study.
Remember that East London is not altogether a poor place; there are whole districts which are full of villa residences as good as any in the southern suburb; there are many people who are wealthy; but all the wealth and all the Art enthusiasm of the place will not bring more than forty every week to pay their sixpence. As for copying the pictures, I do not know if any facilities are afforded for the purpose, but I have never seen anyone in the place copying at all.
The throng of visitors on free days may partly be explained on other grounds than the love of Art. It is a place where one can pleasantly lounge, or sit down to rest, or lazily look at pleasant things, or talk with one"s friends, or take refuge from bad weather. This is as it should be; the place is regarded as a pleasant place. Yet the number of visitors has fallen off. In the first year of its existence nearly a million entered the gates; four years later an equal number was registered; for the last three years the number has fallen to less than half a million. Its popularity, therefore, is on the decline.
It is, again, a great place for children. They are sent here just as they are sent to the British Museum and the South Kensington Museum, in order to be out of the way. You will always see children in these places, strolling listlessly among the rooms and corridors. Once, for instance, on a certain Easter Monday, I encountered, in the South Kensington Museum, a miserable little pair, who were crying in a corner by themselves. Beside the cases full of splendid embroideries and golden lace, among which they had strayed, they looked curiously incongruous, and somewhat like the unfortunate pair led to their destruction by the wicked uncle. They had, in fact, been sent to the museum by their mother, with a piece of bread-and-b.u.t.ter for their dinner, and told to stay there all day long. By this time the bread-and-b.u.t.ter had long since been eaten up, and they were hungry again, and there was a long afternoon before them. What to these hungry children would have been a whole Field of the Cloth of Gold? We must, therefore, make very large deductions indeed when we consider the popularity of Bethnal Green. Doubtless it is pleasant to read the stories of the pictures; but the light, the warmth, the society of the place are also pleasant. And as for Art education, why, as none is given, so none is desired.
I have dwelt upon Bethnal Green Museum at some length, not because I wished to attack the place, but because it seems to me an example of what ought not to be done, and because it ill.u.s.trates most admirably two propositions which I have to offer. These are--(1) That the lower cla.s.ses have no instinctive desire for Art; (2) that they will not teach themselves.
We may also learn from considering what this museum is what an educational and popular museum ought to be; and to this I will immediately return. Meantime, let us go on to consider a few minor agencies at work in the East of London, directly or indirectly working in favour of Art. And, first, I should like to call attention to the annual exhibition of pictures which the indefatigable Vicar of St.
Jude"s, Whitechapel--the Rev. Samuel Barnett--gets together every Easter for his people. The point is not so much that he holds this exhibition as that he engages the services of volunteer lecturers, who go round the show with the visitors and explain the pictures, so that they may learn what it is they should admire and something of what they should look for in a drawing or painting. In other words, Mr.
Barnett"s visitors are instructed in the first elements of Art criticism. There are, next, certain inst.i.tutes, educational and social, such as the Bow and Bromley and the Beaumont, which might be used to advantage for Art purposes. Then there are the Church organizations, with their services, their clubs, their social, gatherings, and their schools; there are the chapels, each with its own set of similar inst.i.tutions; there are the working men"s clubs, which might also lend themselves and their rooms for the development of Art; there are such societies as the Kyrle Society, which give free concerts of good music, and are therefore already working for us; lastly, there are the schools of Art--there are five in East London, working under the South Kensington Department. All these are agencies which either are already working in the interests of Art, or could be easily induced to do so.
