irnia 
 il
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 i
 
 FORM IN CIVILIZATION
 
 FORM IN CIVILIZATION 
 
 COLLECTED PAPERS ON ART & LABOUR 
 
 BY W. R./LETHABY 
 
 V 
 
 ' Remember how much this fine Egyptian work meant, ft was 
 not only that so many men were trained to do neat work : they 
 must have had the mind behind the training that could demand it. 
 The demands of each age were its ideals and were the really im- 
 portant things. You may have confidence in the interpretation of 
 mind by the products of art. What, for instance, was there in tlie 
 writings of the thirteenth century which gave such a perfect 
 picture of the mediaeval mind as Salisbury Cathedral? ' 
 
 (Prof. FLINDERS PETRIE: Lecture, 1913.) 
 
 LONDON 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD
 
 First edition 1922 
 
 Reprinted photographically in Great Britain in 1936 
 
 by LOWE & BRVDONE, LONDON, from sheets of the 
 
 First edition 
 
 Printed in Gret Britain
 
 Architecture 4 
 
 Urban Planning 
 
 Library 
 
 to 
 
 A/ 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 >i THESE papers are here reprinted with only 
 
 ** minor alterations. Some repetition is almost in- 
 
 3 evitable in separate essays on kindred subjects, 
 
 or different aspects of the same subject, when 
 
 they have been written at various times. The 
 
 several papers are generally related by being to- 
 
 " gether an attempt to consider civilization from 
 
 "~ the angle of Labour and Art. I wish here to thank 
 
 cj the editors of the Hibbert Journal, the London 
 
 : Mercury,znd other magazines for permitting me 
 
 to include several articles. 
 
 W. R. L. 
 Jan. 18, 1922. 
 
 O 
 C/D 
 
 12854.96
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. ARCHITECTURE AS FORM IN 
 
 CIVILIZATION ... i 
 
 II. TOWN TIDYING . . . .17 
 
 III. TOWNS TO LIVE IN . . .22 
 
 IV. HOUSING AND FURNISHING . 35 
 V. DESIGN AND INDUSTRY . . 4 6 
 
 VI. MEMORIALS OF THE FALLEN: 
 
 SERVICE OR SACRIFICE? . 56 
 
 VII. THE ARCHITECTURE OF AD- 
 VENTURE .... 66 
 
 VIII. MODERN GERMAN ARCHITEC- 
 TURE AND WHAT WE MAY 
 LEARN FROM IT . . .96 
 
 IX. ARCHITECTURE AND MODERN 
 
 LIFE 106 
 
 X. EDUCATION OF THE ARCHI- 
 TECT 122 
 
 XI. EDUCATION FOR APPRECIA- 
 TION OR FOR PRODUC- 
 TION? 133 
 
 XII. APPRENTICESHIP AND EDUCA- 
 TION 139
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XIII. THE NEED FOR BEAUTY . . i 44 
 
 XIV. WHAT SHALL WE CALL BEAU- 
 
 TIFUL ? 147 
 
 XV. EXHIBITIONISM AT THE ROY- 
 AL ACADEMY AND HIGHER 
 CRITICISM OF ART . . .169 
 
 XVI. RUSKIN : DEFEAT AND VIC- 
 TORY 183 
 
 XVII. POLITICAL ECONOMY OR PRO- 
 
 DUCTIVE ECONOMY . .188 
 
 XVIII. ARTS AND THE FUNCTION OF 
 
 GUILDS . '. . . .201 
 
 XIX. ART AND WORKMANSHIP . 208 
 
 XX. THE FOUNDATION IN LA- 
 BOUR 214 
 
 XXI. THE CENTRE OF GRAVITY . 226 
 
 XXII. THE PRESERVATION OF AN- 
 CIENT ARCHITECTURE , . 234
 
 I 
 
 ARCHITECTURE AS FORM IN 
 CIVILIZATION 1 
 
 TOWNS and Civilization are two words for 
 nearly one thing; the City is the manifestation 
 of the spirit of its population and the larger 
 body it builds for its soul. To build cities and 
 live in them properly is the great business of 
 large associations of men. The outward and the 
 made must always be exact pictures of the mind 
 of the makers. Not only is this so at any given 
 stage, but it is so all the more in a going con- 
 cern, for the outward is always reacting again 
 on the inward, so that the concrete becomes a 
 mould for the spiritual. Man builds towns so 
 that the towns shall build his sons. As the old 
 Greek said, c The city teaches the man'. 
 
 William Morris says somewhere that the re- 
 ligions of antiquity were the worshipping of 
 cities. It may seem strange, this idea of city wor- 
 ship, but it explains much in the history of art, 
 and we need something of similar sort even 
 now: this and other worships besides and be- 
 
 1 Reprinted by permission from The London Mercury, 
 1920. 
 
 S565
 
 2 ARCHITECTURE AS 
 
 yond. Before the recognition of the universal 
 and the national we require a much deepened 
 sense of the civic. Here comes before the Beyond. 
 Almost the greatest question of the time is the 
 one of finding wells for the refreshment of our 
 vitality the fostering of national spirit, town 
 spirit, and home spirit. Such spirit is a very 
 subtle essence, and yet it dwells in houses, and 
 cities are its reservoirs. In the Army it has 
 always been recognized that the foundation of 
 the whole vast violent business is spirit. The 
 children of war are wiser than the children of 
 peace. As an example take this scrap from the 
 experience of a new soldier: 'The private is 
 taught from the beginning that the first duty of 
 a soldier is obedience, the second cleanliness, 
 and the third may be gathered from this short 
 dialogue between a drill sergeant and a squad of 
 recruits: "What is the third duty of a soldier?" 
 asks the sergeant. "Honesty, sobriety, and self- 
 respect", we reply. "And what is selr-respect? " 
 "Keeping your buttons bright." ' 
 
 We know that Jerusalem was a sacred city, 
 and so was Athens too in its way. So indeed were 
 all the cities of antiquity, each in its proper sta- 
 tus. In the later classical age every one had its 
 impersonation of sculptured image the Tyche 
 of the City. Fragments of a figure of Silchester 
 were found in the Basilica of the old British
 
 FORM IN CIVILIZATION 3 
 
 town; an image which stood for the genius of 
 the place. London and York were also sacred 
 in those Roman days, and the figure on our 
 pennies is a similar Roman imagination for the 
 whole country, Britannia. A fine inscription 
 from Ephesus in the Central Hall of the British 
 Museum is a delightful example of the forms 
 and ceremonies observed by the proud cities of 
 antiquity the ritual prescribed for their wor- 
 ship in fact. This marble slab, about 7 feet by 3^ 
 feet, bears in large clear lettering the copy of 
 a letter addressed by Antoninus Pius to the 
 Magistrates and People of Ephesus c. A.D. 140. 
 The emperor approved that the people of Per- 
 gamon had written letters to Ephesus correctly 
 addressed with the prescribed titles First and 
 Greatest Metropolis ofAsia y or the like. He thinks 
 that the people of Smyrna had accidentally 
 omitted this from a decree about joint sacrifice, 
 but they will behave correctly in future, pro- 
 vided that the Ephesians use the approved 
 titles in writing to Smyrna, pre-eminent in beauty 
 or the like. This is indeed politeness on a high 
 plane. 
 
 One of the ways in which civic spirit, pride, 
 and love must be refounded is in the sense of 
 historical continuity. Such a sense of regional 
 reverence is being cultivated in France on a 
 definitely psychological basis, and those alert 
 B 2
 
 4 ARCHITECTURE AS 
 
 Americans have already begun to work the 
 ground of their antiquities. A publication of 
 a local historical society, issued as far back 
 as 1 900, contains an account of what they in 
 America call 'An Old Ipswich House'. It begins 
 with some words which I must quote: 'The 
 extraordinary production and large circulation 
 of the historical novel is but one of the conse- 
 quences of the remarkable growth of patriotic 
 societies in this country in the last few years. 
 One of the most admirable results of the move- 
 ment is the widespread interest in the estab- 
 lishment of local historical societies in the old 
 towns of New England. [Older towns of Old 
 England, please note and copy.] These societies 
 have a very fascinating work before them in the 
 collection of local records, the preservation of 
 old buildings, in the marking of historic sites. 
 This soil is fertile, and delving therein bears 
 rich fruit of interest, love for the community, 
 heightened civic feeling,encouragementof local 
 improvement, and a care for the future of the 
 town. In not a few places the local society has 
 taken some old house for its headquarters, 
 adorning it with attractive historical collections. 
 Such a collection is that of the Bostonian 
 Society, to which the city long ago gave the 
 use of the Old State House.' What might our 
 English towns still do in this way! Or is it to be
 
 FORM IN CIVILIZATION 5 
 
 that for authentic touch with antiquity we shall 
 soon have to go to America? And in passing 
 may I commend this idea to those who have 
 the destruction of the old Dean's House at 
 Wolverhampton in their mind or at least their 
 power? 
 
 Germany has long consciously cultivated this 
 field for spirit production, and I remember an 
 official tract on the psychological value of An- 
 cient Monuments in promoting national con- 
 sciousness. It is in Denmark, however, that 
 an effort to promote national spirit has been 
 most systematically based on a common know- 
 ledge of national traditions, arts, and music, 
 and spread by means of their admirable 'Folk 
 Schools'. 
 
 Monumental history is a stirring, vital thing: 
 it can be touched. In every town every child- 
 citizen should know the story and antiquities 
 of that place. This has always been the way 
 until now. 'What mean these stones?' the 
 children say, and we answer, 'I don't know'. 
 The history that can be seen and touched is a 
 strong and stimulating soul-food, entirely dif- 
 ferent from vague and wearying written history. 
 
 The historical starting-post is only one of 
 many ways of approach to fine forms of civiliza- 
 tion; we must not wait on the order of our go- 
 ing, but go at once andfrom every point at once.
 
 6 ARCHITECTURE AS 
 
 Much is being thought and said about Housing 
 and Town Planning; they are both of the great- 
 est possible importance, but they are not all. 
 We need at least a third to go with them that 
 is a general cleaning, tidying, and smartening 
 movement, an effort to improve all our public 
 and social arts, from music to cooking and 
 games. Indeed our arts and customs are all 
 indexes and pictures of our inner life. Fine 
 bridges, clean, smiling streets, liberal public 
 buildings are not merely shapes and nothing 
 more. They are essential to our sense of order, 
 brightness, and efficiency, to our pride, con- 
 fidence, and content. A sore protesting feeling 
 cannot be good for the temper and digestion. 
 A civilized life cannot be lived in undisciplined 
 towns. We must control and tax advertisements 
 to some order, bring pressure on the railway 
 companies to sweep the microbes out of their 
 stations, and we must whitewash our own back- 
 yards. The danger is to think of housing and 
 planning as technical matters for experts. It 
 may almost be feared that current talk of town 
 planning and garden cities may harden into a 
 jargon like political formula. 
 
 More and more we become the victims of 
 our words and live frightened by names. Such 
 a name is Architecture. In its mystery vague 
 and vain pretensions may be shrouded, in its
 
 FORM IN CIVILIZATION 7 
 
 shadows hide many minor superstitions about 
 correct design, the right style, true propor- 
 tions. High priests arise who are supposed to 
 know subtle doctrines and can point the way to 
 aesthetic safety. And yet all the time there are 
 the streets, Edgware Road and Euston Road, 
 Oxford Street and Holborn; there again are 
 our cities, Leeds and Liverpool, Bristol and 
 Plymouth. Surely these patent and indeed bla- 
 tant facts might raise doubts as to the dogmas. 
 The mystification about * architecture' has iso- 
 lated the intimate building art from thecommon 
 interest and understanding of ordinary men. 
 To talk with a believing architect on his theo- 
 ries is almost as hopeless as to chaff a cardinal. 
 All the ancient arts of men are subject to 
 the diseases of pedantry and punditry music, 
 painting, poetry all suffer from isolation and 
 professionalism. 
 
 Architecture is human skill and feeling 
 shown in the great necessary activity of build- 
 ing. It must be a living, progressive, structural 
 art, always readjusting itself to changing con- 
 ditions of time and place. If it is true it must 
 ever be new. This, however, not with a willed 
 novelty, which is as bad as, or worse than, trivial 
 antiquarianism,but by response to force majeure. 
 The vivid interest and awe with which men 
 look on a ship or an engine, an old cottage or
 
 8 ARCHITECTURE AS 
 
 a haystack, come from the sense of their reality. 
 They were shaped so by a higher power than 
 whim, by a higher aim than snobbery. So must 
 it again be with our buildings: they must be 
 founded fast on the rock of necessity. 
 
 Wordy claims are often made for Architec- 
 ture' that it is a * Fine Art', and chief of all the 
 arts. These two claims are indeed incompatible 
 and contradictory. Any mastership in architec- 
 ture depends on its universality and its service. 
 It is only chief in the sense that he who serves 
 is the greatest. But the * Fine Arts' are by de- 
 finition free from conditions of human need, 
 and architecture was specially ruled out from 
 among them by Aristotle. Even so, this idea of 
 fine art unconditioned and free for delight was 
 a heresy of the Hellenistic decline. To Plato 
 and the great masters even the * musical' arts 
 were to be not only healthy but health-giving; 
 they were to be foods for the soul and not 
 aesthetic raptures and intoxications. 
 - On the other side of the account it may be 
 objected that bare utility and convenience are 
 not enough to form a base for a noble architec- 
 ture. Of course they are not if 'bare utility* is 
 interpreted in a mean and skimping and pro- 
 fiteering way. All work of man bears the stamp 
 of the spirit with which it was done, but this 
 stamp is not ne^ssarily 'ornament'. The un-
 
 FORM IN CIVILIZATION 9 
 
 adorned indeed can never stand as low as that 
 which is falsely adorned in borrowed, brazen 
 bedizenments. High utility and liberal con- 
 venience for noble life are enough for architec- 
 ture. We confuse ourselves with these unreal 
 and destructive oppositions between the service- 
 able and the aesthetic, between science and art. 
 Consider any of the great forms of life activity 
 seamanship, farming, housekeeping can 
 any one say where utility ends and style, order, 
 clearness, precision begin? Up to a point, and 
 indeed a long way on, 'style',, is a utility. We 
 have to begin again and look on architecture as 
 an art of service from the communal point of 
 view. 
 
 The faces of buildings which are turned out- 
 wards towards the world are obviously of in- 
 terest to the public, and all citizens have a pro- 
 perty in them. The spectator is in fact part 
 owner. No man builds to himself alone. Let the 
 proprietor do as he likes inside his building, for 
 we need not call on him. Bad plays need not be 
 seen, books need not be read, but nothing but 
 blindness or the numbing of our faculty of ob- 
 servation can protect us from buildings in the 
 street. It is to be feared that we are learning to 
 protect ourselves by the habit of not observing, 
 that is by sacrificing a faculty. General interest 
 and intelligent appreciation of public arts are a
 
 io ARCHITECTURE AS 
 
 necessity of civilization. Civic alertness, honest 
 pride, or firm protest are not matters of taste for 
 a few ; they are essential activities of the urban 
 mind. In cities buildings take the place of fields, 
 trees, and hedgerows. Buildings are an artificial 
 form of nature. We have a right to considera- 
 tion and some politeness in buildings. We 
 claim protection from having our faces slapped 
 when we venture into the street. Our cities do 
 not wholly belong to profit-lords, railway com- 
 panies, and advertisers. 
 
 Architecture, however, 'properly under- 
 stood ', not only concerns the man in the street, 
 it comes home to all householders and house- 
 holds. While our eyes have been strained on the 
 vacuity of correct style, the weightier matters 
 of construction and efficiency have necessarily 
 been neglected. We need grates which will 
 warm, floors which may readily be cleaned, and 
 ceilings which do not crack. These and such as 
 these are the terms of the modern architectural 
 problem, and in satisfying them we should find 
 the proper 'style* for to-day. Architecture is a 
 current speech, it is not an art of classical quota- 
 tion. As it is, it is as much burdened by its tags 
 of rhetoric as Chinese literature. It has become 
 a dead language. The house of the future will 
 be designed as a ship is designed, as an organism 
 which has to function properly in all its parts.
 
 FORM IN CIVILIZATION n 
 
 Does this not concern every one, not only as 
 economy and comfort, but in the mind ? Our 
 houses must be made to fit us like garments and 
 to be larger projections of ourselves. A whole 
 TOW of ambiguous words, such as design, orna- 
 ment, style, proportion, have come between us 
 and the immediately given data of architecture. 
 Design is not abstract power exercised by a 
 genius, it is simply the arranging how work 
 shall be well done. The more necessary the work 
 and the more obvious, simple, and sound is the 
 foresight the better the design. It is not a ques- 
 tion of captivating paper patterns, it is a ques- 
 tion of buildings which will work. Architecture 
 is a pragmatical art. To design in the Classic, 
 Gothic, or Renaissance styles is as absurd as 
 to sculpture in the manner of Praxiteles, paint 
 'like* Holbein, or write sham Shakespeare. We 
 do not really need a waxwork art by Wardour 
 Street professionals. We require an active art of 
 building which will take its * style' for granted, 
 as does naval architecture. Modern building 
 must shake itself free from its own withered and 
 cast-off skins. 
 
 It is commonly supposed, and architects 
 themselves in older days believed it, that an 
 architect's business was to be an expert in style. 
 Why he should be so was never explained, ex- 
 cept, perhaps, by Philibert de 1'Orme. Accord-
 
 12 ARCHITECTURE AS 
 
 ing to this authority the Temple of Jerusalem 
 was built in the Classical style, and this work 
 was designed in heaven ; therefore this was the 
 only true or revealed style. An excellent argu- 
 ment ; modern practitioners have kept up a 
 * battle of the styles ' without any such basis for 
 their logic, or rather their eloquence. But what 
 is or was a style ? It is a museum name for a 
 phase of past art. As a means of classifying what 
 is dead and done the style labels are quite use- 
 ful. It has, however, to be kept in mind that 
 these styles, while they lived and moved, were 
 processes which began, continued, and passed 
 into something else. They were only phases like 
 those of the changing moon. That which now 
 professes to be designed in a style, or, as the still 
 more disgusting slang runs, to be 'period work', 
 has not the essence of life. It is, therefore, not 
 actually of the style which it simulates but is 
 only in the 'style' of the style. 
 
 Indeed, the essence of all the old arts was in 
 their vitality, their response to the natural con- 
 ditions and the psychology of their times. The 
 better we seem to reproduce their dead images 
 the more we are unlike their soul-selves. There 
 is little more reason for an architect to pretend 
 to work in a style than there is for a chemist. 
 Architects are properly arrangers and directors 
 of certain classes of structures. I would like to
 
 FORM IN CIVILIZATION 13 
 
 say that they were building engineers, were it 
 not that our engineers have failed so shamefully 
 in hiring themselves out for any form of ex- 
 ploitation and in showing no care for order- 
 liness and decency. All the past of architecture, 
 as of engineering and shipbuilding, belongs to 
 us, of course, as race experience, but only as far 
 as the same is true in all fields of science and 
 literature. 
 
 Style in a reasonable and universal sense is 
 equivalent rather to 'stylish' than to a style; it 
 interpenetrates the whole texture of a work; it 
 is clearness, effectiveness, mastery, often it is 
 simplification. We have to conceive of it in the 
 building art as we do in literature or athletics. 
 'The style is the man' yes, and it is also the 
 thing itself. It is an informing spirit, the spirit 
 of form, it is not a varnish. We have become 
 so accustomed to architecture looking 'dressy' 
 that we have forgotten the logic of clothes and 
 bury buildings good enough in themselves 
 under outgrown rags. It has been a true in- 
 stinct which calls sham architectural features 
 'dressings'. 
 
 The 'Orders' of architecture are names for 
 particular forms of ancient Greek temple build- 
 ing. Style-names apply to all past fashions of 
 buildings, 'Orders' only to three Doric, Ionic, 
 and Corinthian. The names are useful as his-
 
 I 4 ARCHITECTURE AS 
 
 tory, but that is all. Now that these Orders have 
 become shop advertisements, even the would- 
 be correct may be more ready to give them up. 
 
 Another word which the architecturally 
 superstitious whisper with great awe is propor- 
 tion'. In dealing with such a limited field as the 
 'Orders', old scholars examined existing ex- 
 amples by measuring them very carefully to 
 find out their proportions; but, if we had them, 
 Greek chairs and tables might be measured in 
 exactly the same way. No general rule of the 
 Greeks has ever been found out by these mea- 
 surings,and if it had it would prove nothing for 
 us. Proportion, of course, rests properly on 
 function, material, and size. There may be a 
 perfect proportion, for instance, for a certain 
 class of ships, but that will only be discovered 
 experimentally, and not by measuring Greek 
 galleys. 
 
 I wish I could find some leverage of argu- 
 ment to bring a sense of citizen responsibility 
 for form in life into the minds and hearts of all, 
 but right and reason are hardly enough. We 
 may, perhaps, hope more in a sense of interna- 
 tional rivalry in the works and evidences of life. 
 Civilization is an Olympic contest in the arts 
 and sciences, a sort of international Eisteddfod. 
 It is admitted that we must have literature and 
 we must have music: we must also have build-
 
 FORM IN CIVILIZATION 15 
 
 ing skill, and we have to aim at inducing a flow- 
 ing tide in all the things of civilization. Of 
 words and arguments I am rather hopeless. 
 One thing only I would ask of every benevo- 
 lent reader: that he would take notice of what 
 he sees in the streets. Do not pass by in a con- 
 templative dream, or suppose that it is an archi- 
 tectural mystery, but look and judge. Is it tidy, 
 is it civilized, are these fit works for a proud 
 nation? Look at Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly 
 Circus, and that terrible junction of Tottenham 
 Court Road with Oxford Street. Play a new 
 game of seeing London. We need a movement 
 in the common mind, a longing to mitigate the 
 vulgarity and anarchy of our streets, and the 
 smothering of the frontages with vile advertise- 
 ments, a desire to clean the streets better, to 
 gather up littered paper, to renew blistered 
 plaster. Some order must be brought into the 
 arrangement of the untidy festoons of telegraph 
 and telephone wires hitched up to chimneys and 
 parapets. These are the architectural works 
 which are needed as a beginning and a basis. 
 The idea of beauty, daily- bread beauty, not 
 style pretences, must be brought back into our 
 life. Every town should set up an advisory com- 
 mittee on its betterment. We must try to bring 
 back the idea of town personality and town wor- 
 ship ; we must set up ceremonies and even
 
 1 6 ARCHITECTURE 
 
 rituals to bring out a spirit of pride and emula 
 tion. If we can only stir up general interest a 
 will yet go well or at least better. By exalting 
 our towns we should make a platform for our- 
 selves. As it is what can great money fortunes 
 buy beyond swine comfort and titles ? Man is 
 more than a stomach moving about on legs. '-" 
 A mistake of modern education has been to 
 train for appreciation of the past rather than for 
 present production. Such merely critical learn- 
 ing comes at last to be actually sterilizing. As 
 production fails, so even appreciation decays. 
 Full understanding depends on the power to 
 do. Therefore, leaving the things of the past, 
 press forward to produce, to be, to live. Re- 
 member Lot's wife. There is much talk of 
 patriotism, but patriotism requires a ground on 
 which to subsist ; it must be based on love of 
 home, love of city, and love of country. Let 
 nothing deceive us, civilization produces form, 
 and where noble form is attained there is civil- 
 ization. Life is a process, a flow of being, and 
 where there is this vital activity music, drama, 
 and the arts are necessarily thrown off. Living 
 art comes on a tide of creative intelligence.
 
 II 
 
 TOWN TIDYING 1 
 
 I WONDER whether any of us have ever been 
 troubled by the question as to whether art was 
 a serious vocation for a serious life. We have 
 perhaps got into the way of looking on art as a 
 rather remote ornament to life concert-room 
 music, exhibition-room paintings, and perhaps 
 some special Arts and Crafts. Properly, how- 
 ever, art is all worthy productive work; and, 
 looked at in this way, it seems to me that art is 
 about the most serious thing there can be: cer- 
 tainly it is a very serious thing for. us at this 
 time, for our towns have been long neglected. 
 
 One of the most seeing things ever said, to 
 my mind, was the remark of Victor Hugo that 
 books would kill art. We understand and be- 
 lieve what we are told in print, but we see very 
 little directly with our eyes. That is, I suppose, 
 why we employ curious people called art critics, 
 who profess to do the looking for us and tell us 
 about it the blind reporting to the one-eyed. 
 I wonder whether it seems an extreme thing to 
 
 1 Address for the Aits and Crafts Society, Nov. 1916.
 
 1 8 TOWN TIDYING 
 
 say that we have partly lost the use of our eyes; 
 if, however, it were not so, I cannot think that 
 we could endure the general disorder in our 
 towns with the advertisement-plastered stations 
 and paper-littered streets: the general dreari- 
 ness, dullness, and nothing-to-be-doneness ex- 
 cept to get away in a fast motor-car. 
 
 Much study and research have been devoted 
 to the great question of town improvement 
 from the point of view of planning or late years; 
 but it is not of these technical or architechnical 
 matters I want to speak. I want to speak of what 
 should be the concern of ordinary people all 
 of us with the common problem of life in 
 towns. 
 
 By thinking of art as a special matter dealt 
 with by special people called architects and 
 painters and musicians, we have gone far to 
 banish beauty from our towns and our lives. 
 -What I mean by art, then, is not the affair of a 
 few but of everybody. It is order, tidiness, the 
 right way of making things and the right way of 
 doing things, especially the public things of our 
 towns and cities. It is a question of pleasant rail- 
 way stations, of street cleaning, of controlling 
 advertisements, of making our houses fit for 
 sane people to live in, and of cooking meals fit 
 for healthy people to eat. Moreover, it is a ques- 
 tion of keeping our heads up in civilization. We
 
 TOWN TIDYING 19 
 
 have not been properly led about these things; 
 we have not been properly taught. If we were 
 alone in the world it might not so much matter; 
 but we are not alone, and it is a tremendous 
 question this of keeping up fine quality in our 
 work, in our towns, and in our lives. 
 
 The need for public art not as superabun- 
 dance of luxury, but as an absolutely necessary 
 part of the ordinary life of people in communi- 
 ties, has really become for us a very pressing 
 question, and I want to impress it on your 
 minds by repetition. I would have it taught in 
 schools. I would have it become the chief ques- 
 tion at elections, so that even members of Par- 
 liament would have to show some interest in 
 the beauty of the towns they are supposed to 
 represent; and now it strikes me they do 
 'represent' them very perfectly. I would have 
 all art societies join in some common bond for 
 common work for life's sake outside the pro- 
 fessional grind and their trade union points of 
 view. Directly I speak of art in the town it will 
 be natural for you to think of a picture gallery 
 or a special statue or some 'art lamp-post', or. 
 other over-ornamented object; but I must 
 again insist that is not what I mean. I mean the 
 making of our towns fair and fit to live in from 
 end to end, the whitewashing of back courts, 
 the laying down of turf, the reducing of the ad- 
 c 2
 
 20 TOWN TIDYING 
 
 vertisement mania, the smartening of the rail- 
 way station, the seeing to it that there shall be 
 some place in every town where decent food 
 can be got comparable to what one gets abroad, 
 the provision of some space of clean country 
 where one may take a dog for a walk without 
 shame. We need to make it an enthusiasm, a 
 game, a Movement' a tide of tidying. 
 
 Think of any country towns you know in 
 detail, begin with the railway station, or rather 
 two miles before the station, where the miser- 
 able advertisements of Mr. X, the ready-made 
 clothes man, and of Messrs. Y, the furnishers 
 on the hire system, begin. Then look at the 
 slatternly shanty called the station and the 
 mean station road. Towns are not necessarily 
 like that. Towns should be made to house a 
 proud and intelligent race of people, and we 
 have to see to it that they are thought of and 
 dealt with from that point of view. We must 
 aim at having the best towns in the world, each 
 with some decent unspoilt country around it, 
 and each with sufficient internal means of civili- 
 zation from music to pots and pans. We must 
 be given more to be proud of: do not our 
 leaders know that pride is strength? I dare not 
 let myself describe our towns as they are; but I 
 am anxious to recall them to your own minds; 
 and even when you leave here may I beg of you
 
 TOWN TIDYING 21 
 
 to look at Piccadilly, which is about the most 
 famous street in England, and then at the next 
 tube station you come to? Well, they are not 
 good enough! For the earlier part of my life I 
 was quieted by being told that ours was the 
 richest country in the world, until I woke up 
 to know that what I meant by riches was learn- 
 ing and beauty, and music and art, coffee 
 and omelettes; perhaps in the coming days of 
 poverty we may get more of these. 
 
 As an example of what I mean by art where 
 order, construction, beauty, and efficiency are 
 all one, may I instance the Navy? We must not 
 be content until our railways are as ship-shape 
 as a squadron. What other arts have we that 
 hold the same beauty of efficiency, carried for- 
 ward in an unconsciously developing tradi- 
 tion? Just two or three occur to me. Simple, 
 well-off housekeeping in the country, with tea 
 in the garden ; Boy-scouting, and tennis in flan- 
 nels. These four seem to me our best forms 
 of modern civilization, and must serve as ex- 
 amples of the sort of spirit in which town im- 
 provement must be undertaken. Everybody 
 must be interested, and it must be half drill and 
 half game. I am here to beg you all to play this 
 best of games town-tidying.
 
 Ill 
 
 TOWNS TO LIVE IN 
 
 WHEN classes of things and groups of activi- 
 ties have once received distinctive names we are 
 apt to think of them as special subjects which 
 can be understood only by few people. Science, 
 Philosophy, Art, Music, Architecture have all 
 in this way been isolated from everyday exist- 
 ence. Art, in the common view of it, has been 
 narrowed into a matter of pictures, especially 
 * oil paintings ' which are brought together in 
 annual exhibitions, and explained, or at least 
 written about and about, by people called 'art 
 critics'. The once flowing stream of Music in a 
 similar way has been turned into the dry bed of 
 concert-halls, where it is tasted by other sets of 
 critics. The arts are thus thought of as speci- 
 mens you occasionally see in galleries for a shil- 
 ling; they have ceased to be a daily inspiration 
 for life. Most people have come to suppose that 
 they are mysteries altogether outside the com- 
 mon round, 'not for the likes of them'; and in- 
 deed the arts have been imprisoned by dealers. 
 
 1 From the Hlbbtrt Journal, 1918.
 
 TOWNS TO LIVE IN 23 
 
 We all have to exist, however, and we have to 
 make up our own minds on hundreds of prob- 
 lems without expert knowledge. As we are con- 
 cerned with politics, with manners, and with re- 
 ligion, so we necessarily deal with art in all work, 
 recreation, clothing, cooking, gardening, and 
 indeed, in a word, in living. 
 
 This Art about which such elevated yet con- 
 fusing things may be said when it is consider- 
 ed at its remoter end as genius, emotion, and 
 poetry, at its nearer end is just good workman- 
 ship, quality, skill, fitness, Tightness in all things 
 done and made. A town, then, is a work of art 
 according to its quality as a dwelling-place for 
 men. Its art is its service and stimulus to life. 
 Some little confusion may arise because we 
 judge beauty quickly by the outward show, and 
 many an old town which we call beautiful may 
 have been neglected into dirt and disease. The 
 dirt and disease, however, do not make the 
 beauty, and during the ages it has been the 
 estimateof lifevalue which has formed and con- 
 ditioned our thoughts about beauty. Beauty is 
 the evidence of Vitality the smile of Health. 
 
 Without attempting to describe our towns 
 as they now are, it will be admitted that they are 
 not the perfect homes of a stout and proud 
 people at the centre of a great commonwealth. 
 We need not worry ourselves about beauty for
 
 24 TOWNS TO LIVE IN 
 
 a long whileyet; there are many prior questions 
 of decency, cleanliness, order, fitness. Our towns 
 have not been thought of enough as organisms 
 and wholes: wonderful work has been done in 
 them in departments, especially in remedial 
 ways, but not so much in constructive ways. 
 The town itself is hardly ever thought of as a 
 cradle of life, a school of manners, and the 
 foundation of civilization. We have accepted 
 our institutions as matters of course, and the 
 problem of intense training for quality in com- 
 munity life has hardly ever been considered. 
 Our better-educated people, indeed, had come 
 too much to look on our towns as places for 
 labour labour of others, while they could go 
 'abroad' for recreation. We have to reorganize 
 all our towns as places in which to live and to 
 train strong and willing children. A man is the 
 child of his city, and ifhe cannot reverence her 
 he is much of an orphan. Even an apostle felt a 
 satisfaction in belonging to no mean city. Na- 
 tional spirit and patriotism 'cannot begin high 
 in the air with flag-waving; they must be reared 
 on affection for home, pride in our town, and 
 the sense of community. 
 
 Town improvement is likely to be put aside 
 as some great thing, and doubtless great things 
 are needed ;but it is also a commonand immedi- 
 ate necessity. Greater things, indeed, can only
 
 TOWNS TO LIVE IN 25 
 
 be satisfactorily dealt with as the result of con- 
 stant desire and effort. Without experience in 
 the little things grandiose doings are likely to be 
 unrelated and artificial, or even destructive. 
 Many of the smaller things do not raise the 
 question of cost; they are rather matters of cus- 
 tom and training, and much of the humblest 
 kind needs everywhere to be done for the pre- 
 servation of a minimum standard of order. 
 
 In every town there is at least one building 
 for which the Government is responsible, the 
 Post Office ; and this fortunately has no un- 
 worthy associations. The central authorities 
 should be expected to make the Post Office a 
 reasonable standard of dignity in building and 
 of pleasant orderliness in administration. Here 
 too it would be possible by some finely designed 
 coat-of-arms which would be next to costless, 
 as it might be repeated by thousands to bring 
 in a little colour and special character in a signi- 
 ficant way. Most of our people have probably 
 never seen the national coat-of-arms except as 
 hideously engraved and attached to some ad- 
 vertisement. One coloured example in a town 
 would even be educational, and school chil- 
 dren might be stirred to ask about the lions of 
 Richard of England and Alexander of Scotland, 
 and the pretty harp. Is not one of the secrets 
 of education to create curiosity?
 
 26 TOWNS TO LIVE IN 
 
 A more difficult service to deal with, as being 
 neither public nor private, and as being of the 
 utmost importance to the town while not of it, 
 is the local railway system. The municipalities 
 will have at some time to reconsider their rights 
 against the great external exploiting corpora- 
 tions, and require that some proprieties are ob- 
 served in the stations, approaches, and bridges. 
 The stations especially have been allowed to 
 run down by degrees to a level which is intoler- 
 able, and most of them seem to be looked on as 
 mere hoardings for advertisements. We must 
 first of all try to see them as they are, and not go 
 on supposing that stations are Mike that*. This 
 is no question of taste : it is a tremendous 
 matter of national efficiency and discipline. The 
 riot of advertising along the approaches to our 
 towns will have to be controlled into some or- 
 der, and the citizen must to some extent be 
 protected. Violent advertisement is a form of 
 assault which seeks to gain attention by slap- 
 ping you in the face. 
 
 The town buildings Guildhall, Market, 
 Schools, Infirmary, Museum even if they are 
 not yet fine in themselves, should have the dis- 
 tinction of being well kept, tidy, clean, and even 
 smart; they should be good-example buildings. 
 Lamp-posts, tramway-standards, ventilators, 
 shelters, and such things can only be properly
 
 TOWNS TO LIVE IN 27 
 
 designed from the point of view of being per- 
 fectly fit for their purpose and unobtrusive; we 
 often make the mistake of forcing them into a 
 bad prominence by loading them with repulsive 
 ornaments. The movable services, like fire- 
 engines and tramcars, which are commonly con- 
 sidered only from the point of view of efficiency, 
 plus a workmanlike smartness, are usually well 
 designed and decently kept, while the fixed ones 
 are often perfect models of fussy incompetence 
 and mistaken compromise. Iron bridges and 
 railway sheds should be designed as a ship is, 
 and then be kept shipshape. Structural iron- 
 work for supports and railings should generally 
 be painted one of the many tints of neutral grey. 
 The prevalent frowsy red is nearly the worst of 
 all colours, as being irritating. Our great mis- 
 take is to make minor things furiously 'orna- 
 mental* to begin with, and then to let them 
 decline into slatternly misery. There is no need 
 that our most practical daily utilities should be 
 made repulsive as a sacrifice to what is supposed 
 to be Art: poor Art! what crimes are committed 
 in thy name ! 
 
 As soon as greater interest in town life can be 
 aroused, improvements must be undertaken in 
 every direction. The smoke nuisance must be 
 reduced, rivers and streams must be cleansed, 
 refuse must be better dealt with, house fronts
 
 28 TOWNS TO LIVE IN 
 
 must be repaired and repainted, backyards 
 must be whitewashed and front gardens plant- 
 ed. The space in front of the town railway sta- 
 tion must be made orderly. In foreign cities 
 even the strip between tram-lines is at times 
 laid with trimly kept turf. We need more op- 
 portunities to get wholesome food outdoors ; 
 indeed, cooking generally might well be made a 
 matter of municipal concern. All the minor 
 items connected with town administration are 
 worthy of attention. The town arms not the 
 public-house sign might be redrawn by one 
 of our competent heraldic draughtsmen, and a 
 town monogram could be devised ; the street 
 names might be done in better, clearer letter- 
 ing ; and municipal printing can be improved 
 for all purposes. 
 
 We have become so subject to words, that 
 arguments to the eyes are little appreciated. 
 The first need is to see with our eyes, for if 
 people only saw things there is no reason why a 
 great change might not soon be brought about. 
 Some reasonable teaching about quality in 
 work that is, art has to be brought into 
 all our education, from the Infant School to 
 Oxford; and in every university the civic arts 
 should form an important group of subjects. 
 
 We have to set up ambitions for great things 
 in civilization, and induce a flowing tide of high
 
 TOWNS TO LIVE IN 29 
 
 types of production. Interest should be created 
 in every town's story every town is a Zion 
 and has had its prophets. This town spirit is 
 best stirred by the sight of some older build- 
 ings, and such buildings should be preserved as 
 assets for life. Buildings like Cheetham College, 
 Manchester, the Dean's House at Wolver- 
 hampton, and even the comparatively modern 
 but fine Town Hall at Birmingham, have a 
 worth which is incommensurable by site value. 
 Civic missions, study circles, bands of hope, 
 and exhibitions are required. Probably nothing 
 better could be thought of, as likely to bring 
 new interest to our towns, than some form of 
 annual festival like the Welsh Eisteddfod. This 
 is not a vain survival of playing at being Druids, 
 but music, the arts, and athletics are all stimu- 
 lated at those gatherings. Such festivals have 
 been general in all times and countries, and the 
 people are starved for the lack of them. A better 
 organizing of town games should lead to the 
 provision of a proper stadium where athletics 
 would merge naturally into discipline. Local 
 ability should be brought out by the employ- 
 ment of local artists and craftsmen, and towns 
 should compete in civilization as Florence, 
 Siena, and Venice competed. 
 
 In every considerable town there is already a 
 building called the School of Art, but it is too
 
 30 TOWNS TO LIVE IN 
 
 much of a water-tight compartment, and usu- 
 ally it is allowed little influence. Such schools 
 might be made vital centres for civilization, and 
 even for commerce, for commerce too will fail 
 without ideas and initiative. These schools 
 must become producing workshops ; they 
 might as a beginning be encouraged to experi- 
 ment with derelict industries like Spitalfields 
 silk-weaving. The old special town crafts like 
 Bristol glass, Sheffield plate, Worcester china 
 are of very great importance every way. Some 
 of our museums and picture-galleries also seem 
 to be arranged and conducted as sacrifices to 
 custom without any one clearly knowing what 
 they are all about. Local history and interests 
 should be a special concern, and the School of 
 Art might help by getting together a collection 
 of drawings and photographs of the antiquities 
 of the town and district. The contents should 
 be arranged in the most exquisite order, and so 
 far as possible interest should be renewed by 
 some changes brought about by borrowing and 
 the temporary formation of special groups. In 
 some foreign galleries bowls of flowers are set 
 about. The buildings should be direct, perfectly 
 finished, and even overlighted. Far too many of 
 them were spoilt before the foundations were 
 put in by worry about style and the decision 
 to load them with fortieth-rate ornament, so
 
 TOWNS TO LIVE IN 31 
 
 called. This same is true of most of our build- 
 ings ; we have indeed been betrayed by the 
 mysterious word Architecture away from real- 
 ity into a realm of pretence about styles and 
 orders and proportions and periods and con- 
 ception and composition. If we had had no 
 other word than building we might have been 
 living in sound, water-tight, well-lighted dwell- 
 ings. As it is, it takes an expert student a life- 
 time to find out that there is nothing in it all 
 beyond the human spirit working on data as 
 presented by custom and commonsense. All 
 this aesthetic talk, however, has isolated art 
 from common sympathy and understanding, 
 and no art can flourish in a vacuum. If the 
 people cared we might have noble schools of 
 building, painting, and music in a generation. 
 Everything indeed depends on caring enough, 
 and anything could be condensed from that in- 
 finite nebulosity the possible. Glorious new 
 worlds are even now waiting to be born and 
 projected on their orbits, if only we would care 
 and will and work. Great art of all kinds is pro- 
 duced only by common effort over a long time. 
 Public memorials might more often take the 
 form of works of communal value. Our towns, 
 it must be said, are ill supplied with suitable 
 buildings, from worthy bridges to meeting- 
 halls, baths, drill-halls, and markets. If statues
 
 32 TOWNS TO LIVE IN 
 
 are desired, it must be seen to that they have 
 some 'life-enhancing 1 quality which is the soul 
 of art. A dull presentment of even a hero only 
 adds to routine and social slumber. Variations 
 of existing types might often give some depth of 
 content; Alfred Stevens's * Valour* and 'Cour- 
 age,' hidden away in St. Paul's, might lend their 
 vitality to scores of other works. A town im- 
 personation like the Paris 'Strasburg' may be 
 moving if it is done with dignity : all depends 
 on that. Even a big bold lion would be impres- 
 sive. Where funds are small it is wise to spend 
 them on one thing. A great unhewn stone from 
 the nearest source, with just a name and a date 
 in good lettering, would be far more appealing 
 than a monument of the same cost where most 
 of the money has been spent in bringing marble 
 from Italy and granite from Aberdeen, and the 
 rest has been expended in chipping and polish- 
 ing these into the necropolis mode. The only 
 way, however, in which a successful monument 
 of any sort is likely to be obtained is to ask 
 some one who can best be trusted to get it done; 
 many of our public works have died of too 
 much committee before they were properly 
 begun . 
 
 About a century and a half since there was a 
 general movement towards some ideal of com- 
 munal culture in our towns, and even small
 
 TOWNS TO LIVE IN 33 
 
 ones had * Assembly Rooms' erected which for 
 a time became centres of local life. Then came 
 the time of Institutes and Lecture Societies, 
 many of which still do excellent work. A cen- 
 tury ago Edinburgh and Dublin were true capi- 
 tals ; towns like York had society ; Bath was 
 about the most beautiful modern city in Eu- 
 rope; Brighton, Leamington,Tunbrtdge Wells, 
 Buxton, and Cheltenham had style ; and many 
 of the seaside places, like Hastings and We'y- 
 mouth, were truly beautiful. Oxford was as 
 lovely as anything in the world ; and old prints 
 show that most of our towns were beautiful 
 as a matter of course ugliness, and especially 
 vulgarity, had not been invented. In all the 
 larger places forms of fine craftsmanship were 
 in daily practice good cabinet-work, clock- 
 making, and so on; the shopkeepers were little 
 merchants. Norwich was an excellent school of 
 painting ; Newcastle was the best school of 
 wood-engraving in the world. 
 
 Without bringing a railing accusation against 
 the works of the nineteenth century, we may 
 all agree that town development was a little 
 one-sided, and that plenty has been left for us 
 to do. The quick growth outran strength and 
 sense of fitness and order. The railways attack- 
 ed towns rather than served them. However, 
 the first works of the great expansion were in 
 
 2555 D
 
 34 TOWNS TO LIVE IN 
 
 many places carefully constructed. Brunei did 
 not foresee all that the engineers of the next two 
 generations would hire themselves out to do. 
 
 Around our towns we must preserve or re- 
 deem a space of pleasant suburb not too remote, 
 a wood, or common, or 'walk', or 'view'. The 
 planning and planting of our town parks and 
 gardens are frequently done according to a dry 
 and harsh ideal. There is too much gravel and 
 iron railings ; they must be made less like 
 cemeteries and more like gardens simple and 
 sweet. We too often spend our effort to pro- 
 duce added weariness. We lay out sham splen- 
 dours of cracked cement and cast-iron around a 
 fountain which holds no water, rather than get 
 a carpenter to set up a strong home-made seat 
 by a space of clean turf or a blossoming tree. 
 
 Poetry and Art come from insight into the 
 essentials of things and life. Our refounding of 
 these and a national school of Music must be- 
 gin with the simple and the obvious ; we must 
 try to construct a ladder of salvation. Our 
 towns have to be made delightful homes to live 
 in, rather than delightful to get away from.
 
 IV 
 
 HOUSING AND FURNISHING 1 
 
 THERE is much talk of Housing at the pre- 
 sent time, valuable and necessary talk, but yet 
 up to the present it is a case of much talk and 
 little house. Still it is necessary to try to stir up 
 general interest, even enthusiasm and passion, 
 in the hope that a real beginning may soon be 
 made. 
 
 Housing, of course, is not merely a cottage 
 question; it is an immense national question 
 and also an immediately individual question in 
 which we should all be decidedly interested. 
 Housing is health and temper and a large part 
 of living. It must be one of a very few greatest 
 of all questions. Pride of home is pride of 
 country. Housing is the necessary preliminary 
 * plant' and 'capital' for our national life. We 
 have to accumulate force for renewal. We need 
 to clear our general aims and to consider our 
 policy as a whole. Our aim should be to develop 
 a fine tradition of living in houses. It is a matter 
 for experiment, like flying. We should seek to 
 improve in detail point by point. There are 
 
 1 From The Athenaeum, May 21, 1920. 
 D 2
 
 36 HOUSING AND FURNISHING 
 
 enough sketch designs; now we want solids. 
 Exquisite living on a small scale is the ideal. 
 * House-like' should express as much as Ship- 
 shape'. Our airplanes and motors and even bi- 
 cycles are in their way perfect. We need to bring 
 this ambition for perfect solutions into housing 
 of all sorts and scales. 
 
 The chief obstruction to our having better 
 houses has been the superstition that they 
 should be built in a style. There is a great differ- 
 ence between being built in an imitative style, 
 Elizabethan, Jacobean, or Georgian, and be- 
 ing built with style. A motor-car is built with 
 thought for* style', that is finish and elegance, 
 but it is not built to look like a sedan chair or 
 a stage coach. To be concerned with style imita- 
 tions and what the Americans call period design 
 is not only irrational in itself, but it blocks the 
 way to any possibility of true development. If 
 you have your eye on that you can't see this. To 
 go on building houses in the cocked-hat and 
 brass-candlestick style is not only rather imbe- 
 cile play-acting, but it destroys rational growth. 
 We have to put an efficiency style in the place of 
 this trivial, sketchy picturesqueness. Even leav- 
 ing out the style trimmings would be some- 
 thing. If you cut away disease and surplusage, 
 you strengthen and consolidate. There are 
 many cases in which the half is greater than the
 
 HOUSING AND FURNISHING 37 
 
 whole. We have to prune our building forms as 
 we prune a fruit-tree and sternly cut away the 
 dead wood. Whenever we concentrate on some 
 directing datum, some reality like health, ser- 
 viceableness or even perfect cheapness, true 
 style will certainly arise as the expression of this 
 and the other human qualities embodied. To 
 design in *a style' is to design a seeming which 
 stands in the place of style proper. This style 
 superstition is a much greater evil than I could 
 persuade you to believe. It filters down to lower 
 and lower strata, and the poor man is at last 
 persuaded that nightmares of vulgarity and dis- 
 comfort are necessary offerings to 'style'. 
 