To sum up, at the exhibition of the Bethnal Green Museum the people walk round the pictures, are pleased to read their stories, and go away; at the concerts they listen, are satisfied, and go away; at the readings and recitations they applaud, and go away. They are not, in fact, stimulated by these exhibitions and performances in the slightest degree to draw, paint, carve, play an instrument, sing, recite, or act for themselves. But observe that directly they form clubs of their own, although they may develop many reprehensible tendencies, and especially that of gambling, they do at once begin to act, sing, recite, and dance for themselves. What we want them to do, then, is to begin for themselves, or to fall in willingly with those who begin for them, the pursuit of Art in its more difficult and higher branches. What we desire is that they should realize what we know, that to teach a lad or a girl one of these Fine Arts is to confer upon him an inestimable boon; that no life can be wholly unhappy which is cheered by the power of playing an instrument, dancing, painting, carving, modelling, singing, making fiction, or writing poetry, that it is not necessary to do these things so well as to be able to live by them; but that every man who practises one of these arts is, during his work, drawn out of himself and away from the bad conditions of his life. If, I say, the people can be got to understand something of this, the rest will be easy. A few examples in their midst would be enough to show them that it wants little to be an artist, that the practice of Art is a lifelong delight, and that in the exercise and improvement of the faculties of observation, comparison, and selection, in the daily consideration of beauty in its various forms, the years roll by easily and are spent in a continual dream of happiness. You know that it has been observed especially of actors, that they never grow old. The thing is true with artists of every kind--they never grow old. Their hair may become gray and may fall off, they may be afflicted with the same weaknesses as other men, but their hearts remain always young to the very end. But this is not an inducement, I am afraid, that we can put forth in an appeal to the people to follow Art. I am sure, moreover, that it is the desire of all to include the encouragement of every kind of Art, not that of drawing and painting only. We wish that every boy and every girl shall learn something--and it matters little whether we make him draw, design, paint, decorate, carve, work in bra.s.s or leather, whether we make him a musician, a painter, a sculptor, a poet, or a novelist, provided he be instructed in the true principles of Art. Imagine, if you can, a time when in every family of boys and girls one shall be a musician, and another a carver of wood, and a third a painter; when every home shall be full of artistic and beautiful things, and the Present ugliness be only remembered as a kind of bad dream. This may appear to some impossible, but it is, on the other hand, very possible and sure to come in the immediate future. It is true that, as a nation, we are not artistic, but we might change our character in a single generation. It has taken less than a single generation to develop the enormous increase of Art which we now see around us in the upper cla.s.ses. Think of such a thing as house decoration and furniture. We have to extend this development into regions where it is as yet unfelt, and among a cla.s.s which have, as yet, shown no willingness or desire for such extension.
All this has been said by way of apology for the practical scheme which I venture now to lay before you. You have already heard from Mr.
Leland"s own lips what has been for five years his work in Philadelphia, you have heard how he has brought the small arts into hundreds of homes, and has given purpose and brightness to hundreds of lives. I have followed this work of his from the beginning with the greatest interest. Before he began it, he told me what he was going to try, and how he meant to try. But I think that, courageous and self-reliant as he is, he did not and could not, at tho outset, antic.i.p.ate such a magnificent success as he has obtained. You have also heard something of the society called the Cottage Arts a.s.sociation, founded by Mrs. Jebb, by which the villagers are taught some of the minor arts.
This a.s.sociation is, I am convinced, going to do a great work, and I am very glad to be able to read you Mrs. Jebb"s own testimony, the fruit of her long experience. She says, "We must give the people--children of course included--opportunities of unofficial intercourse with those who already love Art, and who can help them to see and to discriminate. We must teach them to use their own hands and eyes in doing actual Art work; even if the work done does not count for much, it will develop their observation and quicken their appreciation in a way which I believe nothing else will do--no mere looking or explaining. They must be helped to make their own homes and the things they use beautiful. They must not be helped only to learn to do Art work, but also given ideas as to its application, shown how and where to get materials, etc. Further, it has been resolved that prizes shall be given to the pupils for the best copies drawn, modelled, carved, or repousse of the casts and designs circulated among the various cla.s.ses."
I propose, therefore, that, with such modifications as suit our own way of working, we should initiate on a more extended scale the example set us by Mrs. Jebb and Mr. Leland. I think that it would not be difficult, while retaining the machinery and the help afforded by the South Kensington Department in painting and drawing, to establish local clubs, cla.s.ses, and societies, or, which I think much better, a central society with local branches, either for the whole of England or for each county or for each great city, for the purpose of teaching, encouraging, and advancing all the Fine Arts, both small and great. We do the whole of our collective work in this country by means of societies: it is an Englishman"s instinct, if he ardently desires to bring about a thing, to recognise that, though he cannot get what he wants by his own effort, he may get it by a.s.sociating other people with him and forming a society. Everything is done by societies. One need not, therefore, make any apology for desiring to see another society established. That of which I dream would be, to begin with, independent of all politics, controversies, or theories whatever; it would not be a society requiring an immense income--in fact, with a very small income indeed very large results might be obtained, as you will immediately see. The work of the society would consist almost entirely of evening cla.s.ses; it would not have to build schools or to buy houses at first, but it would use, or rent, whatever rooms might be found available-perhaps those of the day-schools. All the arts would be taught in these schools, except those already taught by the South Kensington Department, but especially the minor arts, for this very important and practical reason, that these would be found almost immediately to have a money value, and would therefore serve the useful purpose of attracting pupils. At the outset there must be no fees, but everybody must be invited to come in and learn. After the value of the school has been established in the popular mind there would be no difficulty in exacting a small fee towards the expenses of maintenance. But, from the very first, there must be established a system of prizes, public exhibitions of work done by the students, concerts at which the musicians would play and the choirs would sing, and theatricals at which the actors would perform. Partly by these public honours, and partly by showing an actual market value for the work, we may confidently look forward to creating and afterwards fostering a genuine enthusiasm for Art.