 The dwelling-house should be sound, dry, 
 light, warm, and sweet. We should save in 
 all thoughtless extravagances, and concentrate 
 on the conquest of dirt, disorder, and waste. 
 Houses must be built for living rather than for 
 letting. A false and confusing opposition be- 
 tween science and art has been allowed to arise, 
 and indeed is rather fostered by expert simu- 
 lators who 'go in for old-world effects'; but 
 properly there is no strife between science and 
 art in architecture. It does not matter a bit if we 
 call flying an art or a science: the art of house- 
 building is practically one with the science of 
 housing. If we must worry over strict defini- 
 tions, 'science' may stand for codified preliminary 
 
 285496
 
 38 HOUSING AND FURNISHING 
 
 knowledge, and 'art' for operative skill, experi- 
 ment, and adventure. Science is what you know; 
 art is what you do. The best art is founded on 
 the best science in every given matter. The art 
 of shipbuilding is the science of shipbuilding in 
 operation. The notion that there are special 'art 
 forms' or 'art colours' has led to all sorts of pre- 
 tences and sham picturesquenesses. Art is high 
 competence in doing what is worthy to be done. 
 Very occasionally there is in art a sort of poetry 
 over and above: such addition of feeling can be 
 expressed by giving it an h and calling it heart. 
 
 Soundness and convenience, light and heat 
 are the great essentials in house-building. In 
 planning a house there are two main require- 
 ments which are to some extent in opposition 
 and must be compromised in various ways: the 
 needs for sunlight and for compactness. The 
 difference between a sunlit room and one that 
 is not so blessed is so great that it cannot be 
 measured. To get sun in every room, some 
 spreading of the south front is desirable, but 
 much can be done by projections and bay win- 
 dows. On the other hand, a square unbroken 
 plan is the most economical and conserves heat. 
 Four straight walls will enclose the greatest 
 space when they form an exact square, and all 
 ins and outs are costly in respect to walls. Again, 
 simple roofs are less expensive and much sound-
 
 HOUSING AND FURNISHING 39 
 
 er than complicated ones. A too * picturesque' 
 roof willcertainly become a leak in your income. 
 Fireplaces should be put in the internal walls to 
 keep the heat in the house. 
 
 Other things being equal, so far as may be, 
 preference should be given to local materials 
 and to traditional ways of using them. This 
 traditional use is embodied experience. On the 
 other hand, we should beware of supposing that 
 any reasonable materials such as concrete, cast- 
 iron or plastering are necessarily inartistic. It is 
 the business of art to use the materials given to 
 us by Nature so that they will look well; and 
 when they are well used they will look well. For 
 example, there seems to be an assumption that 
 Welsh slating is inartistic; but this can only 
 be the effect on us of the dreary rows of little 
 speculative red-brick houses which we have 
 seen that have such roofs or rather lids. If the 
 housesceased to be dreary the slates would soon 
 look quite another colour. Some slight modi- 
 fication showing that there had been care for 
 good work would at once make a difference; and 
 at last they might glow with the light of heaven. 
 Concrete should be frankly used. If blocks are 
 better for constructive reasons than a continu- 
 ous mass, then use blocks by all means, but do 
 not imitate stone. The surfaces should be fin- 
 ished with white or colour wash.
 
 40 HOUSING AND FURNISHING 
 
 Frankness is the great thing; disguises and 
 subterfuge are always repulsive in building. 
 Bungling, pretence, and compromise are the 
 enemies to be feared. 
 
 Our best English house-building is probably 
 the best in the world, and the experiments of 
 the last two generations have brought back into 
 use many valuable ways of doing things. Our 
 need now, however, is to consolidate and perfect. 
 The several units have to be improved one at 
 a time. Plaster ceilings are too much given to 
 cracking and even to falling; under the doors 
 there are draughts; there are too many dirt 
 traps; fireplaces waste heat. Further, there is 
 unnecessary expenditure in features' which no- 
 body cares for 'handsome' cornices and bold 
 skirtings. A wood picture-rail a foot or two be- 
 low the ceiling would usually be far better than 
 the futile cornice, and a small hard wood strip 
 might often take the place of the skirting with 
 advantage. We are given over to mouldings; 
 the plainer and smaller, but of better quality, are 
 to be preferred to * handsome' and poor. Doors 
 are often made unnecessarilylarge and windows 
 undesirably small; then pipes are hidden away 
 and put where they freeze. We must aim at 
 getting the small house as perfect as the bi- 
 cycle. 
 
 Besides the problem of building new cottages
 
 HOUSING AND FURNISHING 41 
 
 there is the very serious problem of repairing 
 old ones. To destroy all the old cottages of the 
 land which are not up to a living standard would 
 so alter our countryside and villages that much 
 of England would be destroyed with them 
 the 'Old England' we talk about so plentifully. 
 To destroy these cottages would be like a pre- 
 liminary step to asphalting the country all over. 
 These dear cottages vary from district to district 
 as the soil varies they are dialects of building, 
 and hold history and emotions which we cannot 
 plan and specify and contract for. Of timber, 
 stone, flint, granite, cob, brick; roofed with 
 thatch, tiles, and stone slabs, they grewoutof the 
 ground and are as natural as rabbits' burrows 
 and birds' nests they are men's nests. Yet the 
 aggregate number of the unfit must be enor- 
 mous, for they have been terribly let down and 
 each one is a special problem. 
 
 Most of them, I am confident, could be 
 mended by reasonable expenditure if we cared 
 to care for them. What is needed is that the var- 
 ious local authorities should at once consider 
 and set about experimenting. Putting in con- 
 crete floors, lining the damp walls and relaying 
 the roofswould often do all that is required with- 
 out any injury to the old buildings which show 
 that the British people had grandfathers. I may 
 say here that I believe that the Society for the
 
 42 HOUSING AND FURNISHING 
 
 Preservation of Ancient Buildings are giving 
 attention to this tremendously urgent matter, 
 and I know that from their long experience in 
 caring for old and frail buildings their help 
 would be worth having. 
 
 If our old British cottages could be made 
 strong, and to look as if they were honourably 
 guarded, then there would be an incalculable 
 value over and above so many habitable houses. 
 There would be a gift included of strength and 
 pride for all of us. I remember reading many 
 years ago a German government report on the 
 psychological value of the old buildings of the 
 country in forming the German spirit. Almost 
 more than anything else the old cottages repre- 
 sent England. Old is old, and new is new; don't 
 destroy the one nor make the other sham an- 
 tique. 
 
 The great snares in house furnishing are: 
 extravagant expenditure on the worthless; the 
 lowering of our demands to a penny picture- 
 postcard level; overcrowding with trivialities, 
 and worse. Often these household gods are 
 really devils undisguised. Housekeeping should 
 be a struggle for quality. A room, like a garden, 
 can only be kept in order by continual weeding. 
 There are two main data, affection and effici- 
 ency. If there is any pot or pan you really love, 
 go on keeping it till you don't, but make up
 
 HOUSING AND FURNISHING 43 
 
 your mind. As Morris put it,* keep nothingyou 
 do not know to be useful or believe to be beauti- 
 ful'. The recent over-use of the words * art' and 
 * artistic' has led to some insincerities, and at this 
 time it would be better, I think, to aim at be- 
 ing scientificm both our house-building and fur- 
 nishing. Beware of much ornament, especially 
 of the machine-made sort. Merely routine orna- 
 ment is quite a disease, a surface eruption which 
 is often repulsive. 
 
 Another point: the buying of old furniture, 
 the pawnshop ideal of furnishing, has been over- 
 done; it has encouraged dealing and discour- 
 aged making. A fine piece of old furniture is, of 
 course, a delightful possession if you have it, or 
 if it * comes to you', but the right thing now 
 must certainly be the encouragement of living 
 makers ; further, you will thus escape the dan- 
 ger of buying sham antiques. Some time ago 
 I saw in a shop a carved chest labelled * saved 
 from Ypres' and all scorched by fire. It had been 
 made antique with a sandblast, and burned by 
 a lamp. 
 
 Some admirable experiments in the making 
 of cottage furniture are being made at the 
 L.C.C. Furniture School in Shoreditch. For 
 small rooms it is desirable to get things for cor- 
 ner positions, where they are more out of the 
 way.
 
 44 HOUSING AND FURNISHING 
 
 The first aim in decoration should be to 
 brighten and stimulate. Decoration which adds 
 to gloom would be better undone. As decora- 
 tion is something beyond utility, it should be 
 good of its kind, and a little that is good goes 
 a long way. Not only is one good picture worth 
 a thousand bad ones, but they are a positive 
 balance on the wrong side. Aim at quality, at 
 cheerfulness and brightness. The use of much 
 white is not merely a fad; a white room is much 
 lighter than if otherwise coloured, and it looks 
 larger. I should like to have two rooms arranged 
 at an exhibition, one with whitened walls and 
 a few averagely good things, the other covered 
 with a deep crimson paper and other objects 'to 
 match*. Every one would, I believe, feel the 
 stimulus of the former. It is sometimes argued 
 that dark tints don't show the inevitable dirt, 
 but to make a thing dirty all over so that it shall 
 not show more dirt is doubtful policy. A not 
 too dirty fair room looks cleaner than a new 
 gloomy one. 
 
 Do not allow any blue to be put into white 
 for ceilings, rather a touch of yellow to make it 
 slightly creamy. Greys, buffs, and fair yellows 
 (not hot) are all good for painting; also some 
 greens, but these require judgement. Black 
 occasionally, as in skirtings, is sharp and clean 
 without being frowsy. Arrangements of any
 
 HOUSING AND FURNISHING 45 
 
 two of these are likely to be pretty safe. In the 
 case of painted chimneypieces and the like it is 
 good policy to paint the flat of the shelf red or 
 black just the flat without any thickness. The 
 edges of doors might very well be painted in the 
 same way differently from the surfaces. Grain- 
 ing of woodwork might now be brought back if 
 the graining was not imitative but frankly orna- 
 mental, and not in beery browns but in simple 
 gay colours. Wall-papers should be fair in 
 colour, with the pattern distributed all over and 
 not in bunches. Beware of all extremes like the 
 Viennese black-and-white chequers lately so 
 much in vogue. Beware, too, of purple a 
 mourning colour. Distemper washes are good, 
 and some of them take varnish very well and 
 make an excellent surface. There is a custom 
 of hanging pictures too high; if they are not 
 good enough to be seen, banish them still fur- 
 ther. Finally, I would suggest that enough is 
 not now made of our Schools of Art. Picked 
 students should be employed in decorating 
 houses with interesting personal work if they 
 would take an oath to be simple, sane, and 
 sweet, and not acid, frantic, and sad.
 
 DESIGN AND INDUSTRY 1 
 
 DURING the last two generations several at- 
 tempts were made in England to deal with the 
 changing conditions of production in respect to 
 design and machine industry. Other efforts of 
 the same kind are demanded at the present 
 time in view of the fact that foreign competitors 
 have taken over our ideas, have more fully ex- 
 ploited them and then have turned them back 
 on ourselves. 
 
 One of the first serious attempts to bring 
 design and modern industry together was the 
 great Exhibition of 1 8 5 1 . The establishment of 
 the Royal College of Art and the Victoria and 
 Albert Museum set up types of institutions 
 which have since been copied all over the world. 
 
 The Arts and Crafts movement of the last 
 quarter of the nineteenth century was also a 
 specially English product which has been much 
 studied and imitated abroad, while it has been 
 allowed to struggle hopelessly at home. With 
 occasional extravagance and affectation it is 
 certain that it produced ideas in plenty, ideas 
 
 1 For the D. and I. Association, 1915.
 
 DESIGN AND INDUSTRY 47 
 
 which, in many cases, have been taken up and 
 worked by our foreign rivals. 
 
 The difficulty has been that the designer and 
 the manufacturer have so largely -remained in 
 separate compartments, and that the pur- 
 chasing public had yet a third point of view. 
 The political economist has preferred to dwell 
 in another watertight compartment. As Adam 
 Smith did not bother about design, why should 
 he? He has, in fact, become an idealist of crude 
 labour because he can deal with it mathematic- 
 ally. Quality, he finds, is a disturbing matter of 
 opinion, so he tries to get rid of it by acting as if 
 it were not there. 
 
 The Press critic, on the other hand, seems to 
 be concerned only with the qualities which in- 
 terest him personally just at the moment, and 
 he probably does not realize that he may be 
 killing potential English industries by a hasty 
 word. 
 
 It has been extremely unfortunate that the 
 Arts and Crafts movement in England coincid- 
 ed in time with the violent fashion for antiques 
 of every kind. Every one with any pretensions 
 to taste has tried to find Chippendale chairs, 
 'Adam' book-cases, and other old furnishings. 
 And this has resulted in a sort of curiosity shop 
 ideal which has gone very far toward destroy- 
 ing the higher forms of invention in our house-
 
 48 DESIGN AND INDUSTRY 
 
 hold requirements. This, for instance, is the 
 kind of question which our political economists 
 ought to have explained to us if they had not 
 been dwelling apart in realms of ideal abstrac- 
 tion. 
 
 It appears that when thousands of pounds 
 are commonly paid for tapestries and curious 
 Chinese pots only low commercial prices will 
 be available for modern efforts. The relations 
 between 'dealing' and production are too com- 
 plex to follow here, however, and the question 
 must be referred to the critics and economists. 
 
 What is needed at the present time is the 
 gathering together of all the several interests 
 concerned with industrial production into a 
 closer association; an association of manufac- 
 turers, designers, distributors, economists, and 
 critics. It is therefore proposed to found a De- 
 sign and Industries Association which shall aim 
 at such closer contact between the several 
 branches of production and distribution, and at 
 the same time explain its aims and ideals, as far 
 as may be, to the public. We ought to obtain far 
 greater results from our own originality and 
 initiative than we have done in the past. We 
 must learn to see the value of our own ideas be- 
 fore they are reflected back on us from the Con- 
 tinent. English designers, for example, set the 
 type of furniture which, especially in hotel
 
 DESIGN AND INDUSTRY 49 
 
 furnishings, has spread all over Europe. The 
 English book, from the letterpress to the bind- 
 ing, has very greatly influenced foreign pro- 
 ductions. Pattern designing of all kinds for tex- 
 tiles and wall-papers has also been remarkably 
 developed here, and the English fashion in de- 
 sign has led the world during the last genera- 
 tion. Nearly all that was wanted was confidence 
 in our powers, faith in our own wares, and the 
 ambition to make as attractive as may be even 
 the cheapest class of goods. The things of which 
 we have been speaking have been produced in 
 England by a special class of enthusiasts for a 
 small number of connoisseurs, and the large 
 manufacturer has not seen what great possi- 
 bilities there were in adapting these experi- 
 ments to the larger world of machine industry. 
 Now this is just what our foreign competitors 
 have done. 
 
 Design is too often thought of as an inexplic- 
 able mystery, and it. is difficult to get it under- 
 stood that design does not necessarily mean a 
 pattern drawn on paper, nor does it involve 
 some strange originality; but it should be just 
 the appropriate shaping and finish for the thing 
 required. Compare, for instance, a modern elec- 
 tric pendant with its agony of contortion, many 
 dust traps, and little brittle leaves, with the per- 
 fection of simplicity of an old Dutch chandelier.
 
 5 o DESIGN AND INDUSTRY 
 
 In the latter the question of originality was 
 never raised; it was made by a process of adapta- 
 tion and improvement. In much the same way 
 many of our own products of a century ago, 
 Sheffield plate, steel fire-grates, brass fenders, 
 copper coal-scuttles, pottery and textiles, were 
 all admirable; they were none of them frantic 
 attempts at originality, *nor were they exercises 
 in some style of the past, Gothic or Louis Seize. 
 They were beautiful because of their fitness and 
 finish. 
 
 It is necessary that we should come to closer 
 terms with design in all our industries, yet it is 
 hardly a paradox to say that we think too much 
 about it, puzzle over the questions involved, 
 and offer frantic solutions rather than serene 
 and confident ones. Design is not some curious 
 contortion of form, or some super-added atro- 
 city, but it should rather be conceived of as the 
 fitting of means to ends in the production of 
 works which are good each in their own order. 
 The manufacturer must often puzzle over what 
 will sell, and indeed it must be a maddening 
 problem; but let him rather recast the question 
 into * What is good, what is the best that can be 
 done for a given price?' and the question of 
 design will at once be simplified if not solved. 
 Is there any guarantee, indeed, that the good 
 thing will sell better than the pretentious bad
 
 DESIGN AND INDUSTRY 51 
 
 thing? Probably not, so far as novelty is the 
 chief reason for the demand; but surely the 
 good thing has a lasting power the best bi- 
 cycle at a given price is the one which is likely 
 to be selling best. Now if we could produce the 
 best finished metal bed, the best tightly fitting, 
 non-dust holding bookcase, the best and most 
 effective coal-box, all at low average prices, is 
 there not a probability that they would sell like 
 the best cheap bicycle? A good idea in any of 
 these things would be quite a valuable pro- 
 perty. Such a bed or bookcase should be im- 
 proved in its details as the bicycle has been im- 
 proved ; frequently too little thought is given 
 to the books or to ways for conveniently hold- 
 ing them, and too much ill-directed effort is de- 
 voted to what has been supposed to be * design'. 
 
 In Germany an immense success has been 
 obtained in the production of efficient hotel 
 furniture by considering the real elements of 
 the problem and paring away extraneous ex- 
 crescences. The ideas in many cases were bor- 
 rowed from our own Arts and Crafts Exhibi- 
 tions, and it may be recommended to some 
 cabinet maker in a large way to try what he can 
 do with an 'Efficiency Style' as a variant to the 
 Early English, Jacobean, and Queen Anne 
 modes. 
 
 At least one furniture firm might find its ac- 
 
 2
 
 52 DESIGN AND INDUSTRY 
 
 count in perfectly adjusted mechanical fitness. 
 They need not all supply all the styles, and 
 there must be many purchasers who realize that 
 they don't live in Jacobean houses orwear cock- 
 ed hats. 
 
 Efficiency, it will be said, is not all. What is 
 the next step in design? The next step is best 
 thought of as still more beautiful finish, trim- 
 ness, smartness, brightness. Then if the thing 
 is in the hands of a real master designer, some 
 little embroidery, as it were, on the plain gar- 
 ment, some little added fun of workmanship, 
 may be permitted, and this is ornamentation. 
 The use of the word atonce brings in confusion, 
 especially as the point which is being urged is 
 that seven-eighths of design for industry should 
 be directed towards efficiency. 
 
 There is undoubtedly some misconception 
 as to what English people want. There is a large 
 section at least which wants what it can't get. 
 Quite remarkably beautiful cotton stuffs wov- 
 en with coloured stripes, tartans, and chequer 
 patterns are produced for the Indian market. 
 They would make delightful curtains in coun- 
 try nouses, but they are entirely unknown in 
 England. 
 
 These are cheap things, but it is also certain 
 that many expensive things will sell if they are 
 only good enough, and such goodness involves
 
 DESIGN AND INDUSTRY 53 
 
 design; for example, German publishers have 
 found that a class of illustrated book must sell if 
 it is only good and costly enough; there is a 
 limited but almost certain number of art libra- 
 ries, over Europe and America, which must 
 buy every book of the sort which is produced. 
 
 It is obvious that the great prizes of manu- 
 facture will be found in ideas and design. Raw 
 material and labour are common charges, and 
 particular methods of production are not likely 
 to make much difference. With a specialty, or 
 an attractive design, the situation changes. 
 
 We have so far made an altogether inade- 
 quate use of our trained designers. Where they 
 have been employed it has often been too much 
 in the use of paste and scissors, or as drawing 
 clerks making timid variations. Their status is 
 that of humble draughtsmen, not of experts who 
 might confer great benefits and receive con- 
 siderable rewards. We must bring new Chip- 
 pendales, Flaxmaijs, and Cranes into our indus- 
 trial commerce. There can be no doubt that 
 able designers can be provided in England so as 
 to supply any demands which can be made on 
 them. German industrial design, as has already 
 been said, has been founded on a minute study 
 of the English Arts and Crafts movement, and 
 special English advice and designs have often 
 been made use of. The great German type-
 
 54 DESIGN AND INDUSTRY 
 
 founding industry, for instance, has been based 
 on a study of the experiments of Wm. Morris, 
 Emery Walker and T. J. Cobden- Sanderson, 
 and the writing of Edward Johnston. 
 
 It happens that here in England for twogene- 
 rations men have been spontaneously turning 
 towards the making of things. Morris himself 
 was one of the first educated men who felt this 
 impetus, and he has been followed by hundreds 
 of others, many of whom have made great sacri- 
 fices for the crafts in the endeavour to make 
 reasonable and beautiful objects. They have 
 set to work to learn as book-binders, printers, 
 metal workers, potters, cabinet makers, wood 
 carvers, stained glass workers, and the rest, and 
 much truly beautiful work has been produced 
 in this way. Again and again remarkable results 
 have been attained, Mr. William De Morgan's 
 faience is an example. But in far too few cases 
 could the strain be borne, and the results have 
 been all but lost not only to the valiant experi- 
 menter but to England. The students in our 
 design schools feel the same impulse towards 
 making things, and show an aptitude which 
 seems to come from this instinct towards work- 
 manship. There is indeed enough designing 
 ability in the country to improve our wares up 
 to any conceivable pitch of excellence, and with 
 due encouragement to bring new life of many
 
 DESIGN AND INDUSTRY 55 
 
 kinds into all sorts of industries. Of course any 
 young designer is not likely to know all about 
 a new business in the first month, and he will 
 make mistakes and failures; a percentage for 
 unsuccessful experiments should be written off; 
 but still it must be true that the prizes will go 
 to those who take the risk of employing the 
 best obtainable talent at least our competitors 
 have proceeded on that assumption.
 
 VI 
 
 MEMORIALS OF THE FALLEN: 
 SERVICE OR SACRIFICE? 1 
 
 THE other day I was asked some questions 
 on the cost of stained glass, as it was proposed 
 to put a stained-glass window as a memorial in 
 a village Wesleyan chapel. Another memorial 
 has been mentioned to me: 'the form decided 
 on is the replica of some old village cross'; and 
 yet another was to be a 'runic cross'. The spirit 
 of the inquiries was entirely wholesome and 
 sweet, but it raised (as it will in the minds of 
 crotchety people, 'who never agree with what 
 they don't propose themselves') a whole flight 
 of preliminary questions and doubts as to ulti- 
 mate possibilities. There are thousands of other 
 cases where like questionsare being asked with- 
 out our being ready with considered replies. As 
 usual it will be muddle. Again the generous 
 people are untaught; again they are to sacrifice 
 before an idol, or a whole row of idols. 
 
 Is it necessary, is it what thefallen themselves 
 
 1 Hibbert Journal, July 1919.
 
 SERVICE OR SACRIFICE? 57 
 
 would have wished, that four and a half years of 
 war and destruction shall be followed by a great 
 outpouring of unproductive, and indeed futile, 
 labour? Must a sort of murder be followed by a 
 sort of suicide? 
 
 The problem as a whole in its great mass 
 needs thinking over and out, and it would be 
 well if the intelligent people of the universities, 
 churches, and councils would consider it and 
 take the responsibility of giving some teaching. 
 Have the universities no national functions? It 
 seems that millions of pounds are again to be 
 wasted, and at such a time, in doing what we at 
 most can least well do. Sometimes, indeed and 
 alas! it may be spent in further vulgarizing our 
 ancient churches. Meanwhile Englishmen and 
 heroes have too few houses to live in, and too 
 little vital and reproductive work to do. Why 
 should it be un monumental to provide some of 
 these? Billiard-marking and diamond-cutting 
 will not be enough to employ all who come 
 back. Would it not be possible to direct some of 
 the memorial streams to irrigating truly pro- 
 ductive work? The best of all memorials would 
 be those which helped speedily to organize the 
 drifting masses of men who are returning to 
 promises^ and the unproductive monuments will 
 not do that. 
 
 There is a feeling in the air that we ought to
 
 58 MEMORIALS OF THE FALLEN 
 
 offer pure sacrifice for the fallen, and that there 
 is some meanness in making memorials serve a 
 useful purpose that we must advertise our 
 regret and compassion in lavish oblations of 
 marble, brass, and glass. Then there are artists 
 and firms all ready to provide the expected right 
 things; but we must remember that these are 
 the priests who live by the sacrifices, * thrusting 
 their forks into the cauldron'. It is in the na- 
 ture of things that artists should be chiefly in- 
 terested in their own matters, and wecan hardly 
 expect a general theory from them unless they 
 were called together in consultation, when they 
 would be quite equal to giving disinterested ad- 
 vice. What we most need is some such calling 
 together for discussion. If we could hold a 
 meeting of the fallen and put some suggestions 
 before them, is it the brass and glass that they 
 would choose? We might readily find out with 
 a high degree of probability by holding a meet- 
 ing of the maimed and injured and asking them 
 what their fallen comrades would have liked 
 this or that? 
 
 The idea of a stone sacrifice is very largely a 
 modern development. Of course there have 
 'always' been monumental memorials, but they 
 were generally direct records, a writing on a 
 wall, or they were tombs. Now, tombs in anti- 
 quity were not simply monuments to the dead;
 
 SERVICE OR SACRIFICE ? 59 
 
 they were eternal houses for those who were in 
 some ghostly way living another kind of life. 
 They were not mere memory memorials. 
 
 More self-conscious memorial monuments 
 and pompous tombs came in with the Hel- 
 lenistic decline. The great { Mausoleum' of the 
 semi-oriental satrap was soon followed by huge 
 trophy monuments, triumphal arches,and sculp- 
 tured memorial pillars. All these are heathen, im- 
 perial, and part of the apparatus of hypnotism 
 by pomp. 
 
 On the other hand, great and serious works 
 of service have generally been associated with 
 the thought of memorial purpose. It was known 
 that only life can ensure further life: only living 
 grain can fructify. 
 
 Pericles rebuilt thesacred high cityof Athens 
 as a memorial of the Persian War. Alexander 
 founded Alexandria as a memorial to himself. 
 St. Sophia, Constantinople, was in some degree 
 a memorial of the putting down of the Nika 
 riots. So our own wise Alfred re-founded Lon- 
 don after withstanding the Danes. Most of the 
 great works of men have been memorials, and 
 all the greatest memorials have been aids to life. 
 The earliest churches were martyr memorials. 
 
 In the Middle Ages the favourite memorial 
 was abbey founding, and abbeys were experi- 
 ments in community life. At the Renaissance
 
 60 MEMORIALS OF THE FALLEN 
 
 time colleges, schools, almshouses were built. 
 'Almshouses': the very words are memorially 
 beautiful if we had not starved the meaning, 
 so thin, bony and grim cold as charity. Of 
 modern -time works Waterloo Bridge is very 
 far the finest memorial we have; indeed, it is in 
 a different category from * memorials proper', 
 and is in its way perfect. Again, the Albert Hall 
 is as much better than the Albert Memorial as 
 it is more serviceable. Trafalgar Square is at 
 least superior to the Nelson Column. Only real- 
 ity can give the true monumental note. 
 
 If we think again of our need and purpose, 
 there is an enormous volume of noble construc- 
 tive work which is necessary to the life of the 
 people, works from those of a national scale 
 down to those suitable for our villages. 
 
 The nation might consider some such schemes 
 as the following: 
 
 1. Town and village re-building and re-en- 
 livening. A general effort after health, joy, and 
 beauty; a policy of weal in place of 'wealth', 
 festivals, folk-schools, eisteddfods, stadiums. 
 
 2. The establishment of a dozen new uni- 
 versities of experimental types, recognizing 
 crafts, art,and all kinds of research, production, 
 making, and doing. 
 
 3. National old-age hospitals in place of the 
 feared and hateful workhouse infirmaries.
 
 SERVICE OR SACRIFICE? 61 
 
 4. Country redemption and general tidying 
 up, burying old tins, burning old paper, and 
 tearing down insulting advertisements. 
 
 5. Making the railway system rational, effi- 
 cient, and orderly: our stations and station- 
 yards must be nearly the worst in the world. 
 
 6. An Irish Channel tunnel and finely con- 
 structed railway to a port on the Atlantic. A 
 really worthy gateway to the West, a British 
 Appian Way. 
 
 7. The setting up of a Ministry for Civili- 
 zation, which would recognize the need for 
 national story, music, drama, and art, and give 
 some attention to our wretched coins, stamps, 
 public heraldry, and 'brilliant ceremonies'. 
 
 8. The re-building of the greater part of 
 London. 
 
 9. The embanking and guiding our over- 
 flooding rivers, and planting the wasteful hedges 
 with fruit-trees. 
 
 10. The organizing of summer camps at- 
 tached to all large towns, where some of the ex- 
 perience gained during the war might be main- 
 tained. 
 
 Every county might experiment in building 
 a new town. Every town might throw out a gar- 
 den suburb. Every village might build at least 
 one stout and neat little house which might be 
 let to some one who has suffered. It would be
 
 62 MEMORIALS OF THE FALLEN 
 
 perfectly easy to put a worthy commemorative 
 inscription and list of names on such a building. 
 Organized labour could make use of the memo- 
 rial motive in founding a town for craft teach- 
 ing and industrial research, also for experi- 
 ments in well living in small houses. The ideal 
 is certainly the house which could be worked 
 without slavery and without the greasy waste 
 and hidden squalor of rich houses. How best to 
 live with the least consumption is an aim which 
 might safely be put before all people when a 
 time comes for considering possible ideals in 
 civilization. Here indeed would be a fair field 
 for the play of our competitive energies. We 
 need a practice of economic experiment and re- 
 search, health laboratories, group living, com- 
 munity hospitality, better cooking, and some 
 human amusements which don't pay dividends. 
 The material appliances of our civilization are 
 altogether inadequate. We badly need Wisdom 
 in her works as well as in her words. We have 
 to think of civilization as a whole, as an ambi- 
 tion, as experiment. If we could establish a wis- 
 dom council on this one object of making wor- 
 thy memorials the precedent might widen, and 
 it might at last be remembered that even Gov- 
 ernment must recognize that it has to be more 
 than an Administration'. Some day when we 
 have learnt not to slay ideals with our 'sense
 
 SERVICE OR SACRIFICE? 63 
 
 of humour * we may find it desirable to have a 
 Minister for Civilization. 
 
 The ever-accelerating momentum of modern 
 life or existence has passed into eccentric or- 
 bits, and we seem to prefer to patch wreck- 
 age rather than to make a plain way. A special 
 effort is necessary to find the bare data for ra- 
 tional production. It is hardly possible to get it 
 understood that a 'work of art' is not a design 
 thrown off by a genius, but it is a piece of 
 honest work consecrated to a noble purpose. At 
 least a work of art implies workmanship. La- 
 bour of course must be cast into appropriate 
 forms, but the craftsmen saw to that before 'de- 
 sign' became the tastesandwhimsofmiddlemen. 
 We have to wake to the understanding that no- 
 body really cares for 'art' sterilities, and we are 
 not even able to do them speciously well. After 
 the mayor's speech at the unveiling function we 
 turn our backs on our monuments, and never 
 speak of them again ; except of some which we 
 make into whetstones to sharpen our wits, or 
 rather our tongues. 
 
 Those strange peoples the ancients made 
 memorials simply and directly, building their 
 hearts into them. We have heart, too, but not 
 frankness; we seek manner, not speech; and we 
 spend our strength in preliminary anxieties, so 
 that the works themselves are born tired.
 
 64 MEMORIALS OF THE FALLEN 
 
 The very names we call the * styles' confess 
 all. Designs in Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Go- 
 thic, Elizabethan, and Georgian styles are only 
 waxworks in a chamber of horrors. 
 
 Ornamental design is dealing with signs and 
 symbols, the saying of something in another 
 mode of language. Our hope in some abstract 
 beauty which shall say nothing, being without 
 natural affection, meaning, feeling, heart or 
 head, is altogether vain. These designs in the 
 'grand manner' are pompous nullities, which 
 only advertise that dulling of the spirit we call 
 education. In seeking the beautiful nothing we 
 seek a ghost which is not there. May we not 
 sometime learn from our failures, and so make 
 these, too, of worth? Must hope be always the 
 bud of disappointment? A designer takes infi- 
 nite pains to be quite safe and non-committal, 
 and then committees sit on the * design' till it 
 has finally been made dull and dead. Nothing 
 living can pass through the torture of anxious 
 committees. In a work of art courage is needed 
 and an untired mind in the worker. Every fine 
 work is the embodied enthusiasm of maker- 
 poets we cannot take fire from the cold ashes 
 of committee compromises or the reflected 
 flames of stylists. 
 
 We are not ready to produce works of art 
 consciously poetic wherefore again let us do
 
 SERVICE OR SACRIFICE? 65 
 
 things obviously useful for life's sake. Above 
 all things the returned soldiers, or their widows 
 and mothers when they return no more, need 
 houses. Would not a pleasant, tidy little house 
 in every village bearing on a panel, MEMORIAL 
 COTTAGE, and other words and names, be the 
 most touching, significant, and beautiful of all 
 possible monuments? The people asked for 
 houses and we have given them stones.
 
 VII 
 
 THE ARCHITECTURE OF 
 ADVENTURE ' 
 
 BY adventure I mean what to me seems to 
 have been the living force and active principle 
 of all architecture, the spirit of experiment in 
 building. It is somewhat curious that of all the 
 thousands of books which exist on architecture 
 there is hardly one known to me which deals 
 with the subject without some qualifying ad- 
 jective, as Greek, Roman, or Gothic; or which 
 asks what is the greatest common denominator 
 of all of them which might come near being 
 architecture itself, past, present, and future. 
 And here, at the risk of some repetition, I must 
 say what I think we are compelled to mean by 
 this ambiguous and abused word. I have often 
 tried to speak of ordinary customary building 
 as being one with architecture; architecture, in 
 fact is only building 'writ large'. But if, having 
 two words, we desire to give them separate 
 
 1 Royal Institute of British Architecture, i8th April 
 1910.
 
 ARCHITECTURE 67 
 
 meanings, consistent though separate, then we 
 must agree to mean by architecture building 
 enhanced by sculpture and painting that is, 
 building 'completely furnished', as Morris says. 
 Architecture would then stand to building as 
 opera stands to music. Architecture must thus, 
 according to our choice, either mean building 
 in general, or building intensified by accessory 
 arts. In any case, mere needful and experimen- 
 tal building is the main substance, force, and 
 origin of the art. When the higher architecture 
 has appeared in the world, it has come as the 
 result of spontaneous interaction of the arts; 
 the architect has wrought according to custom, 
 need, and demand, while sculptors, painters, 
 and the rest have done the same. The resulting 
 unity was not imposed by an architect's artistic 
 ideal, but because all expressed their thought in 
 a common current language. 
 
 Architecture or building, so far as at any 
 given moment it deals with known traditional 
 needs, should be customary; so far as it has to 
 meet changing conditions and ideals it must be 
 experimental. For the customary part practical 
 craft education would be best; but how to meet 
 changing needs, especially when one of the 
 changes is the breakdown of custom itself, is a 
 new and urgent question. However desirable it 
 might be to continue in old ways or revert to 
 F 2
 
 68 THE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 past types, it is, I feel on reviewing the at- 
 tempts which have been made, impossible. We 
 have passed into a scientific age, and the old 
 practical arts, produced instinctively, belong to 
 an entirely different era. 
 
 I have long been interested in the search for 
 sources of inspiration in our art, always with 
 the immediate inquiry before me as to what 
 may be an inspiration to the architects of to-day 
 and to-morrow. I have come to the conclusion 
 that any basis on which there can be some gen- 
 eral agreement over a long space of time will 
 produce architecture of a sort. The one thing 
 essential is this agreement, so that a process of 
 development may be set up by continuous ex- 
 periment. A school of art is only generated by 
 intensity, the heat of a common pressure. The 
 only possible basis of agreement at the present 
 time is the scientific method. 
 
 In a former Paper x I tried to examine the 
 Greek theory that architecture was to be reach- 
 ed through a system of ratios. This idea could 
 only be applied to a thing as fixed and simple in 
 general type, as a temple. It belongs to a con- 
 ception of holy architecture. The Greeks prob- 
 ably took over the notion of such a method from 
 the Egyptians; in any case, it belongs to many 
 
 1 'The Theory of Greek Architecture', Journal, 8th 
 Feb. 1908.
 
 OF ADVENTURE 69 
 
 ancient peoples: the Arabs, for instance, find 
 consolation (so do I) in the fact that the temple 
 of Mecca is supposed to be built so that its 
 length, breadth, and height are equal. The 
 Greek thought on the matter was very clear-cut 
 and simple. It was no mere talk of the wonders 
 of proportion, which ends by pointing out that 
 in any work there is, as a matter of fact, relation 
 between the parts. For instance, in any given 
 picture, there is some relation between the red 
 and the blue; but this relation is not fixed for 
 all pictures, and it was not fixed for any particu- 
 lar one until it was finished. I want to be clear 
 about this: that 'proportion 'strictly means what 
 it meant to the Greeks, a definite prearranged 
 relation of measured quantities. This view is, 
 perhaps, most clearly brought out in the case 
 of sculpture, to which they naturally came to ap- 
 ply similar schemes of related measures. Poly- 
 clitus, the contemporary and equal of Pheidias, 
 wrote a book on the subject, called The Canon, 
 and made a celebrated statue to illustrate it. 
 The head was one-seventh of the total height, 
 and all the other parts had definite ratios. More- 
 over, a saying of his is preserved: 'Success in 
 art is attained by exactness in a multitude of 
 arithmetical proportions.' Greek artists seem to 
 have agreed to such a theory, and although it 
 was ill founded, yet the myth led them on
 
 70 THE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 that is, they set about discovering perfection; 
 and we know what wonders they accomplished 
 in consequence. 
 
 The Romans as certainly agreed in a desire 
 for bigness and splendour, and they, too, suc- 
 ceeded according to their desires. The Arab 
 builders fell into a love of bright colours, baked 
 into shining tiles, and this, too, gave a character 
 to//fo/rart. Any strong and general interest in 
 building felt by a people will produce a living 
 school of art. There is no one perfect school, 
 there is an infinitude of conceivable perfections. 
 
 Engineers' Architecture. With all these vari- 
 ables, however, there has been one constant 
 the building interest; the delight in experimental 
 structure, the adventure into the unknown. 
 
 I must fortify myself here with some his- 
 torical data, in proof of what would otherwise 
 be mere assertion. Notwithstanding the Greek 
 theory of temple architecture, their architects, 
 as a matter of fact, seem nearly always to have 
 been engineers; and it is this engineering inter- 
 est in architecture which I am about to trace. 
 Their legendary craft-master was the mechani- 
 cian Daedalus. Calibrates, the builder of the Par- 
 thenon, also built the great fortification called 
 the Long Walls. Hippodamus, the celebrated 
 architect, also of the age of Pericles, fortified the
 
 OF ADVENTURE 71 
 
 Piraeus, and was an expert in town planning. 
 Archimedes himself was counted among their 
 seven great architects. 
 
 The engineering element in Roman architec- 
 ture is most marked, and it was this, indeed, 
 which entirely burst the old bottles of tradition, 
 and transformed the art into one of daring 
 structural adventure. Most of the great Roman 
 architects seem to have been engineers in the 
 strict sense. Even Vitruvius, who was so much 
 of a reactionary, was official keeper of war- 
 engines, and he tells us that architecture had 
 three branches, building, dialling, and mech- 
 anics; meaning by the last the construction of 
 military and other engines. Trajan's favourite 
 architect followed the army and built his won- 
 derful military bridge over the Danube. Archi- 
 tects in Rome were called 'machinatores', also 
 'structores', and 'magistri'. Architect was a 
 more general term which included ordinary 
 workmen. 1 
 
 The identity between engineers and archi- 
 tects continued into the Byzantine period, and 
 all the great architects of the time of Justinian 
 seem to have been engineers. Anthemius, the 
 architect of Sta Sophia, is called the 'mechani- 
 kos', and we are told that 'he was an inventor of 
 machines and reached the summitof mathemati- 
 1 Cabrol's Diet., s.v. Architect.
 
 72 THE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 cal knowledge'. Indeed, he has left a book on 
 the subject. Associated with him was, as Pro- 
 copius says, 'another mechanic called Isidorus'. 
 'They were the most suitable of all mankind for 
 the purpose'. Isidorus the Younger, who re- 
 erected the dome after its fall, had been employ- 
 ed in building the fortified military outpost, 
 Zenobia. The famous and beautiful Church of 
 the Virgin at Jerusalem was built for Justinian 
 by Theodorus, called architect and 'machina- 
 riusV The learned Benedictine, Leclercq, says 
 that this'name of mechanician, carrying the idea 
 of constructor, is found in. all epochs of the 
 Lower Empire. 
 
 When we reach the Middle Ages we meet 
 with evidence which shows the same state of 
 things. Alnoth, the celebrated master of works 
 of Henry II, was an engineer. In France, Eu- 
 des, the favourite master of Louis IX, went 
 with him to Palestine and constructed the walls 
 of Jaffa. The custom is well represented in the 
 sketch-book of the architect Villard de Honne- 
 court, which treats of building, sculpture, geo- 
 metry, and machines. Amongst his notes, which 
 include an essay on Perpetual Motion, and 
 
 1 Cler. Ganneau in Q. S. of Pal. Expl Fund, 1 898, 
 p. 251. See also what Procopius says of Chryses of 
 Alexandria : 4 A clever engineer who served Justinian as an 
 architect.'
 
 OF ADVENTURE 73 
 
 many mechanical devices like power-saws, pile- 
 drivers, crossbows, and war-engines, is one on 
 the construction of a floor out of timber too 
 short to bear across the space. This I note be- 
 cause we shall meet with it again. 
 
 The great mediaeval buildings are, all the 
 best critics unite in telling us, solutions of pro- 
 blems of how to throw stones high into the air, 
 and balance them there. A great French castle 
 or cathedral was not designed as beauty, it was 
 developed along a line of experiment as surely 
 as the great ocean liners have been so developed. 
 We may almost regard it as an accident of tradi- 
 tional custom that the bishops and the people 
 liked to have the fronts of their churches cover- 
 ed with didactic sculptures and their windows 
 filled with stained glass. The essential construc- 
 tion, however, was conceived by any of the great 
 masters as a problem of strers and poise, just as 
 the designer of the Forth Bridge so conceived 
 his problem. 
 
 The Renaissance. The scholars of the Renais- 
 sance set themselves systematically to learn all 
 that might be learnt. This is the mark of the 
 new birth of learning. Its spirit is most com- 
 pletely manifested in that extraordinary man 
 Leonardo da Vinci, and our own Bacon fully 
 grasped and expounded the theory. But in
 
 74 THE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 building art a strange thing happened as Mor- 
 ris puts it, 'the past slew the present'; 'strange 
 to say, to this living body of social and scientific 
 New Birth was bound the corpse of a past art. 
 On every other side it bade men look forward, 
 on the side of art it bade them look back.' It is 
 evident that one of the subjects opened up for 
 scholarly investigation was the mighty architec- 
 ture of Rome. Under other circumstances it 
 might have been possible that the principles 
 the science of construction should have been 
 studied, and not the mere fashion of the out- 
 ward adorning, but it was not to be. One reason 
 why this was so may be suggested: Italian pa- 
 triotism seized on the ideal of reviving the past 
 architecture of Rome, and putting away the in- 
 termediate manner of building which had been 
 brought in by the German conquerors. 
 
 The notebooks and studies or Leonardo, how- 
 ever, show that it was always phenomena and 
 principles which interested him. Large sections 
 of his manuscripts are devoted to abstract exer- 
 cises in planning, to considerations of dome-buil- 
 ding and other structural possibilities, as well 
 as to studies in engineering, machine-making, 
 fortification,and canals. Amongst his schemes is 
 one for a town, for Leonardo was a pioneer in 
 town planning as well as in aviation. 
 
 This scheme comprises a system of low-level
 
 OF ADVENTURE 75 
 
 streets for commercial purposes, and an upper 
 residential stratum. The roads slope to the 
 higher level outside the walls, and within they 
 are connected by bridges, while the lower region 
 is reached by staircases and large areas opened 
 to it for light. * Those', he says, 'who would 
 go through the whole place by the high-level 
 streets can do so, and he who would go below 
 can do so. The stairs must be circular because 
 the corners of square ones are always foul'. An- 
 other scheme is for combined streets and canals, 
 by which cellars were made accessible to boats. 
 'Let the width of the street', he says, 'be equal 
 to the average height of the houses'. An impor- 
 tant section deals with domes, being, as Richter 
 says, 'theoretical and ideal researches made in 
 order to obtain a clear understanding of the laws 
 which must govern the construction of a great 
 central dome with smaller ones grouped around 
 it. In these sketches [I am still quoting] Leo- 
 nardo seems to have exhausted every imaginable 
 combination to illustrate the consequences re- 
 sulting from a given principle.' Quite so; he was 
 the first, that is, to enter on a systematic inquiry 
 as to the mechanics of architecture. 
 
 Among these studies into abstract architec- 
 tural possibilities is an examination of the puz- 
 zle floor which I have already mentioned, it is 
 caught up, investigated, and at once universal-
 
 76 THE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 ized into a principle that of the Japanese lat- 
 tice (see fig. i). 1 
 
 Another study which so far as I know has 
 not been explained is the four-flight inter- 
 winding staircase (see fig. 2), which afterwards 
 appears in Palladto, and which Inigo Jones 
 
 Fiu. 2. 
 
 FIG. i. 
 
 thought the Italian architect must have taken 
 from Chambord, where it had been realized. 
 Now, as Chambord was begun just at the time 
 when Leonardo was living at Blois, and as the 
 section of his studies' which contains this re- 
 markable exercise relates to the design for a 
 palace for Francis I, one may, I think, conclude 
 that this stair was Leonardo's invention. All 
 these studies were probably for the complete 
 treatise on architecture which he contemplated 
 
 1 Still later the puzzle floor was published by Scrlio, 
 and an example of it was made a wonder of at our Royal 
 Society (see Parentalia.)
 
 OF ADVENTURE 77 
 
 producing. 1 The spirit in which he followed in- 
 vestigation is expressed in an outburst so high- 
 pitched that I am almost ashamed to quote it: 
 *O marvellous Necessity, thou with supreme 
 wisdom constrainest all effects to be the direct 
 result of their causes, and by irrevocable law 
 every natural action obeys thee by the shortest 
 possible process. O wonderful stupendous Ne- 
 cessity, the theme and artifice of Nature, the 
 Eternal law.' In another place he says: 'There 
 is no certainty where one may not apply any of 
 the mathematical sciences.' 
 
 Theonlyother artistof theRenaissance known 
 to me who caught the idea of investigating prin- 
 ciples the scientific spirit was Dilrer, and he 
 possibly had access to Da Vinci's notebooks. In 
 his manuscripts in the British Museum are 
 some studies for domes of a parabolic section, 
 and some exercises in plan schemes. The dome 
 of parabolic section was { in the air' long before 
 Wren in turn seized on it. 
 