How are the funds to be provided for all this work? The money required for a commencement will be in reality very little. There are the necessary tools and materials to be found, a certain amount of house service to be done and paid for, gas and firing, and perhaps rent.
Observe, however, that the materials for Art students of all kinds are not expensive, that house service costs very little, light and firing not a great deal; and even the rent would not be heavy, since all our schools would be situated in the poor neighbourhoods. There only remain the teachers, and here comes in the really important part of the scheme. _The teachers will cost nothing at all._ They will all be members of our new society, and they will give, in addition to or in lieu of an annual subscription, their personal services as gratuitous teachers. This part of the scheme is sure to command your sympathies, the more so if you consider the current of contemporary thought. More and more we are getting volunteer labour in almost every department.
Everywhere, in every town and in every parish, along with the professional workers, are those who work for nothing. As for the women who work for nothing, the sisters of religious orders, the women who collect rents, the women who live among the poor, those who read aloud to patients in hospitals, those who go about in the poorest places, their name is legion. And as for the men, we have no cause to be ashamed of the part which they take in this great voluntary movement, which is the n.o.blest thing the world has ever seen, and which I believe to be only just beginning. All our great religious societies, all our hospitals, all our philanthropic societies, are worked by unpaid committees. All our School wards over the whole country, not to speak of the House of Commons, are unpaid. At this very moment there are springing up here and there in East London actual monasteries--only without monastic vows--in which live young men who devote themselves, either wholly or in part, to work among the poor, often to evening and night work after their own day"s labours. It is no longer a visionary thing; it is a great and solid fact, that there are hundreds of men willing, without vows, orders, or any rule, and without hope of reward, not even grat.i.tude, to live for their brother men. They give, not their money or their influence, or their exhortations, but they give--_themselves_. Greater love hath no man.
As for us, we shall not ask our teachers to give their whole time, unless they offer it. One or two evenings out of the week will suffice. I am convinced--you are all, I am sure, convinced--that there will be no difficulty at all in getting teachers, but that the only difficulty will be in selecting those who can add discretion to zeal, capability to enthusiasm, skill and tact in teaching, as well as a knowledge of an art to be taught. Think of the Working Men"s College in Great Ormond Street--perhaps you don"t know of this inst.i.tution. It is a great school for working men; it teaches all subjects, and it has been running for nearly thirty years. During the whole of that time, I believe I am right in saying that the professors and teachers have been all unpaid--they are volunteers. Can we fear that in Art, in which there are so many enthusiasts, we shall not get as much volunteer a.s.sistance as in Letters and Science?
This, then, is my proposal for creating and developing an enthusiasm for Art. There are to be schools everywhere, controlled by local committees, under a central society; there are to be volunteer teachers, willing to subject themselves to rule and order; there are to be public exhibitions and prize-givings; all the arts, not one only, are to be taught; great prominence is to be given to the minor arts; at first there will be no fees; above all and before all, the great College of ours is not to be made a Government department, to be tied and bound by the hard-and-fast rules and red tape which are the curse of every department, nor is it to be under the direction of any School Board, but, like most things in this country that are of any use, it is to be governed by its own council.
One thing more. I am firmly convinced that the only inst.i.tutions in any country which endure are those which take a firm hold of the popular mind and are supported by the people themselves. In order to make the College of Art permanent, it must belong absolutely to the people. This can only be effected by the gradual retirement of the wealthy cla.s.s, who will start it, from the management, and the subst.i.tution of actual working men in their place--working men, I mean, who have themselves been through some course of study in the College, and have, perhaps, become teachers. And as working men will certainly do nothing without pay--in London, whatever may be the case elsewhere, their strongest feeling is that their only possessions are their time and their hands--we shall have to provide that the teachers of the schools, the directors of the college, and the clerks in the secretariat, shall never be paid at a higher rate than the current rate of wage for manual work. The people themselves will in the end supply council, executive officers, and teaching staff. The time is ripe; we are ready to begin the work; I do not fear for a moment that the working man will not, if we begin with prudence, presently respond, and, through him, the boys and girls.
We must, however, have a museum, although on this subject I cannot dwell. I should like to take the Bethnal Green inst.i.tution entirely out of South Kensington hands; they have had it for fourteen years, and you have heard what they have made of it. I think they should hand it over, if not to our new College of Art, then to a local committee, who would at least try to show what an educational museum should be.
Our educational museum will be a branch of the College of Art; it will be in all respects the exact opposite of the Bethnal Green Museum; it will have everything which is there wanting; it will have a library and reading-room; it will have lecturers and teachers, it will have cla.s.s-rooms; the exhibits will be changed continually; there will be an organ and concerts; there will be a theatre, there will be in it every appliance which will teach our pupils the exquisite joy, the true and real delight, of expressing n.o.ble thought in beautiful and precious work.
THE AMUs.e.m.e.nTS OF THE PEOPLE