 Wrens 'Teaching. For England and more 
 modern times we fortunately have some records 
 of the thoughts of Wren on the art he practis- 
 ed. Although Wren was not a world-genius like 
 Leonardo da Vinci, he was in many respects an 
 English Leonardo, and the one architect we 
 have had whose formal thought matters. I say 
 1 Richter.
 
 78 THE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 formal as opposed to the flashes of insight of a 
 dozen men like Pugin. Wren's was a great in- 
 tellect most highly trained in all the science and 
 philosophy of an ample age. He had been mar- 
 vellously precocious, and during a very long life 
 tried to satisfy an infinite curiosity by patient 
 investigation. More than even a great artist, 
 Wren was a great man. It may be somewhat 
 curious to note here how often admirable prac- 
 tical skill in the arts may be linked to great pov- 
 erty of thought in theoretic exposition, so that 
 the splendid achievement of a Palladio or a 
 Chambers in active work may be accompanied 
 by mere twaddle of explanation and rhetoric. 
 
 Some recent writers have rather lightly taken 
 it for granted that there must be some mistake 
 as to Wren's scientific attainments, but we have 
 the consensus of opinion of his contemporaries 
 and of modern mathematical and astronomical 
 experts that he was a powerful original genius. 
 He is said to have been the first to make a 
 model of the moon's surface as seen through 
 a telescope, and the first to draw minute objects 
 through a microscope. He and his friend, Rob- 
 ert Hook, another scientific architect, were con- 
 versant with the general law of gravitation be- 
 fore Newton brought it to a proof. Newton, in 
 a letter to Halley, speaks of a visit he paid to 
 Sir Christopher, in which they * discussed the
 
 OF ADVENTURE 79 
 
 problem of determining the heavenly motions 
 on philosophic principles. You are acquaint- 
 ed with Sir Christopher; pray know when and 
 where he first learnt the decrease of the force in 
 the duplicate ratio of the distance from the cen- 
 tre.' Halley replied that 'Sir Christopher told 
 him that Mr. Hook had frequently told him 
 that he had proved it, but that he never was 
 satisfied that his demonstration was correct.' 
 That is, the problem of gravity had been dis- 
 cussed by Wren and Hook and its actual law 
 stated before Newton proved it in a convincing 
 way. 1 
 
 This same Hook says of him , 'Since the time 
 of Archimedes there scarce ever met in one man 
 in so great perfection, such a mechanical hand 
 and so philosophical a mind' ; Hook again, in 
 his treatise on comets, gives a method of deter- 
 mining their parallax 'invented by that incom- 
 parable mathematician, Dr. Christopher Wren'. 
 These things are beyond my knowledge, but I 
 know that they represent wonderful powers. 
 
 It was after one of Wren's professional lec- 
 tures on astronomy that, in 1 660, a committee 
 was formed which instituted the Royal Society, 
 then described as 'a Philosophical Society for 
 the Promotion of Physico-Mathematical Ex- 
 
 1 Diet. Nat. Biog., under ' Newton '. See also Museum 
 of Roy. Society in Hatton's New View of London^ 1708.
 
 8o THE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 periment'. Wren was instructed to sum up its 
 scheme, and in this he explained that it was to 
 'make provision for Natural experimental philo- 
 sophy 1 . 
 
 Wren was almost certainly the first in Eng- 
 land to apply the methods of scientific investiga- 
 tion to the laws of structure, and Hook is said 
 to have been the first who stated the mechanical 
 properties of the arch. In Wren's earliest report 
 on St. Paul's he says that it might be affirmed ot 
 its vault: 'Not by an architect taking his mea- 
 sures from the Ancients, but by a Geometri- 
 cian this part being liable to demonstration 
 that the roof was ever too heavy for its but- 
 ment.' 
 
 We are fortunate in possessing records, how- 
 ever slight, of Wren's systematic thought on 
 architecture in some fragments which have been 
 printed in Parentalia, and by Miss Phillimore. 
 The teachings of such a man on his chosen art 
 should have great value and weight, but they 
 have been strangely overlooked and have never, 
 so far as I know, been commented on. It seems 
 clear from these fragments that he contem- 
 plated writing a history of architecture and also 
 a general philosophy of its first principles, both 
 possibly to be combined in one work. The frag- 
 ments belong to a time late in his long life, for 
 Wren speaks of the vaults of St. Paul's as in
 
 OF ADVENTURE 81 
 
 being. The notes may have been written when, 
 over eighty, he had retired from active work to 
 pass his time in contemplation and studies. Miss 
 Phillimore has printed what seems to be an in- 
 troduction to the historical study of classical 
 buildings published in Parentalia. This intro- 
 ductory part was cut away, possibly because it 
 dealt with subjects like the Ark of Noah and the 
 Temple of Solomon, but there are some in- 
 teresting general remarks by way of introduc- 
 tion. The part given in Parentalia contains a 
 critical examination of Pliny's accounts of the 
 Temple of Diana at Ephesus, and of the Mau- 
 soleum, also a description of the 'Temple of 
 Mars Ultor'and the'Temple of Peace' in Rome. 
 In the preliminary remarks which I shall quote 
 it appears that his intention in the proposed 
 work was to give 'a larger idea of the whole art* 
 of architecture, and he thus began : 
 
 'Whatever a man's sentiments are upon ma- 
 ture deliberation, it will still be necessary for 
 him in a conspicuous work to preserve his un- _ 
 dertaking from censure, and to accommodate his 
 designs to the gust of the age he lives in, though it ) 
 appears to him less rational. I have found no little 
 difficulty to bring persons otherwise of good 
 genius to think anything in architecture would 
 be better than what they have heard commend- 
 ed. Many Gothic forms of cathedrals are to be
 
 82 THE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 seen in our country and many had been seen 
 abroad, which they liked the better for being 
 not much different from ones in England. This 
 humour with many is not yet eradicated and, 
 therefore, I judge it not improper to endeavour 
 to reform the generality to a better taste in 
 architecture by giving a larger idea of the whole 
 art, beginning with the reasons and progress of it from 
 the most remote antiquity, touching chiefly on 
 some things which have not been remarked by 
 others. 'The project of building is as natural to man- 
 kind as to the birds' 
 
 In the fragment printed in Parenta/iavre have 
 an admirable statement of the utility of archi- 
 tecture in the State in a phrase which might 
 be taken as a motto by town-planning associa- 
 tions: ' Architecture has its political use ; public build- 
 ings being the ornament of a country ; it establishes 
 a Nation, draws people and commerce; makes the 
 people love their native country, which passion is 
 the great original of all great actions in a Common- 
 wealth' 
 
 Rather extravagant that may seem to us, but 
 a practical proof follows out of history. 'The 
 emulation of the cities of Greece was the true 
 cause of their greatness. The obstinate valour of 
 thejews, occasioned by the love of theirTemple, 
 was a cement that held together that people for 
 many ages, through infinite changes. The care
 
 OF ADVENTURE 83 
 
 of public decency and convenience was a great 
 cause of the establishment of the Low Countries 
 and of many cities in the world. Modern Rome 
 subsists still by the ruins and imitation of the 
 old.' 
 
 Architecture aims at Eternity; and there- 
 fore is the only thing incapable of modes and fashions 
 in its principles' 'The Orders are not only Ro- 
 man and Greek, but Phoenician, Hebrew, and 
 Assyrian, being founded upon the experience of all 
 ages, promoted by the vast treasures of the great 
 monarchs and skill of the greatest artists and 
 geometricians, every one emulatingeach other.' The 
 Orders, that is, were admirable so far as they 
 embodied much experiment and' long experi- 
 ence. And then he proceeds, in more general 
 language: * Beauty, firmness and convenience 
 are the principles: the two first depend upon 
 geometrical reasons of optics and statics; the 
 third only makes the variety.' The geometrical, 
 that is structural, principles are eternal, but a 
 changing element is brought in by new needs 
 and new ideas of convenience. 'There are two 
 causes of beauty natural and customary. Na- 
 tural is from geometry, consisting in unifor- 
 mity, that is equality, and proportion. Custom- 
 ary beauty is begotten by the use, as familari- 
 ity breeds a love to things not in themselves 
 lovely. Here lies the great occasion of errors, 
 G 2
 
 84 THE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 but always the true test is natural or geometrical 
 beauty. Geometrical figures are naturally more 
 beautiful than irregular ones: the square, the 
 circle are most beautiful; next the parallelogram 
 and the oval. There are only two beautiful posi- 
 tions of straight lines, perpendicular and hori- 
 zontal ; this is from Nature and consequently necessity ', 
 noother than upright being firm.' He then pas- 
 ses to the expression of some very interesting 
 particular views based largely on his favourite 
 Roman architecture; but enough has been said 
 to show that he accepted that only as embodying 
 a vast stock of past experience, and he knew 
 that the real basis of architecture was necessity, 
 law, geometry. Further on he says so still more 
 clearly in the opening of the second tract (or sec- 
 ond chapter or a general treatise) which begins 
 thus: 
 
 * Modern authors who have treated of archi- 
 tecture seem generally to have little more in 
 view,buttosetdown the proportionsof columns, 
 &c., as they are distinguished into Doric, Ionic, 
 Corinthian, and Composite, finding them in the 
 ancient fabrics. Though more arbitrarily used than 
 they care to acknowledge^ they have reduced them 
 to rules, though in their own nature they are but 
 the modes and fashions of those ages wherein they 
 were used. Although architecture contains many 
 excellent parts besides the ranging of pillars,
 
 OF ADVENTURE 85 
 
 yet curiosity may lead us to consider whence 
 this affectation arose originally, so as to judge 
 nothing beautiful but what was adorned with 
 columns, even where there was no real use 
 for them. It will be to the purpose to examine 
 whence proceeded this affectation of a mode 
 which hath continued now at least 3,000 years, 
 and the rather because it may lead us to the grounds 
 of architecture and by what steps this humour of 
 colonnades came into practice.' He thinks the 
 habit of mind first was rooted when men sacri- 
 ficed in groves. Then he passes on to what was 
 evidently to be the chief content of his work, 
 the consideration of the true grounds of archi- 
 tecture in structural law, in these words : ' It seems 
 very unaccountable that the generality of our late 
 architects dwell so much upon this ornamental^ and so 
 slightly pass over the geometrical, which is the most 
 essential part of architecture. For instance, can an 
 arch stand without butment sufficient? If the 
 butment be more than enough it is an idle ex- 
 pense of materials; if too little it will fall; and 
 so for any vaulting, and yet no author hath 
 given a true and universal rule for this nor hath 
 considered all the various forms of arches.' 
 Wren then proceeds to investigate the laws 
 of stability by consideration of the centres of 
 gravity of the several parts, basing himself on 
 * Archimedes and the modern geometricians
 
 86 THE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 who have treated of centres of gravity.' ' His 
 first demonstration regarding the arch is so 
 simple and illustrates his method so well that I 
 give its essence in general words. If the model 
 of 'half an arch with its abutment (a diagram of 
 an arch in a square of wall is given) will stand 
 of itself, then the two halves when brought to- 
 gether into a complete arch will stand. 'So it 
 appears', he says, 'that the design where there 
 are arches must be regulated by the art of statics 
 and the duly poising of all parts to equiponderate. 
 Hence I conclude that all designs must in the first 
 place be brought to this test or be rejected. I have 
 examined some celebrated works, as the Pan- 
 theon, and judge there is more butment than 
 necessary. I suppose the architect provided 
 against earthquakes. The different forms of 
 vaulting (he goes on) are necessary to be con- 
 sidered, both as they were used by the ancients 
 and the moderns [i.e. mediaeval builders], 
 whether Freemasons or Saracens.' He then 
 reviews different types of vaulting Roman, 
 Mediaeval, and Byzantine and gives us the 
 interesting information that he adopted the 
 form of vaults used at St. Paul's from Sta 
 Sophia, * because it was the lightest manner and 
 
 1 He would have been delighted in the recently dis- 
 covered and just published treatise on the Centre of 
 Gravity by Archimedes.
 
 OF ADVENTURE 87 
 
 requires less butment ; 1 have therefore pre- 
 ferred it to any other way used by architects.' 
 
 The theory of architecture here erected on 
 wide foundations of knowledge, historical and 
 experimental, is truly a general explanation, a 
 philosophy of architecture, and we shall far 
 rather be disciples of Wren by understanding 
 his mind than by vainly copying the forms of 
 things which he himself used more or less under 
 protest (as in the case of the balustrade) in dif- 
 ferent relations, and, as he himself says, accord- 
 ing to 'the gust' of the age in which he lived. 
 I may say here that no adequate account of 
 Wren himself and his accomplishment exists 
 except the remarkable life contributed to the 
 Dictionary of National Biography by the man of 
 the last generation who was best qualified to 
 understand him, and I wish that it could be 
 printed together with Wren's own teachings, 
 on which I have here ventured to comment. It 
 would, I think, make the best foundation book 
 for all our proposed teaching, for it should stir 
 ambition, clear thought, and do much to shake 
 off the dull artistic inertia and contented utter- 
 ance of theoretic platitude which too much be- 
 sets us all. 
 
 Wren tells us that he designed the beautiful 
 saucer domes of St. Paul's by borrowing them 
 from Sta Sophia because they were the most
 
 88 
 
 THE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 mechanically perfect that he could find. Some 
 sketches for the great dome (see fig.) show that 
 its section was conceived as conforming to a 
 general parabolic curve rising from the plinths 
 of the great piers and passing through the abut- 
 ments andover thecrown 
 of the so-called cone. I 
 say * so-called', because, 
 with its rounded top, its 
 section is a parabola. 
 Wren saw, and probably 
 was the first of architects 
 to do so, that 'necessity', 
 which he equates with 
 'nature', must be one 
 with beauty. We are told 
 that he always preferred 
 his earlier scheme for St. 
 Paul's, and it is plain he 
 must have done so, for 
 that has unity; the whole 
 was a domical structure, not a structure with 
 a dome. Some residuum of the idea is found in 
 the present plan, for the nave proper is made 
 equal to the choir and a vestibule bay is added 
 in front. There is under the strictest limitations 
 of law wide room for choice, of course. For in- 
 stance, Wren doubtless might have counter- 
 poised his main vaults by another means than
 
 OF ADVENTURE 89 
 
 the high screen on the aisles; but the expedient 
 is perfectly scientific, and probably he borrowed 
 the idea from mediaeval buildings, loo king on it 
 
 as a continuous pinnacle. 
 
 
 
 Conclusions. I have tried to show in the fore- 
 going extracts and comments that the living 
 central stem of architecture has always been 
 rooted in the spirit of active experiment and 
 adventure for the further satisfaction of needs 
 and desires. Two views as to the meaning and 
 content of architecture have been held, and per- 
 haps still are at least some people seem to 
 think they hold them, (i) That there is a thing, 
 Architecture perhaps revealed in the one per- 
 fect form of classical art, or manifested more 
 or less in different forms in divers times, as 
 Greek and Gothic architecture. Further, it is 
 to be attained by a special sense in the artist. 
 (2) That the essence of architecture is propor- 
 tion, the discovery and use of definite ratios, 
 and that by this method of proportioning an 
 absolute architecture may be embodied. There 
 is a third view which holds that architecture is 
 primarily building according to the natural laws 
 of structure and stability, according to need and 
 order, and always with care and finish; that it 
 must ever vary with ever-changing conditions, 
 and that this ordinary building may have asso-
 
 90 THE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 elated with it painted stories and sculptured 
 stories, or inlays and fretted works and gildings, 
 while the essential architecture is still structure, 
 and the method of architectural growth is by 
 continuous experiment in the possibilities of 
 structure. I must safeguard myself from being 
 thought to urge any quest of originality. Quite 
 the reverse. I am satisfied that all search for it 
 just blocks the way, with our preconceptions 
 and limitations, to any possibility of realizing a 
 true originality, which properly is of the root, 
 not of the appearance. True originality is to be 
 found by those who, standing on the limits of 
 the sphere of the known, reach out naturally to 
 some apprehension and understanding of what 
 is beyond; it is the next step in an orderly de- 
 velopment. 
 
 What I do urge, in the simplest and plainest 
 words, is concentration on practical, experimen- 
 tal, and scientific education. What we most 
 need at the present time is the accumulation of 
 power; we want high mechanical training, wide 
 practical experience, and great geometry. And 
 then we want to cover the field by a systematic 
 research into possibilities. The possibilities of 
 walls and vaults, and of the relations between 
 the walls and the cell, and between one cell and 
 another, want investigating, as Lord Kelvin in- 
 vestigated the geometry of crystalline struc-
 
 OF ADVENTURE 91 
 
 tures and the * packing of cells'. In my view, it is 
 true, such a training would not include the 
 whole of architecture, but it would, I believe, 
 open the way to the best we can attain. We 
 might hope thus to give up hugging the coasts 
 of the known, to sail boldly forth under the 
 stars. Thus, and thus only for us, may we enter 
 again upon the Architecture of Adventure. 
 
 In a late number of the R.I.B.A. Journal is a 
 paper which touches on the imaginative and 
 poetic side of architecture, and, in the main, 
 seems true enough, but it hardly sufficiently, to 
 my mind, recognizes the actual facts of to-day. 
 For instance, it says: 'There is a phrase, "rea- 
 son in building," which is the favourite catch- 
 word of the moment with a certain class of per- 
 sons fond of oracular utterances.' It then pro- 
 ceeds to say that it is 'imaginative reason' which 
 is wanted. Why, yes, of course. When we can 
 get it I should like it very much; and I do find 
 it in the Forth Bridge; I saw it last spring in 
 a concrete railway viaduct, and in the autumn 
 in the smart tidiness of the city of Munich, in 
 the ironwork of the little wayside stations high 
 up in the Chamounix Valley; in the new bar- 
 racks at Strasburg, and a new railway water- 
 tower at Metz. I saw it the other day in a photo- 
 graph of the last great sailing-ship built, a five- 
 master, I think, and bearing a vast area of swell-
 
 92 THE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 ing canvas. Some brick-kilns have the beauty 
 of Byzantine churches, and the most romantic 
 modern buildings I know are the oast-houses 
 of Kent. All these are, indeed, works of imagi- 
 native reason, and one may look at them with 
 startled interest. In the same number with the 
 objection to mere reason a quotation is made 
 from a speech by Mr. James Bryce, who at 
 least is an expert on European history. He re- 
 marks that the historian of architecture when 
 he comes to the nineteenth century is at a loss, 
 and goes on to ask, 'Now, is not the time about 
 due when you must be beginning to do some- 
 thing desperate?' 
 
 Building has been, and may be, an art, imagi- 
 native, poetic, even mystic and magic. When 
 poetry and magic are in the people and in the 
 age they will appear in their arts, and I want 
 them, but there is not the least good in saying, 
 'Let us go to and build magic buildings. Let us 
 be poetic.' Yet let me say again, it is because I 
 want these things that I face this problem. 
 
 If I may be a 'self-constituted' educational 
 adviser to the Institute of Architects, and ex- 
 press such a personal view, I, too, would say, 
 'It is about time to do something desperate'. 
 We should devote the whole of the next session 
 to papers on constructive science, get Professor 
 Karl Pearson to give us the result of his re-
 
 OF ADVENTURE 93 
 
 searches on the arch, Professor Perry to draw 
 up a report on the application of mathematical 
 inquiry to structures, and Mr. Dunn should 
 lecture us on ordinary modern constructive 
 problems. As talking of reason in design is to 
 be tabooed as a self-evident truism, some one 
 who is prepared to commit suicide should ex- 
 amine the prevalence of irrationality in modern 
 buildings. The scientific side of our examina- 
 tions should be rapidly screwed up, and the 
 archaeological side as rapidly unscrewed. All our 
 travelling studentships should be made to bear 
 on the same quarter. Pugin students should be 
 made to analyse varieties of mediaeval vaults, 
 and Soane students varieties of staircase ar- 
 rangement. Tites should be sent to study 
 French railway stations, Grissells to work at 
 German hotels, and Godwins to American hos- 
 pitals. 
 
 I am anxious to repeat that I have not pro- 
 posed to speak of the whole of architecture: 
 the sublime sculptures of the Parthenon, the 
 glittering mosaics of the vaults of St. Mark's, 
 the solemn splendour of the glass of Chartres, 
 and all the fear, mystery, rapture, delight and 
 play which have been wrought into them ; their 
 energy, their pride, and their loveliness; and all 
 their wreathings, frettings, veneerings and in- 
 lays. Although I have not spoken of these, again
 
 94 THE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 I say it is because I want just such as these but 
 different that I have spoken at all. I want 
 pathetic beauty in the cottage and in the barn, 
 the most exquisite order, freshness, and effici- 
 ency in our town streets, the uttermost of costly 
 majesty in the city's public palace, and still 
 something beyond for our cathedrals, some ex- 
 pression of infinite aspiration. It is because 1 
 want all these, if it may be, or even less if it will 
 be, that I have et myself to consider how they 
 might be attained, and it is my own conclusions 
 on the matter that I have now put before you. 
 We need first the natural, the obvious, and, if it 
 will not offend to say so, the reasonable, so that 
 to these, which might seem to be under our 
 own control, may be added we know not how or 
 what of gifts and graces. Thus may we hope to 
 combine the two realities, the reality of natural 
 necessity and common experience with the real- 
 ity of the philosophers, which is the ideal, and 
 to reconcile again Science with Art. 
 
 Of course, I have written this paper from 
 a special area that I marked down, and I hope 
 that I have been careful to limit myself by say- 
 ing that I did not think again and again I tried 
 to say it that it exhausted the whole of the 
 possibilities of architecture. My main thought, 
 however, was this. The method of design to a
 
 OF ADVENTURE 95 
 
 modern mind can only be understood in the 
 scientific, or in the engineer's sense, as a definite 
 analysis of possibilities not as a vague poetic 
 dealing with poetic matters, with derivative 
 ideas of what looks domestic, or looks farmlike, 
 or looks ecclesiastical the dealing with a mul- 
 titude of flavours that is what architects have 
 been doing in the last hundred years. They have 
 been trying to deal with a set of flavours 
 things that looked like things but that were not 
 the things themselves. Old farm-houses and 
 cottages are things themselves cottages and 
 farm-houses. Now we, the best of us, are trying 
 to build things which shall hok like farm-houses 
 and look like cottages, and so on. It suggests to 
 me a story that my friend Mr. Horsley told 
 me twenty-five years ago. Passing down a back 
 street in London he saw a card in a window, 
 ' Fine jam, good strawberry flavour, 4^. a lb.' It 
 is not the strawberry flavour we want in build- 
 ing, it is good sound food. 
 
 Once more I venture to say that the living 
 stem of building-design can only be found by 
 following the scientific method.
 
 VIII 
 
 MODERN GERMAN ARCHITEC- 
 TURE AND WHAT WE MAY 
 LEARN FROM IT 1 
 
 I ACCEPTED the invitation of the committee to 
 lecture on this subject too readily, although, as 
 a matter of fact, I did so with great hesitation. 
 The times are too tremendous for talk, and in 
 serious times the expression of any views which 
 are narrowly personal is a mere impertinence. 
 In some, in many, respects we must be the most 
 capable and gifted nation on the earth, and there 
 is a form of patriotism which would rest content 
 in pride of these things. There is, however, also 
 an intenser patriotic pride which hates to fall 
 short in any worthy power or skill, and which 
 would add to what we certainly have all of value 
 in which we fail. There is a patriotism which 
 would have London even as Athens and Flor- 
 ence, and cannot rest until we * have built Jeru- 
 salem in England's green and pleasant land*. 
 There might be a patriotism so proud that it 
 
 1 The Architectural Association, Jan. 1915.
 
 ARCHITECTURE 97 
 
 would disdain to assert its virtues and be con- 
 tent with the acclamations and reverence of 
 other peoples. 
 
 My right to speak of German architecture 
 and arts andcrafts comes from my having visited 
 the country about half a dozen times, and hav- 
 ing seen many of the most important cities, in- 
 cluding Berlin. It was many years ago that I 
 came to the personal conclusion that Germany 
 was racing; that she had consciously divided up 
 human activities and knowledge into depart- 
 ments, and had definitely set herself to outrun 
 all other competitors in all of them. The guard- 
 ians and directors of the State had, it seemed to 
 me, substituted for the old customary methods 
 and detached competitions in arts and sciences 
 a clear and definite purpose of beating down all 
 rivals and surpassing all emulation. This is not 
 far-fetched; it has simply been the result of 
 bringing in the Prussian war spirit into every 
 phase of life. German science, of which I can 
 only speak concerning archaeology, German 
 industry, German architecture, have all been re- 
 cast under the dominating desire to attack and 
 to conquer. Think what this means if it is true 
 and something like it must be true that at 
 some time, forty or fifty years ago, the real lead- 
 ers of the Prussian Power should have gathered 
 together in some room and have decided to 
 
 2556 H
 
 98 MODERN GERMAN 
 
 enter on such a definite campaign. German mu- 
 seums, German books,German machine indus- 
 try and factories, the German theatre, and all 
 the rest were to outclass the spontaneous pro- 
 ductions of neighbour States. This being the 
 end in view, all the necessary means were easy 
 to see and to apply. The efforts of other peoples 
 were studied, reported on, absorbed, and their 
 mistakes in many cases rectified. For it has been 
 an essential part of the position that Germany, 
 coming into the field as an attacking party, was 
 able to select and experiment in a way that was 
 impossible for those who, in many cases, had 
 been the pioneers. This conquering spirit cer- 
 tainly carries far; we do not know how far, but 
 it must have its limitations it will, I think, dry 
 up the sources of originality. It seems to me, 
 although there is a certain absurdity in uttering 
 individual opinions on the psychology of a co- 
 lossal Empire, that the Prussian spirit runs to 
 extremes; even organization may perhaps be 
 over-organized, specialization be too special- 
 ized, and thoroughness be too thorough. Ger- 
 many perhaps tends to the unmeasured. Do- 
 mesticity and feeding seem to an outsider to be 
 done without measure education and erudi- 
 tion are perhaps carried beyond due measure, 
 and violence is certainly made violent beyond 
 measure. They seem to have amended the
 
 ARCHITECTURE 99 
 
 Greek doctrineof the mean into 'everything be- 
 yond measure '. In casting about for reasons for 
 this I have sometimes thought that one might 
 be found in the fact that Northern Germany 
 was never brought within the circle of ancient 
 civilization. 
 
 The most striking general characteristics of 
 Germany to my mind are those of great size, of 
 the number of cities which are obviously archi- 
 tectural and centres of learning, and of the dig- 
 nity of the public services like the railways and 
 trams. The size we cannot, of course, emulate, 
 and we hardly perhaps realize the immensity of 
 what by recent developments has practically be- 
 come one Germany from the North Sea to the 
 Adriatic, with a population nearly three times 
 as large as ours. But the dignity of the cities 
 and of the services must be acknowledged and 
 praised. 
 
 I began by making notes of many points to 
 speak on, but I shall limit myself to two. 
 
 The first thing in the arts which we should 
 learn from Germany is how to appreciate Eng- 
 lish originality. Up to about twenty years ago 
 there had been a very remarkable development 
 of English art in all kinds. For five or six years, 
 round about the year 1 900, the German Go- 
 vernment had attached to its Embassy in Lon- 
 don an expert architect, Herr Muthesius, who 
 H 2
 
 ioo MODERN GERMAN 
 
 became the historian (in German)of the English 
 free architecture. All the architects who at that 
 time did any building were investigated, sorted, 
 tabulated, and, I must say, understood. Then, 
 just as our English free building arrived, or at 
 least * very very nearly did', there came a timid 
 reaction and the re-emergence of the catalogued 
 'styles'. It is equally true or even more true that 
 the German advances in industrial design have 
 been founded on the English arts and crafts. 
 They saw the essence of our best essays in furni- 
 ture, glass, textiles, printing, and all the rest, 
 and, laying hold on them, coined them into 
 money, while our Press, caught up into an eddy 
 of devilish bright writing, set about to kill the 
 whole thing. Just as we gave Germany many of 
 the industrial ideas which she has so thoroughly 
 exploited the extracting of aniline dyes, for 
 example ; just as she took up the arts and crafts 
 experiments, which we employed critics to de- 
 stroy at home; so we first seem to have arrived 
 at the thought of an architecture which should 
 develop in its own sphere, and not be for ever 
 casting back to disguise itself in the skins which 
 it had long ago sloughed off or, like the dogof 
 Scripture, eat its dinner twice over. (Even this 
 image, however, is inadequate; the ideal seems 
 to be that the architectural dog should for ever 
 and ever re-swallow the same meal.) German
 
 ARCHITECTURE 101 
 
 architects have seized on this theory of a *real 
 architecture' or they have reached itfor them- 
 selves. Meanwhile we have been caught up in 
 one of our recurring reactions. Architecture is 
 not seen as oneof the forms in which the nation- 
 al energy, intellect, and spirit shall expand, but 
 it is diverted and maimed and caged into formu- 
 las which are not only dead, but never had life. 
 
 The second thing which I wish we would 
 earnestly compete in is PUBLIC WORKS. There 
 are great things in a nation's life which cannot 
 be estimated, and it is quite possible that for a 
 dozen or fifteen years we have been living in the 
 shadow of this terrible war and could do no 
 other than we have done. But in our thought 
 and in our effort as soon as may be we must set 
 about public works everywhere and of every 
 kind. 
 
 I take two instances from the newspapers of 
 this month. We have had our recurring Thames 
 Valley flood, which we get with surprise every 
 eight or ten years. One morning my paper said 
 that the fourteenth-century embankment of 
 Chertsey was being watched with anxiety, and 
 it was likely it would give way. Only a few years 
 ago I went to Eton to see the discomfort of the 
 school in another such flood. To any one who 
 travels it is a marvel how streams are guided and 
 controlled and bridged and we only need the
 
 102 MODERN GERMAN 
 
 'Happy Thought' that this may be, and shall be, 
 the last Thames flood. 
 
 Nowlgiveyou a cuttingfrom a recent paper: 
 'Describing a visit paid by him five years ago 
 to the Berlin Military Technical Academy, Sir 
 George Greenhill said it was a magnificent insti- 
 tution, such as our rulers assured us we could 
 not afford. The whole place, with its laboratories 
 and other opportunities for the pursuit of peace- 
 ful science, was kept as smart and noble as one 
 of our old colleges. There were plenty of out- 
 door artillery ranges close at hand for instruc- 
 tive work. Sixty officers were under instruction 
 there for a course of three years, and their zeal 
 was admirable. It was considered bad form not 
 to give the best in return for the honour and 
 glory of the Fatherland. It was a mournful con- 
 trast to revert to Woolwich, shabby and un- 
 disciplined, with the choice of a cellar under 
 some stables or a kitchen and scullery and bare 
 walls in a deserted hospital there to organize 
 victory at no expense. . . . We must put our 
 trust in the junior ranks to push old Apathy 
 from his stool and carry us through this war. 
 . . . Our military science was under the rule of 
 Thumb the official genius whose fumbling 
 method was considered a match for Disciplined 
 Theory. "Thumb" was hostile to "Theory". 
 He scented a dangerous rival.'
 
 ARCHITECTURE 103 
 
 We must have magnificent institutions. 
 There is not the least reason why we should 
 not. They are paid for by taking money out of 
 one pocket and putting it into the other, and 
 the buildings then add to capital and plant. Ex- 
 penditure of this sort is the only reasonable 
 economy. 
 
 One thing the Germans have done is to or- 
 ganize a branch of orthodox and scientific poli- 
 tical economy to deal with art and industries 
 and the Arts and Crafts movement. We must 
 press the London School of Economics to con- 
 sider this question and all the questions which 
 have to do with quality in production. I have 
 often asked, and am never answered, what are 
 the conditions of public expenditure on fine 
 streets and noble buildings in a city? How far 
 is it desirable to have clean and organized cities, 
 how far shabby and miserable ones? 
 
 I would here like to appeal to our architec- 
 tural papers to consider for a time public works 
 not merely to chronicle them, but to ask for 
 them, preach for them, and get them. The 
 academic improvers of London are too apt to 
 want to begin improving by pulling down some 
 of the finest things we have, like the terrace 
 in front of the National Gallery, or the Nel- 
 son Column. Our students are brought up to 
 vain idealistic schemes of out-Haussmannizing
 
 io 4 MODERN GERMAN 
 
 Haussmann. We have no steady stream of 
 opinion turned on everyday minor improve- 
 ments, like the necessary putting in order ot 
 the underground stations which I travel by. 
 The conception of public art would be such a 
 welcome change to pictures of 'Mr. A.V Golf- 
 cottage or 'Mr. X.V Billiard-room. Our great 
 and noble architecture must be saved from 
 being an adjunct of new-richness and week- 
 ending. 
 
 A tremendous work has to be accomplished 
 in England in improving all our villages and 
 towns and the public services. Get into the 
 habit of seeing things as they are, with the dirt, 
 strewn paper, and orange-peel thrown in; don't 
 acquiesce, don't be content. It is our business 
 to improve the organization of public life as it 
 is the doctor's tp^see to the public health. Go 
 about saying that Charing Cross Station must 
 be put out of the way, and all the other sta- 
 tions improved; advertisements must be kept in 
 order, and the streets made clean. In your own 
 work I would urge you to confidence and to 
 go ahead. Throw away the hesitating carping 
 spirit, venture on liking things; reserve criti- 
 cism in the main for critics, and back up all 
 active efforts. As much as lieth in you work 
 with other men and other groups. Such associa- 
 tion is an enormous gain of power. I see in our
 
 ARCHITECTURE 105 
 
 isolation the root of much of our artistic trouble. 
 We are too apt to feel of another man/ Oh, he's 
 the fool that thinks I am a fool'. 
 
 Now at the end I must try to make a confus- 
 ing distinction. I have found that when modern 
 German effort in city-building is praised, peo- 
 ple ask me, 'But do you like it?' It is a difficult 
 question. Remember how little we really like 
 before asking me if I like the hardness, glare, 
 and brutality of modern Hanover, Strasburg, 
 Magdeburg, or Cologne. They were not built 
 for me to like, they were built for themselves. 
 Besides, do I like modern Paris or London? 
 Well, I don't. I do, however, greatly admire 
 the wonderful efficiency and ambition of the 
 Germans in city organization.
 
 IX 
 
 ARCHITECTURE AND MODERN 
 LIFE 1 
 
 To show that I have not been suddenly dis- 
 turbed by the war, but that I was disturbed long 
 before, 1 am venturing to quote a scrap from a 
 paper I read to the Architectural Association 
 about four years ago. c Perhaps I should first 
 try to justify my title ("Things to be done in 
 Architecture") by giving reasons why anything 
 should be done, but if anybody is satisfied with 
 our towns as they are it would be hard to move 
 them. I see, however, that all the countries of 
 Europe and America are racing for the lead in 
 civilization. Along with commercial strife there 
 is a culture war going forward. This idea has 
 perhaps only been consciously worked out in 
 Germany, but it is obvious that there a consis- 
 tent endeavour has been made during the last 
 thirty or forty years to attain to a coherent type 
 of modern city life. All has been done with fore- 
 thought and system. Everywhere there is city 
 
 1 Informal Conference, Royal Institute of British Archi- 
 tects, 24th January 1917.
 
 ARCHITECTURE 107 
 
 pride and corporate life. Every city seems to 
 have a large piece of pure country suburb where 
 it goes out to picnic.' 
 
 It is this same question of the culture war, 
 city pride, civilization which 1 want to bring be- 
 fore Architects, because I think it is their special 
 cause. I may not succeed in putting my thought 
 and meaning into words, but I want to beg of 
 you to consider my meaning so far as I can get 
 it expressed, and not to set about tearing my 
 words to pieces. It has become a delightful 
 amusement to us to differ in words, and in doing 
 so we often ignore things. We really all agree in 
 very much, but we are so eager for word argu- 
 ments that if our very own opinions are uttered 
 by some one else we are tempted to contradict 
 them, or we raise confusing other questions in 
 philosophy or politics; questions about freedom 
 or tariff reform or education, or the leasehold 
 system or the theory of aesthetics ; but all the 
 time we must agree that our institutions and 
 thoughts being what they are we must, as archi- 
 tects, at least aim at order in our cities and 
 towns. We cannot solve all the bordering ques- 
 tions, but being as we are we do as architects 
 desire to improve the form and means of our 
 civilization. 
 
 We think in words, and we talk of architec- 
 ture and fine designs and art and style and so
 
 io8 ARCHITECTURE 
 
 on, but we do not seem to notice with our eyes 
 how little of these things we get in the real 
 streets of the real towns we know London 
 and Leeds, Manchester and Macclesfield, Bir- 
 mingham and Bristol. It is the real towns as 
 they are that I want to get people to see, really 
 to see with their eyes, not as statistics, or as his- 
 tory, or as town planning on paper, as theory 
 or style, but with their eyes, as they are : the 
 approach, the railway station, the High Street, 
 the food obtainable, the music, the general 
 means of life and civilization, the houses, the 
 shops, the public buildings,even the lamp-posts, 
 and the ugly blotches of the advertisement 
 disease. If we agree in thinking that we should 
 at least aim at bettering all these things, I want 
 to suggest that we need a bigger centre and sub- 
 stance to work from than the personal one ; we 
 need a sense of citizenship, of public order, of 
 national spirit. We need these for ourselves, 
 and the Institute of Architects needs a collec- 
 tive outlook and purpose. It should be more 
 than a large group of people of one calling ; it 
 needs to become the faculty for that part of 
 civilization which is concerned with planning 
 and building. The organized profession of Me- 
 dicine is more than a trade union of doctors, 
 it is the faculty for public health ; Law is more 
 than lawyers ; so also I would have the Insti-
 
 AND MODERN LIFE 109 
 
 tute of Architects consider much more fully 
 than it has done the whole question of modern 
 building in civilization. If bodies of architects 
 could walk down the Strand and along Hoi- 
 born and see what all the architectural fuss 
 during the last sixty years has produced they 
 might wake up to the feeling that something 
 must be done from the public point of view. 
 It is not a matter of the whims, the ability, or 
 the genius of the architect, it is a matter of 
 civilization. A public conception of architecture 
 would, I am sure, if it could be got into our 
 minds, be a steadying influence in design ; but, 
 more than this, the Institute should be a centre 
 where a body of agreed opinion on city build- 
 ings could be brought together. I am clear in 
 the distinction between citybuildings and coun- 
 try buildings ; the latter, as things are now, are 
 much more personal, but in a city public pro- 
 priety must be considered. No architect has any 
 more right to put up an insulting building than 
 to stand on the pavement and 'make faces' 
 at us. We have to struggle continually to keep 
 things even up to their present mark. Thus the 
 West Central squares such pleasant places 
 forty years ago have been allowed to run 
 down and to be invaded by the most blatant 
 vulgarity. So also our few circuses, such as those 
 of Ludgate and Piccadilly, are disgraceful; that
 
 no ARCHITECTURE 
 
 at the junction of Tottenham Court Road and 
 Oxford Street is simply infamous. Our great 
 railway stations must be the worst in the world, 
 the new Tube stations are draughty and untidy 
 gashes in the street's side and now they are 
 running down into accepted dirt and ineptitude. 
 All the streets are netted over and across and 
 zigzag with sagging telegraph and telephone 
 wires hitched on to weak parapets and trigged 
 up to tottering chimneys a shuddering sight 
 when you take to notice these things. Fortu- 
 nately most of us give up taking notice in in- 
 fancy, and we go about communing with our 
 own thoughts on the grandeur of architecture. 
 No one except a wondering foreigner seems 
 ever to have seen horrible Holborn and the 
 silly Strand. We must attain to a sense of reality 
 and see our cities as they actually are, and we 
 must understand that architecture is concerned 
 with buildings in the open air, often in the fog. 
 The other day I went along a street which was 
 bursting with a frenzy of design, but all the 
 fronts had the usual frowning, smoke-grimed 
 holes for windows, until I came to one which 
 suddenly smiled. It had extra noise-preventing 
 casements flush with the wall, and in a raking 
 view one saw the glitter of sky reflections. It 
 reopened a question as to a way of doing things 
 which in my day had been a rad of style, but I
 
 AND MODERN LIFE in 
 
 saw that it must have been invented by Wren, 
 or one of the building masters who saw things 
 with their eyes. That is, when it was first done 
 it was not called * Queen Anne', but it was 
 thought to be reasonable and pleasant. 
 
 Let me ask you to think in bigger units than 
 wehavedone, think in citiesand in civilizations, 
 not in the little kinks of art-houses for stock- 
 brokers' wives, with their garden 'pergolas' and 
 'smoking dens' all properly illustrated in the 
 Press. Don't think of nice drawings or style- 
 names and art talk,but in facts of life and build- 
 ing. For too long the noble art of building has 
 been a sycophant to snobberies which do not 
 lead to the strength of a nation. The art of 
 building is one of the great things in the State, 
 and the body of architects properly make the 
 faculty which has this in charge. I may unduly 
 magnify my calling, but I know nothing greater 
 than the honest old craft of building. 
 
 Our public life has been shamefully let down 
 in the appliances of civilization. Since the com- 
 ing in of the railway flood we have just scraped 
 along as if we felt that there was no abiding 
 city. We have, as it were, stopped a hole with 
 rags and tied up a break with string. Think of 
 the post offices in the back-ends of grocers' 
 shops; the police courts of unutterable squalor; 
 thechurches with their tawdries gas-litin June ;
 
 ii2 ARCHITECTURE 
 
 the leaky private houses with their cracked 
 ceilings, and fireplaces making fog rather than 
 heat. These things are not matters of taste 
 and the aesthetic, they are matters of national 
 strength,efficiency,and pride. Architecture deals 
 with civilization, with the means of life, with 
 towns, and we have to find a way to a richer 
 life; we must have more of the 'plant' neces- 
 sary for living in cities. Even in the excellent 
 town-planning movement I have a fear that it 
 may harden into a 'subject' called 'town plan- 
 ning' rather than be an outburst of town vital- 
 ity. Our towns have to be aroused ; they must 
 provide themselves with proud public build- 
 ings in well-ordered streets ; they need better 
 organized gymnastics with stadiums free of 
 mud ; they need better means of getting food, 
 especially in the open air. It is not the climate 
 that has prevented the existence of cafes in 
 England it may have been the brewing inter- 
 est. We must preserve spaces of clean country 
 near every town; we must have better national 
 music; we must have a sense of something go- 
 ing on, and get out of the ring of stifling stag- 
 nation ; we must set up something of the Greek 
 idea of town worship, a sense of community 
 interest and national spirit. A mere point of 
 view; would that modify in any way our prac- 
 tice? Besides, everybody recognizes the need
 
 AND MODERN LIFE 113 
 
 for order, fitness, and soundness. Do they, in- 
 deed ? Look at our streets as they are; look at 
 the titles of the papers read during the last ten 
 years at the Institute; read a year's leading 
 articles in the architectural Press. I really think 
 that looking on architecture as Primarily the 
 Art of Building Cities might modify our practice, 
 and if a sufficient body of people could be got 
 to care I am sure it would. It might get into our 
 teaching, into scholarship studies and essays, 
 and at last it might work out into the streets. 
 Now at once it might be seen as a reasonable 
 basis for criticism; we should cease to be agi- 
 tated about the drawings, the design, the style, 
 but we should be solicitous about the building. 
 Is it city-like, tidy, economical, well lighted, 
 neighbourly, dignified, and so on? Is this good 
 architecture? few of us would agree. Is this a 
 good building? we should nearly all agree. We 
 judge 'designs' for ideal sites and climates in 
 summer weather, but the architects we know 
 don't practise in heaven, but in places like Lon- 
 don and Sheffield, where buildings have to 
 live through long dark autumns, winters, and 
 springs. We have to judge in the streets on 
 January days,and all my lifetime there has been 
 no judgement in the streets. I would have the 
 'art ' words, like 'proportion', dropped because 
 nobody knows what they mean, and I would
 
 u 4 ARCHITECTURE 
 
 have buildings tested by such generally under- 
 standable ideas as fitness, soundness, economy, 
 efficiency, reasonableness, intelligibility, care- 
 fulness, science, mastery, seriousness, pleasant- 
 ness, urbanity, vitality, boldness, humanity, 
 adequateness, finish, discipline, frankness, di- 
 rectness, durability, clearness, order, homoge- 
 neity. There are two dozen words of the type 
 which I should like to become the stock-in- 
 trade of architectural critics; but it almost 
 amuses me to think beforehand what good fun 
 might be made of this in next week's papers. 
 Sometimes I have a fear that we may die or our 
 sense of humour. Outsiders and amateurs are 
 ready to understand and sympathize if we can 
 give them anything understandable, and I am 
 often surprised by the fresh insight of Univer- 
 sity Extension students who have not been fully 
 broken in to bugaboo architecture. We have 
 had warnings for the last fifty years that style 
 designing was of vital interest to nobody, and 
 that it was one of the elements of unreality 
 which were putting us to sleep as a nation : 
 Ruskin, but he, we say, was cracked on seven 
 lamps; Morris, but he was only an arts-and- 
 crafts man who did not know about the might, 
 majesty,and dominion of the wonderful occult 
 essence called 'Architecture' which is laid on to 
 each of us in a private tap; Mr. March Phil-
 
 AND MODERN LIFE 115 
 
 lipps, but he thinks architecture should have 
 something to do with life, which it clearly has 
 not; Messrs. Archer, Wells, and Glutton Brock, 
 but they are only literary men ; Messrs. Muir- 
 head Bone and Pennell, but they are mere 
 sketchers. Fergusson in his way was continually 
 preaching the doctrine that architects would be 
 * astonished to find how easy it was to do right, 
 and how difficult to do wrong when expressing 
 the truth only'. Robert Kerr, a forgotten critic 
 of ability, used to say practically the same thing, 
 and so did Emmett, a still more serious writer. 
 These all saw interest in keen life and proud 
 work rather than in the marvellous proportions 
 and exquisite styles of Oxford Street and the 
 Strand. But it can't go on forever; some day 
 say, five hundred years hence architects will 
 have to drop this high-priest business and take 
 to common sense, entering into the life of their 
 time for civilization's sake. Daily experience 
 shows that our own hearts are sick of the vain 
 oblations of style incense to Mumbo Jumbo, 
 while our minds leap at the sight of a building, 
 if haply we may find one, direct, tidy, intelligi- 
 ble. Saying this rather inconsequently reminds 
 me of a Punch joke, thirty years old, of a travel- 
 ler in a French shop. 'Avez-vous perfume de 
 Jockey Club ?' ' Yes, sir ; we keep all the Eng- 
 lish smells.' Walk from Bond Street to London 
 
 I 2
 
 n6 ARCHITECTURE 
 
 Docks and you will seeall the English styles,but 
 few healthy buildings confident and smiling. 
 
 What would I do ? I would have the In- 
 stitute find a policy in public work for our 
 towns and concentrate on this question of ar- 
 chitecture in civilization. Further,! would have 
 all the local bodies follow its lead ; and where 
 there are no local bodies, the individual archi- 
 tects, surveyors, builders, and men of goodwill 
 in every town should draw together for the 
 purpose of getting something done in their 
 several towns. The great riddle * Triglyphs or 
 Crockets ?' might be solved by ignoring it and 
 concentrating on structure and the things which 
 matter on which we are agreed. To aim at new- 
 ness of * style ' would be worse than to aim at 
 oldness of 'style'. Begin just as we are,and tak- 
 ing it all for granted let the leading idea of fit 
 and reasonable building for life's sake and the 
 city's sake gradually become the centre of our 
 thoughts and effort ; thus we might turn the 
 corner of style anarchy by concentrating on our 
 agreements. 
 
 The Institute should become a centre of 
 effort for better town life that is its proper 
 business ; and it should enter into relations 
 with political economists, publicists, and poli- 
 ticians, and find out what they think (if any- 
 thing !) about civilization. We should try to
 
 AND MODERN LIFE 117 
 
 get into touch with engineers, and lead them 
 to be practical and scientific, and to give up 
 their love for squalor and wriggles ; to get 
 them to be patriotic, and not so readily let 
 themselves out to further spoil our towns. 
 Engineers might be told that in Switzerland, 
 for instance, engineering is scientific and not 
 a fumbling jumble of muddle, like our rail- 
 ways with their regular system of haphazard. 
 We architects may beat on our own breasts, but 
 we cannot therefore swallow so-called science 
 whole. The science of mere dividend hunting 
 has to give way to a science of service. Pro- 
 perly speaking, of course, architecture and en- 
 gineering are closely related, and if we could 
 persuade the engineers to be scientific they 
 might, in turn, get us to be truly artistic and 
 do our work 'just so'. Thus there might be 
 a reasonable drawing together on the common 
 ground of the desire to build up a fine type 
 of English civilization. The things I have men- 
 tioned may be looked upon as preliminaries to 
 architecture rather than that wonderful and il- 
 lusive thing itself; but that does not matter, 
 for these aesthetic altitudes cannot be brought 
 to a clear statement, and it is desirable for us 
 to avoid conflict on poetic, political, or reli- 
 gious theories, and to concentrate on points 
 where there might be hope of attaining some
 
 n8 ARCHITECTURE 
 
 degree of working agreement for our job. If 
 it is said that such commonplaces as I deal 
 with are obvious and do not call for statement, 
 I answer again, Look at the streets ! How can 
 such agreement as there is, or may be, on mat- 
 ters or importance to our whole national char- 
 acter as a keen and effective people be turned 
 into stone and brick ? that is the question. 
 What can we do the better to bring out our 
 true genius, which I am confident is about the 
 best in the world ? 
 
 Now, at the end I want to set down some 
 definite propositions which sum up what I 
 would say : 
 
 1. It is desirable to bring about some ex- 
 pression of agreement as to facts which would 
 be generally admitted, and which might serve 
 as a basis for our judgement and criticism. 
 Agreement is a necessary preliminary to de- 
 velopment. 
 
 2. Many things on which we are agreed are 
 not made the basis of an understandable criti- 
 cism: such points are fitness for function, sound- 
 ness of structure, economy of means to ends, 
 the need for light, and for easy access for repairs 
 and cleaning, also for efficiency in chimneys, 
 shop-fronts, skylights, windows, roof construc- 
 tion. We have to consider the best treatment 
 of concrete structures, and all the questions
 
 AND MODERN LIFE 119 
 
 of stone jointing and preservation, plastering, 
 lime-washing, &c. 
 
 3. We have to consider our towns and 
 streets as they are in fact : Edgware Road, 
 Oxford Street, Charing Cross Road. Our dis- 
 orderly railway stations must be taken for 
 granted no longer ; we must improve lamp- 
 posts, drain-ventilators, and railings ; all must 
 be made clean, smart, and decent. We must 
 aim at the stricter control of public advertis- 
 ing, at smoke prevention, and at better street 
 cleaning, and help forward all minor improve- 
 ments. 
 
 4. Besides their duty to their several em- 
 ployers, architects must consider the city as a 
 whole, to which each building is a contribution. 
 A modern city should be developing types of 
 building fit for its needs. It may be possible 
 to find in the conception of city order and 
 efficiency a real stimulus to building design 
 which should do something towards lessening 
 the disorderly anarchy of our streets. A suit- 
 able architecture, in a word, is an essential 
 element in civilization. Architecture properly 
 understood is largely civilization itself. We 
 should seek to stimulate the interest of all 
 architects in the towns in which they work, 
 and we might get reports from them on those 
 towns as centres of civilization. It is desirable
 
 120 ARCHITECTURE 
 
 to set up advisory committees on the care and 
 development of all our towns. 
 
 5. We must co-operate more with engineers 
 and try to influence the powers which govern 
 us to promulgate a policy on public art ; we 
 need a statesmanship at the Institute which 
 shall obtain more recognition of our need of 
 the means of civilization, and we must recog- 
 nize on our side that we are ministers of civi- 
 lization rather than purveyors of whims. This 
 Institute should concentrate on a positive con- 
 structive policy, directing its education to the 
 same end of the public welfare: its prize sub- 
 jects, essays, scholarships, might all be made to 
 work in the same direction to the avoidance of 
 much waste. Wemust aim at getting something 
 done: it is a question of anarchy or order, of 
 life, of survival. More and more the idea 
 emerges that every art, science, and craft must 
 be a guild or faculty for that matter acting in 
 the public service. 
 
 6. We should consider whether the rein- 
 statement of some such officer as the Surveyor- 
 General would help us forward. Up to the first 
 quarter of the nineteenth century some sort 
 of effort was made to get the best men to do 
 important public works ; then something hap- 
 pened which I have not quite made out, and 
 the custom was broken. In 1819 the Surveyor-
 
 AND MODERN LIFE 121 
 
 General was not Smirke or Pennethorne or 
 Cockerell, but one Colonel Stephenson. In the 
 latter half of the eighteenth century the Dances 
 were surveyors to the City works and did fine 
 buildings like Newgate and St. Luke's. We 
 need an inquiry as to such offices. If they could 
 be bettered in London it would react on all 
 borough surveyorships in the country. 
 
 I want the Institute to make this question 
 of architecture and public life its chief work 
 until our towns become better places to live 
 in that is, are truly civilized.
 
 EDUCATION OF THE ARCHITECT 1 
 
 SUPPOSING this was to be the last of our con- 
 ferences, I have made some notes on one or 
 two things which have been said, but I shall 
 not attempt any full analysis. Some contradic- 
 tory views may have come out around the 
 fringes of the subjects, but there has been much 
 agreement at the centre. 
 
 I ought perhaps to answer one or two direct 
 questions. I have been asked why I would 
 * concentrate on structural perfection ' and why 
 I do not advance to * some theory by which to 
 express ideas . . . the science of aesthetics, psy- 
 chology, and human nature '. Now, because I 
 don't think there can be any agreement on 
 aesthetics and human nature so that they can 
 be taught by this Institute, it does not follow 
 that those things do not interest me profoundly. 
 Indeed, it is just because I want a true artistic 
 or human-nature content given to our build- 
 ings that I would sweep away the teaching of 
 
 1 Informal Conference, Royal Institute of British Archi- 
 tects, 2nd May 1917.
 
 THE ARCHITECT 123 
 
 grandiose bunkum as architectural style. Al- 
 though good bunkum may be jolly sometimes, 
 1 want a due proportion of tenderness, gravity, 
 sweetness, and even dullness. I want the most 
 exquisite poetic beauty, but I do not see how 
 this Institute is to teach how to produce it. 
 Therefore I say train us to practical power, 
 make us great builders and adventurous ex- 
 perimenters, then each of us can supply his 
 own poetry to taste. In fact, looking at Hoi- 
 born and the Strand as they are, I venture to 
 say it would be a sort of poetry to get rid of 
 sham poetry. One of the most sad wastes of 
 power to which men of goodwill are subject 
 is vain strife about words, especially when pairs 
 of words have been allowed to come into op- 
 position as faith and works, art and science. 
 There is really no opposition between art and 
 science. Show me your art, as St. James might 
 have said, and I will show you your science. 
 Art is the active side of things, science the con- 
 templative. The most of art is science in opera- 
 tion, and a large part of science is reflection 
 upon art. Properly, only science can be taught, 
 for you cannot teach beyond knowledge, and 
 every fresh activity is a sort of creation. This 
 is art the works whereby we show our science. 
 It is our false idea that art is a sort of ghost 
 which frightens us ofFtrue work. It is just this
 
 i2 4 EDUCATION OF 
 
 talk about the styles which leads to Holborn. 
 I know as well as anybody that conception, 
 style, design are essential requirements in all 
 that men do, from guiding the State to laying 
 out a railway or preaching a sermon, but they 
 cannot be supplied by Act of Parliament or by 
 this Institute. While we have been having these 
 meetings another conferencewas held,themem- 
 bers of which were eager to assure Mr. Neville 
 Chamberlain that architects were not to be 
 thought of as hairdressers in the styles but as 
 men of power as practical builders. Individuals, 
 unfortunately, may make their way by claim- 
 ing to be the priests of mystery architecture and 
 talking tall art to Mrs. Jones, but to do so is 
 a grave injury to the whole body, which must 
 stand on reasonable service. It has, in fact, 
 betrayed us to the caricature of Pecksniff. 
 Modern architects have to deal with very com- 
 plex and technical matters, the building on 
 congested sites of great hotels, railway stations, 
 factories, business premises, and the like, and 
 for this it is clear to me there must be highly 
 organized scientific training. What are the main 
 divisions into which different faculties might 
 run ? There seem to me to be about five: (i) 
 the expert constructor and planner, (2) the 
 finisher and furnisher, (3) the expert in old 
 buildings, (4) the man of business, (5) the
 
 THE ARCHITECT 125 
 
 country builder and general practitioner. There 
 is no sharp distinction, but I think most men 
 gravitate to one or other of these classes or to 
 a combination of two or even three of them, 
 and there is room for high attainment in any 
 one. The first and the last should be the main 
 concern of this Institute. Probably the stan- 
 dard for a time should be that of the general 
 practitioner, but ways must be found to stimu- 
 late specialization beyond the minimum course 
 a point "to which I shall return in touching 
 on education. 
 
 There has been remarkable agreement in 
 the view that this Institute should take up 
 questions of public welfare in matters relating 
 to building more definitely and constantly, that 
 it is called upon to enter on a large construc- 
 tive policy, and even to engage in earnest pro- 
 paganda work. In working for the public in- 
 terest this Institute would incidentally find a 
 worthy place for itself, but, unless we awake, 
 the new cottages, national housing, and town 
 improvements will be done in the main with- 
 out us. 
 
 The Institute does not fill its part as a trade 
 union according to modern conceptions. The 
 trades unions have come to occupy a position 
 in the State, functioning publicly, in collective 
 bargaining and making their wills felt in na-
 
 126 EDUCATION OF 
 
 tional life. Whenever and however have we 
 architects been willing or able to make our 
 collective will felt? The administrators of pub- 
 lic affairs seem to look on us as city-clerk sort 
 of people out for hire, and if we are ever called 
 in to advise it is usually as a mere screen so 
 that they may the better exercise their own 
 will under cover of ' experts '.If the experts 
 do not advise just what the organizers want the 
 advice is contemptuously brushed aside. This 
 Institute has to see to it that in matters of 
 public building policy the advice of architects 
 is not only sought but taken. I was told the 
 other day that the architectural bodies in the 
 United States were acquiring almost too much 
 power nothing could be done * without their 
 interference '. Certainly in America there is a 
 growing sense that good building is essential 
 in the great modern State. In regard to this 
 question of public control, I raised the question 
 of the possibility of reviving the Surveyor- 
 Generalship. 1 have been looking into the ori- 
 gin and suppression of that important office. 
 It appears that Inigo Jones took over part of 
 the functions of the old master-masons to the 
 King, who were the surveyors of royal build- 
 ing works from the early Middle Ages. The 
 Surveyor-Generalshipcontinuedtilli 8 13,when 
 James Wyatt, the last architect to hold the
 
 THE ARCHITECT 127 
 
 office, died. He had been appointed in 1796, 
 when he succeeded Chambers. Wyatt was * Sur- 
 veyor-General and Comptroller of His Ma- 
 jesty's Office of Works ' that is, I suppose, 
 the Civil Service chief, and what we now call 
 the Permanent Secretary. On some reconstitu- 
 tion the architect was left out. 1 It seems to me 
 that it would be quite reasonable to aim at 
 putting an architect again in control of the 
 Office of Works. 
 
 Coming to educational policy, the Institute's 
 business is with civilization, town improve- 
 ment, national housing, quality in building, 
 cottage types, the preservation of historical 
 buildings, better public memorials, and a pub- 
 lic policy of betterment all round. At present 
 individual architects are at the mercy of vulgar 
 accidents, such as having a flow of dinner-talk, 
 or being in with a business syndicate, or know- 
 ing a lord. This Institute has to win a place 
 for the ablest building directors considered as 
 essential ministers of civilization, and to see to 
 it that public works are done in a proper way. 
 
 1 A warrant for the appointment of Inigo Jones is in the 
 British Museum (Add. 5755). The last Surveyor-General 
 was Sir B. C. Stephenson, and the office ceased about 1834. 
 After this Mr. H. H. Steward was appointed Surveyor. 
 The Board of Works was constituted in 1851 ; previously 
 H.M. Office.of Woods dealt with Crown properties.
 
 128 EDUCATION OF 
 
 To do this they must enter on a large and con- 
 sistent educational policy. We have been edu- 
 cated long enough as purveyors of whims, 
 ecclesiastical and domestic ; our education must 
 be recast in the public service. 
 
 The Institute should become a centre of 
 stimulating life ; we should try to draw to- 
 gether publicists, thinkers, economists, critics, 
 town and trade union officials, and the masters 
 of the City Guilds, in an effort to get some- 
 thing done in bettering our towns : it is not 
 only our duty to lead, it is o.ur business. All 
 our own powers should be reconsidered from 
 the same point of view of a public policy. Our 
 committees need new instructions, our scholar- 
 ships should be reshaped, and our whole edu- 
 cational requirements need to be penetrated by 
 a spirit of activity. We need an architectural 
 statesmanship in a campaign for civilization. 
 More and more this powerful body is being 
 left isolated as an architects' remuneration so- 
 ciety because it does not come out and teach 
 and do public work. Its proper field of activity 
 is enormous : it is a local society for London, 
 a national society, and a society representing 
 the Commonwealth all in one. 
 
 Education needs more than machinery; it 
 needs enthusiasm. W T e require some literature 
 which should bring the minds of young stu-
 
 THE ARCHITECT 129 
 
 dents into contact with larger ideas than 'shop' 
 and the passing of examinations. We should 
 make Wren a patron saint, for Wren was a 
 great Englishman, and in all he did worked 
 For England. 
 
 We have, in the liberal prize endowments of 
 the Institute and in the original essay which 
 forms a part of the matter examined, valuable 
 means for opening up special interests. And 
 here I would say that the essays seem to me 
 to have been a marked success. A fault is that 
 custom compels us to mark poor ones too 
 highly, but they could be improved to almost 
 any extent by rigorously rejecting those which 
 are only compiled from text-books. Mr. Inno- 
 cent says, in the preface to his book on tradi- 
 tional building construction (the most valu- 
 able piece of such work which has been pub- 
 lished for years), that the line of study was 
 undertaken in connexion with the Institute ex- 
 aminations. Mr. Weir reminded us of some 
 excellent thoughts on education, and Sir T. 
 Jackson's idea of a real school of architecture, 
 where the young craftsman, builder, and archi- 
 tect would work together, seemed to me con- 
 vincing common sense. In the excellent School 
 of Building at Brixton we have, I am glad to 
 suppose, a near approximation to the kind, and 
 
 B5S K.
 
 130 EDUCATION OF 
 
 I was delighted to hear from a speaker at an 
 earlier Conference that the type was to be ex- 
 tended. 
 
 We architects are a part of life. Only three 
 nights ago I dreamed I met an old architect 
 whom I reverence [Philip Webb, in fact]. And 
 I was speaking about this business to him in 
 my dream, and he said, * There is no going 
 beneath the ground plane '. As in dreams we 
 think things are wonderful, I thought, * What 
 an amazing phrase ! That sums up the whole 
 business ; and in the most perfect form it crys- 
 tallizes all architectural wisdom.' I knew he 
 meant you cannot go outside the stream; you 
 are yourself part of the stream; you cannot go 
 outside environment ; you yourself are con- 
 ditioned by it. It is the deadness of our town 
 life which produces the deadness of our archi- 
 tecture : the unutterable deadness which has 
 come over English cities and villages in the last 
 forty years, the stagnation and daily dying of 
 the towns up and down the country. I was sur- 
 prised about three weeks ago at seeing an article 
 by a hardened political economist a man whose 
 name we do not mention here who managed 
 to miss his train on a drizzly day at Oldham, 
 and he had to hang about the station for an 
 hour. And in that hour something happened to
 
 THE ARCHITECT 131 
 
 him. Having nothing else to do, he began to 
 think. And that political economist saw Old- 
 ham, and it came home to him that that was 
 England; that there were dozens and hundreds 
 of these Oldhams all over England, and that all 
 England is becoming more and more like Old- 
 ham. Now, until we can heighten the life of 
 such towns,and getthem to rebuild themselves, 
 and put themselves into order, and clean them- 
 selves, nothing will happen to architects or to 
 anybody else. But in the rebuilding of our 
 towns, if we could set about it, we might find 
 some vitalizing principle in our architecture. If 
 we can begin to live in our towns we shall in- 
 stantly again have live architecture in our 
 midst. I remember myself how beautiful were 
 the towns throughout England fifty years ago. 
 In the little town in which I lived no vulgarity 
 had touched it at that time; it was a thing 
 which had grown; it was a work of art and 
 beauty, a work which Turner would have 
 painted. But now it is wrapped round with rail- 
 ways, and exploited and miserified, and the 
 shops have been turned into emporiums for 
 picture postcards. It is that which conditions 
 our architecture. Until the spring of life bursts 
 out in our towns, what does any architecture 
 matter? Nothing at all until more public work 
 K. 2
 
 132 THE ARCHITECT 
 
 gives us a new tradition. We have, in the mean- 
 time, merely to satisfy the whims of generously 
 minded employers, and until we have a life in- 
 dependent of that hanging-on, no architecture 
 is possible. In fact, one or the most important 
 things in modern architecture is the Art of 
 Dining Out.
 
 XI 
 
 EDUCATION FOR APPRECIATION 
 OR FOR PRODUCTION ? ' 
 
 THE proposition of this little paper is that 
 English education, as traditionally developed 
 and guided from the old Universities, is not 
 directed to production and to action. It is an 
 education in appreciation and in a knowledge of 
 what has been written. It is by its very nature 
 retrospective, and at its best it is introspective 
 the proper introduction to a life of contem- 
 plation. It may be developed to so fine a point 
 of f pure scholarship' and elegant criticism as to 
 become sterilizing and destructive. This type 
 of education has become an English * ceremonial 
 institution '. It was the great class badge and the 
 foundation for the old Civil Service and a Par- 
 liamentary career. At its worst (and that was 
 very bad) it was an education in 'side', 'bluff', 
 and voice production ; its inward unrealized 
 function was to provide a myth of superiority 
 to those who could pay. Since mail went out 
 of fashion it became the defensive armour of a 
 
 1 The Education Conference, South port, loth January 
 1919.
 
 134 EDUCATION: APPRECIATION 
 
 class. At its most acute point it seems to have 
 aimed at inducing ignorance of everything but 
 the writing of sham Latin verse and prose. At 
 its reformed broadest it seems to propose some 
 knowledge of languages, history, mathematics, 
 and * pure' science, with some understanding of 
 what has been said in literature and philosophy. 
 The aim of even Matthew Arnold was* culture', 
 the being able ' to move freely in the realm of 
 ideas'. This is doubtless good enough in its way 
 one way but we cannot all take the veil and 
 retire from the often rough productive work of 
 the world. Such education is very nice and pro- 
 per, and it may be that this type, improved and 
 amended, may be preserved as leading up to one 
 kind of human training the department of ar- 
 chaeological scholarship and historical culture. 
 The appreciation of the highest, which it 
 offers, is of a limited and back-looking kind. 
 Even for this restricted ground, who but the 
 producer really understands production ? Who 
 understands a cathedral the architect or a 
 tourist ? Who is musical, the composer or the 
 concert-goer ? Who is athletic, the player or the 
 crowd? 'And so of other arts,' as Plato would 
 say, who except he who practises them can truly 
 appreciate what they are and mean ? The spec- 
 tator of football and concerts does evidently ap- 
 preciate those arts in someway, but according
 
 OR PRODUCTION ? 135 
 
 to the sliding scale of his technical knowledge 
 and understanding sympathy may readily pass 
 into mere amusement or bemusement. All right 
 appreciation, I feel, must be closely related to 
 the discipline of productiveness, or it cannot 
 long remain a free delight. This free delight is 
 of the nature of intoxication. Still, as I say, I am 
 willing to think that a narrow, academical circle 
 might be a preserve for the pure scholars of past 
 productions, blind to all but books and sterile 
 for their learning's sake. The old distinction 
 between the active and contemplative lives was 
 sound if it is understood that we cannot afford 
 too many contemplators. 
 
 It is a different matter when we turn from 
 such cloistered colleges to the world of labour, 
 adventure,and invention, where most men have 
 to live their lives and give their contribution to 
 society. For this other, and necessarily vastly 
 larger world, a very different type of education 
 is needed than that in which the * humanities' 
 are identified with dreaming and divorced from 
 doing. The control by academical scholars of 
 the vast field of modern education must be 
 loosened, for they start with an avowed doubt 
 of all vocational education except that for their 
 own narrow vocation of letters conceived in an 
 historical spirit. General education has to be 
 re-thought out as the preparation for various
 
 136 EDUCATION: APPRECIATION 
 
 vocations, each of which is as cultural in its 
 own way (more or less, and in some cases much 
 more) as the vocation of scholarship. Education 
 should be an apprenticeship to life and service, 
 and workers will have to educate their would- 
 be instructors to the knowledge that there are 
 diversities of culture by the very nature of 
 things. The universe is far greater than the uni- 
 versity. As a matter of fact, Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge were developed as schools for clergy. 
 They are vocational schools of a very narrow 
 kind. As most men have to do work, our educa- 
 tion has to be re-oriented towards the activelife. 
 Production will carry, unconsciously within it- 
 self, the due proportion of high appreciation, and 
 general culture will none the less be there, be- 
 cause it is attached to many different main stems. 
 No one can do any worthy thing well but that 
 he may thereby become a man, and the true end 
 of culture is to make men. 
 
 The old type of education has gone dan- 
 gerously far to create a distaste for work by 
 its presupposition that culture was alone to be 
 found in books. To counteract this modern 
 disease of thought we shall need some very defi- 
 nite new teaching of a religious kind, which will 
 reverence, and even worship, the great prece- 
 dent necessity of labour. If any man will be a 
 saintjlet him dig or make. We must begin with
 
 OR PRODUCTION ? 137 
 
 the spirit; we have to light up a flame of desire 
 to serve in all ways of human work. We should 
 first of all meet on some ground common to all 
 Englishmen ('Sirs, ye be brethren'), and ele- 
 mentary education should become a folk train- 
 ing which should give all alike a traditional 
 lore a British Bible. 
 
 Beyond this point education and production 
 need to be brought together in new types of 
 apprenticeship. It is absurd to aim at merely 
 abstract and grammatical preparation until the 
 age of twenty or thirty. Even for those who 
 prefer to read books, the scholarship univer- 
 sity should be a research workshop. The voca- 
 tional ideal in education is not only a theory 
 which would apply to a commercial and indus- 
 trial people, but it would rationalize and make 
 human the * humanities ' themselves. If we 
 would seriously set about building up a produc- 
 tive epoch, we must begin by training and tem- 
 pering the national mind, suggesting a strong 
 desire for a noble type of life, which shall not 
 only use the words of civilization, but produce 
 all the works thereof as well. We must con- 
 sciously aim at bringing in a great epoch, a 
 period of culmination which will become his- 
 torical. With such an idea and intensive train- 
 ing, we might in a single generation become 
 quite a friendly, humanized, and civilized peo-
 
 138 PRODUCTION 
 
 pie. We must get it understood that work is 
 not necessarily slavery. Such a view could only 
 have been induced by our great misleaders, 
 philosophers 'and 'political economists', when 
 they took the will to work for granted. Good- 
 ness knows that will is so much a part of the 
 springs of life that it has been hard to chill it, 
 but it has been chilled. We must consciously 
 aim at the production and perfection of every 
 kind of reasonable and noble workmanship, 
 from making bread and boots to houses and 
 cities. Drama, music, architecture, are not the 
 result of chance gusts of inspiration blowing 
 where they will, but they are necessarily pro- 
 duced where a strong tide of life is flowing. 
 
 PS. Since writing this I have seen an arti- 
 cle in theHibbert Journal (Oct. 1918) entitled 'A 
 New Birth for Education ', by Professor Cald- 
 well, writing from Canada, with which I am in 
 enthusiastic agreement. [Later again I have 
 been delighted to find Mr. Wells suggesting the 
 formation of a British Bible.]
 
 XII 
 
 APPRENTICESHIP AND EDUCA- 
 TION 1 
 
 ALL I have to say is an amplification of the 
 idea that all education should be apprenticeship, 
 and all apprenticeship should be education. 
 Education has become, in the thoughts of 
 many, far too much a mere abstract grammar, 
 and far too bookish. This bookish method has 
 invaded even art education. Instead of learning 
 directly how to draw in the simplest and yet 
 surest way, one is supposed to learn first all 
 about drawing in various subdivisions and 
 artificial compartments, as freehand drawing, 
 model drawing, perspective drawing, life draw- 
 ing, and the like. Of course, it may be conveni- 
 ent to divide up a big subject like drawing into 
 firstly, secondly, and thirdly, and the names 
 freehand, model, shaded drawing from the cast 
 and the rest are as serviceable as any others, if it 
 can be only made clear in the student's mind 
 that they are but many words for the one 
 
 1 International Conference on Drawing, South Kensing- 
 ton, 1910,
 
 1 40 APPRENTICESHIP AND 
 
 thing, drawing, and that the end of drawing is 
 to represent an object or to convey an idea, not 
 according to this or any other classification, but 
 in the most effective way possible. Too elabo- 
 rate approaches to a practical subject, a form of 
 gymnastic like drawing, are very wasteful of time 
 and verydestructiveof confidence. It is as if one 
 had to learn all about swimming under hydro- 
 statics and mechanics before entering the water. 
 The great end is production, the great thing 
 is the trade, the craft, and sufficient culture can 
 be hungup to any sufficient trade. The ordinary 
 University course in England is really, and has 
 been developed historically as, a preparation for 
 the vocations of being a landed proprietor or a 
 clerk in orders. Primarily it was an apprentice- 
 ship to the callings depending on letters ; its 
 whole course and degrees are parallel to the 
 years of apprenticeship, and to the taking of 
 the mastership in any of the old callings re- 
 gulated by guilds, but those callings provided 
 also other forms of education. A University, 
 indeed, is a Guild of Letters, and only one of 
 several guilds. Although a certain amount of 
 differentiation is found in University courses 
 for those who are to follow medicine, law, and 
 the like, men who are to practise arts, as pain- 
 ters, sculptors, musicians, builders, are not 
 likely to go through such a course without in-
 
 EDUCATION 141 
 
 jury to their force and productive gifts. What is 
 wanted is a rational recognition of the fact that 
 as life is a many-sided thing, so education must 
 have many forms. When a true form of univer- 
 sal education comes, the principal activities of 
 life will have to be grouped into several divi- 
 sions, faculties, or guilds, and then, I have no 
 doubt, each typical facuky will make rules for 
 proper education and apprenticeship in the 
 given form of life, thus approximating once 
 again to the old guild system. The unit for re- 
 gulating education is properly, it seems to me, 
 the organized art or craft, that is to say, its 
 Guild. All proper education is the opening up 
 of a necessary and beneficent life occupation, 
 and the exercise of such a calling furnishes the 
 sanest and largest education in life itself. 
 
 Drawing is best taught alongwith apprentice- 
 ship to a craft,or otherwise it becomes so gener- 
 alized that it is difficult for the ordinary student 
 to see its application, and it becomes only a 
 * subject'. In thus generalizing it into a gram- 
 mar apart from its application, the most valu- 
 able parts of the teaching of drawing have often 
 been forgotten. These most valuable parts are, I 
 consider, (i) the bringing before the student 
 fine material on which he forms his mind ; (2) 
 the unconscious absorption of facts not only as 
 to the shape of man, but fine ornamental forms,
 
 i 4 2 APPRENTICESHIP AND 
 
 letters, heraldry, symbols, &c. ; (3) the collec- 
 tion of examples for use, so that if one wants a 
 vine, a rose, a ship, or a stag, there is a study of 
 it already laid up for reference. The old masters 
 drew with this object, and that is why their 
 drawings were treasured and handed on. Mo- 
 dern masters, like Alfred Stevens or Burne- 
 Jones, also drew in this way to store up obser- 
 vations, but how late in the day the idea comes 
 to most students that their studies are not (for 
 example) mere * Life drawings ', but observa- 
 tions of attitude and action forming so much 
 valuable stock-in-trade ! These supplementary 
 purposes of learning drawing have been, I 
 think, so much forgotten because drawing has 
 been divided off from the crafts, even from the 
 craft of painting, and I, for my part, think that 
 all advanced drawing should be carried on in 
 association with the learning of a craft, be it 
 carpentry or sculpture ; nothing else makes it 
 sufficiently real and vital : a cabinet-maker or 
 silver-worker, in learning to draw, should accu- 
 mulate quite a museum of examples. 
 
 Many approaches to the apprenticeship ideal 
 are being made, I hope, but with the statistical 
 details I do not propose to attempt to deal, and 
 I confine myself only to the idea. The great ob- 
 ject of specific education seems to me the acqui- 
 sition of a worthy craft by which to live. There
 
 EDUCATION 143 
 
 is quite enough which belongs to, or can be 
 properly associated with, all such callings to 
 open out a way to raise up diverse forms of cul- 
 ture ; the rest is converse and commerce with 
 nature, men, and books. Much of the book 
 education of the present time is an elaborate 
 apology for our ignorance of all but print.
 
 XIII 
 THE NEED FOR BEAUTY 1 
 
 What is Ar^ and what is Beauty, that com- 
 munities should bother about them at all ? 
 
 Art is many-sided and manifold : it is not 
 only a question of high genius; that is only the 
 crest of a great wave rising from gifted peoples, 
 and without the flood of common art you can- 
 not have the crest of genius. This common art, 
 which is the thing of importance (as the other 
 will form itself out of it), is concerned with all 
 the routine things of life laying the breakfast 
 table and cleaning the door-steps of our houses, 
 tidying up our railway stations, and lighting the 
 High Streets of our towns. 
 
 Too much writing about art, over-splashed 
 with purple and dazzling with paradox, seems 
 to have entirely confused ordinary people. 
 When you have divided up this common prin- 
 ciple or Life in Work into Fine Art, Decora- 
 tive Art, Architectural Art, Art at the Mayfair 
 Galleries and * the Art of Mr. Smith ', the next 
 
 1 For the Civic Arts Society, 2 8th February 1916.
 
 THE NEED FOR BEAUTY 145 
 
 step is to forget the whole business, as being too 
 technical, or rather to turn it over to specialists, 
 who say they know all about it. 
 
 In much the same way, Beauty has been 
 ground to dust in contradictory theories of Aes- 
 thetics. Indeed, some books on this simplest, 
 sweetest thing, Beauty, must make the animals 
 glad that they have not learnt to read. Beauty, 
 like breathing, is solved by doing it, not by 
 this everlasting argument. Might I venture, 
 as an illustration, to say that St. James must 
 have found a similar difficulty with over-sys- 
 tematic discussions about Faith. * What I mean 
 by Faith' he seems to say in a famous passage 
 'is is everything.' That, too, is what I mean 
 by Art everything that was ever rightly done 
 or made. By Art we live and move and have 
 our being. If we have not Art, we shall just per- 
 ish for ever! Art is cleanliness, tidiness, order, 
 gaiety, serenity, mastery, the right way of do- 
 ing right things. The civic arts are the arts of 
 civilization. The arts of civilization are civiliza- 
 tion itself. 
 
 Even if Art enters into all things made and 
 done, I should not worry you about it if it were 
 only a matter of shapes and colours and skill, 
 but it is much more than all these. JSeauty is a 
 necessary function of fitness ; Beauty is the smile 
 of Health, and it is one of the few great things
 
 146 THE NEED FOR BEAUTY 
 
 which sustain the spirit of communities. In the 
 days before us, we shall need to make use of all 
 the sources of power we can draw on Histori- 
 cal Continuity, Pride of Race, National Spirit, 
 Love of Home, and Civic Patriotism. The civic 
 arts mean pride and strength, more life and 
 more to love. That country must be greatest 
 which has the most to love. Without refresh- 
 ment of spirit the people must become brittle, 
 wither and fail. Beauty is the * substance* of 
 things done, as faith is the substance of things 
 hoped for. 
 
 We have heaps of Teachers, Philosophers, 
 Politicians, and Economists, but none that I 
 hear of seems to understand that no nation can 
 last without Beauty.
 
 XIV 
 
 WHAT SHALL WE CALL 
 BEAUTIFUL ? ' 
 
 A PRACTICAL VIEW OF AESTHETICS. 2 
 A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. BLAKE. 
 
 ALL the questions about sight and delight are 
 extremely difficult. It is a trite truth that we 
 have never really seen a thing, a tree, for in- 
 stance, but only partial aspects of many trees. 
 Even these partial aspects are conditioned by 
 
 1 Hibbert Journal, April 1918. 
 
 8 We may best get a general statement on aesthetics from 
 the excellent article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. In its 
 original Greek form it means what has to do with sense 
 perception as a source of knowledge. Its limitation to that 
 part of our sense perceptions which we know as the con- 
 templative enjoyment of beauty is due to A. G. Baumgarten. 
 ... By pure contemplation is to be understood that manner 
 of regarding objects of sense perception, and more particu- 
 larly sights and sounds, which is entirely motived by the 
 pleasure of the act itself. . . . Aesthetic pleasure is pure 
 enjoyment. . . . Aesthetic enjoyment is clearly marked off 
 from practical life. ... It seeks one or more regulative 
 principles which may help us to distinguish a real from an 
 apparent aesthetic value, and to set the higher and more per- 
 fect illustrations of beauty above the lower and less perfect. 
 L 2
 
 148 WHAT SHALL WE 
 
 our relations in time and space. They are im- 
 ages which arise between the object, tree, and 
 you, the observer. If, for instance, the seasons 
 were hurried up and became a thousand times 
 quicker, we should see our tree bud, spread out 
 its leaves, and fade in an afternoon it would 
 gush out like a fountain intogreen and begone. 
 It is changing all the time now,but we do not see 
 it. Again, if it were magnified several thousand 
 times, its solidity would dissolve into a vague 
 fog form. Its colour, green, is partly in the 
 leaves, partly in the light, but mostly in our 
 eyes. What, apart from our ways of apprehend- 
 ing it, can a tree be, the thing in itself? All we 
 know of it is struck out by the contact of a 
 * thing ' and our senses. 'Tree' is not objective 
 or subjective. 
 
 Turning from such 'material* and 'tangible' 
 objects to our generalized ideas on the aspects 
 which possess the qualities that we call Beauty, 
 we find that the phenomena are conditioned by 
 a great number of still more complex and con- 
 fusing factors. They involve many questions in 
 regard to what we see, what we think we see, 
 when we see, and who does the seeing. Doubt- 
 less the executioner thought of his fine new 
 rack, 'That is a beauty'; but what did the execu- 
 tee think ? 
 
 Beauty, we may at least say, is not objective
 
 CALL BEAUTIFUL? 149 
 
 or subjective : it arises in our contemplation of 
 exciting objects. Mr. Clive Bell says that what 
 is common to beautiful works of art is * signifi- 
 cant form', but does not sufficiently explain of 
 what the forms are to be significant. Miss Jane 
 Harrison would amend it to emotional, but it is 
 not clear as to who is to feel theemotion orwhat 
 kind it should be. In London at this minute, 
 who is the instructed and competent observer 
 whom we will trust to tell us about the emo- 
 tional significance of form ? 
 
 The best corrective I know to such opinions 
 is Mr. A. J. Balfour's 'Criticism of Beauty', al- 
 though it seems to me a little disappointing 
 in stopping short of expressing positive views. 
 He makes it clear, however, that what pleases 
 one age and one stageof culture does not neces- 
 sarily please another, and that at this time there 
 is no agreement between competent observers. 
 Was there ever, indeed, so great anarchy ? Mr. 
 Balfour a while plays with the subject, and 
 leaves it in the air: he demonstrates that noth- 
 ing can be proved of beauty ; yet nevertheless 
 it moves. Having shown that there is no agree- 
 ment as to what people think beautiful, a philo- 
 sopher might at least have made his own at- 
 tempt to put a valuable content into the word. 
 Not so did Plato conduct his argument in his 
 Criticism of Justice,' and exactly the same treat-
 
 150 WHAT SHALL WE 
 
 ment might be applied to every valuable word 
 in the dictionary if the philosopher cared. What 
 is Justice ? What is Liberty ? What is Truth ? 
 What is Honour ? Honour at least is a notion 
 which is good for Boy Scouts. I foresee a time 
 when we shall have towriteeverysecondwordin 
 Quotes'. At theend, however, Mr. Balfour finely 
 says that our admiration should be even as our 
 loves, which I suppose implies that we should ad- 
 mire the highest when we see it. Yet he objects 
 that in much of Ruskin's work Aesthetics, theo- 
 logy, and morals are inextricably intertwined', 
 and then admits for himself * some mystical re- 
 ference to first and final causes'. Why, then, was 
 Ruskin wrong in considering the question as 
 a complete man rather than as one who merely 
 wanted his nerves art-tickled ? 
 
 The aesthetic problem iswrongly set out. To 
 the question, * What gives man aesthetic de- 
 light ? ' there is no general answer. The ques- 
 tion must be, * What should give him aesthetic 
 delight here and now ? ' To which the prompt 
 answer is,* That which it is good for him and for 
 the society in which he lives to think beautiful.' 
 Thatwhich it is good for people to thinkjustice 
 is Justice. It is as silly and dangerous to set up a 
 theory of enjoyment in artwithout inquiry as to 
 where itwill lead, as to set up a science of thede- 
 lights of drugsand drams. Platosawall that. In-
 
 CALL BEAUTIFUL? 151 
 
 deed, thisaestheticof art as enjoyment is as thin 
 as a theory of manners apart from conduct it 
 is mere superficial etiquette. With its concern 
 with * taste', it is no better than a cookery book. 
 Aesthetic delight in drinks, even in food, is 
 dangerously subject to disease ; and unrelated 
 aesthetic delight in art leads straight to the 
 plague and destruction. A nervous, irritated, 
 city-dwelling generation is especially, of course, 
 subject to such aesthetic diseases. Most of our 
 artists are trained in abstract 'Art,' without any 
 ballasting teaching as to what it is all about. 
 They pass through the forcing-houses of com- 
 petitive schools and exhibitions, and are mad- 
 dened by ignorant writers who have to provide 
 penny lines in the halfpenny press. Our men 
 have splendid ability and earnestness, but soci- 
 ety, after having trained them for a time, re- 
 fuses to employ them in any rational way and 
 leaves them to live by their wits. Is there any 
 wonder that art, thus acquired and practised, 
 sometimes turns sour and makes the artist see 
 emerald green ? 
 
 There is in fact a brown-bread and dewy- 
 morning ideal of beauty, and a late champagne- 
 supper ideal. Who could say which was the 
 right one were it not for Necessity's c Y\>u 
 must ' ? We have to love the health ideal, or 
 cease to exist. Necessity is not only the Mother
 
 152 WHAT SHALL WE 
 
 of Invention, but of all the other children too. 
 At least it is certain that some of the common 
 people must be persuaded that plain food and 
 normal health are beautiful, or we could not 
 carry on ; and it is really a mistake of the late- 
 supper gentry to say so much about their rap- 
 tures. Necessity forces on us the view that 
 Beauty is the expression of health. There was 
 a Greek proverb quoted by Plato with strong 
 approval thus : * That is, and ever will be, the 
 best of sayings, that the useful is the noble and the 
 hurtful is the base* 
 
 We so readily assume that our customs of 
 looking through crowded collections of oil- 
 paintings in paltry gilt frames once a year, and 
 of listening to concert-hall music being * per- 
 formed' once a month, are in the very nature of 
 thecosmic order, that it may be hard to imagine 
 . extensions of aesthetic rapture beyond the orbit 
 j of our experience. However, may I put the case 
 for what I will call a Smell Concert ? You are to 
 imagine a large domical hall, with circling plush 
 seats and the 'play of lights',palms,and all that; 
 then scent fountains gush forth and incense 
 from swaying censers, first thin and fine, then 
 full gales of oriental spicery . . . and so on ; fill 
 out the brilliant occasion from the daily press. 
 Would not this be aesthetic ? Why should we 
 recoil from it astrivialand enervating,as luxury
 
 CALL BEAUTIFUL? 153 
 
 without life,if theaestheticaccountof art-thrills 
 is valid and right ? 
 
 The whole theory of Fine Art and aesthetic 
 delights apart from purposes and ends had as 
 distinct an historical birth-time as the modern 
 doctrine pf the Will to Power. Aristotle, the 
 first of those who knew in physics, was affected 
 in the arts by the current thought of the Hel- 
 lenistic decadence which, in a slow, lovely de- 
 cline, had been going on for a century. The art 
 history of his time had been precisely the emer- 
 gence of a free and luxurious art practised for 
 delight : yet, notwithstanding, it is a marvel 
 how justly and sternly the great master thought 
 on the matter ; his one mistake seems to have 
 been to consider free delight in the arts at all. 
 It left just enough room for the flies to settle 
 on. Plato refused to allow any such nonsense. 
 
 It is one of Mr. Balfour's ideas that theessen- 
 tials of art can best be studied in music, as there 
 it can most readily be * isolated from utility' 
 this is the old desire of watertighting pheno- 
 mena ; the wish to study the life of the fish out 
 of the water. First, the experts split off { art ' 
 from work and utility, and then they split off 
 * fine art ' from commoner stuff, and then they 
 are ready for aesthetics, by isolating their emo- 
 tions of delight. Even the first step, the isola-
 
 154 WHAT SHALL WE 
 
 tion from work of an element called art, is fatal 
 to both work and art it isisolating life from the 
 body. It is, I believe, flatly opposed to reason 
 and right that the art which can be most com- 
 pletely isolated from service this is said to be 
 music can best be questioned for the constant 
 characteristics of art. Just the reverse is true : 
 first examine facts where art is inseparable from 
 service ; there you will find plain data for a just 
 theory in obscurer regions. But is music essen- 
 tially a free art, any more than the rest ? What 
 assumptions philosophers will swallow ! Music 
 was developed, as a matter of fact, as an emo- 
 tional stimulus to practical ends: asworkstimu- 
 lus, war stimulus, religious stimulus, and na- 
 tional stimulus. Is not this * utility' ? The obvi- 
 ous fact is that the springs of music are with 
 life, work, and purpose, and this * isolating ' of 
 it into a ' fine art ' has dried the sources up. I 
 was glad later to find that here I had been in 
 agreement with the view expressed by A. Delia 
 Seta in his important Re/igion and Art (1914). 
 Don't the connoisseurs really know that all the 
 music we can hear now is an echo and that Pan 
 is sleeping ? Bring back music to noble use ; it 
 will quickly revive and we shall have a national 
 art once more. 'Virtue is the strong stem of hu- 
 man nature, and music is the blossoming of 
 virtue' (Confucius).
 
 CALL BEAUTIFUL? 155 
 
 As with the man who inquired whether he 
 had yet attained wisdom, so with anxiety about 
 enjoying beauty, the answer must ever be, 'It 
 might have been, if you had not thought about 
 it.' Beauty has to come by the way. 
 
 Fine art has been differentiated from what 
 I shall call work-art, less because of its status 
 than because Aristotle, writing at the time when 
 such ideas were being worked out towards their 
 doom, thought that certain acts were free of 
 utility. Architecture was not a * fine art' because 
 it was too much conditioned by needs. Croce, 
 however, is disposed, I think rightly, to deny 
 the old-fashioned distinction altogether. 
 
 Fine art equals free art ; but even so it is 
 only as free as language, it is not free to be 
 nonsensical or to spread disease. This freer art 
 (I cannot admit free) is best conceived, indeed, 
 as another form of language, and we might 
 almost say that fine art equals speech art. From 
 the beginning (whenever that was) men prac- 
 tiseddifferentmeans of communication. Speech, 
 writing, acting, dancing, music, painting, sculp- 
 ture are all means of telling, informing, preach- 
 ing. Music will say some valuable things which 
 common talking will not. It is not an artificial 
 thing, it was from the beginning. Then, again, 
 writing and painting are closely related, and it 
 is not usually realized that painting is the older
 
 i 5 6 \VHAT SHALL WE 
 
 art. Writing was shorthand painting, and the 
 letters were * pictographs '. 
 
 Drawing, painting, and sculpture will say 
 many things much more powerfully and accu- 
 rately than all the talking; they are a necessary 
 means of communication, and were so from the 
 earliest times. Like the other languages of words 
 and music, they may in all sorts of ways say 
 all sorts of things. They may be immature but 
 have true strength and nobility, or they may be 
 dazzlingly clever yet silly and weakening, just 
 like a printed book. A well-painted picture or 
 a clever piece of music may form a centre of 
 health or a culture of disease. How shall we 
 know? For one thing, we must base our judge- 
 ment on wider ground than our individual 
 likings and amusement; all must be judged 
 as for the community. Artists, like everybody 
 else, live by common service; they are cooked 
 for and clothed, and laundresses do their wash- 
 ing. They, too, must be persuaded to work for 
 the common good in return. 
 
 Art is many things service, record, and sti- 
 mulus: it is not only a question of genius; with- 
 out the basis of common art you cannot have 
 the apex of genius. This common art, which 
 is the thing of importance as freer arts will 
 be formed out of it is concerned with all the 
 ordinary things of life.
 
 CALL BEAUTIFUL? 157 
 
 Modern writers try to separate the emotional 
 aspects from the bases which are their necessary 
 support, but in its history th.e word Art has 
 meant Workmanship. The outward expression 
 of work-art cannot be separated from a resi- 
 duum of merely brute labour without beating 
 down labour to slavery and giving over free 
 art to speedy disease and dissolution. Writers 
 on aesthetics have not sufficiently recognized 
 that Art is service before it is delight ; it is labour 
 as well as emotion ; it is substance as well as ex- 
 pression. What they say is here and there true 
 enough in its way, but it is a way that leads to 
 destruction ; it is concerned with appearances 
 rather than conduct. For philosophers seriously 
 to discuss the pure lyricism of Art can only help 
 to turn it towards hysteria. Beauty is the flower- 
 ing of labour and service. There are things so 
 beautiful, indeed, that you must always pre- 
 tend you don't see them, and notice them out 
 of the corner of your eye, as you see a linnet on 
 a nest. 
 
 Modern aesthetic thinkers saving for some 
 sectional inquiries fall into much the same 
 fallacy as do the economists of supposing that 
 * we are the people '. Is it not at once obvious 
 that a doctrine of beauty common to Esquimaux 
 and Hottentots, Greeks, Mediaevals, and our- 
 selves, cannot be * formulated ' ? What they
 
 158 WHAT SHALL WE 
 
 really have in mind, for the most part, is a 
 theory suitable for modern picture exhibitions 
 and the music of the Queen's Hall. In the main 
 it is aesthetics for dealers a philosophy for 
 Piccadilly and Regent Street. 
 
 The Italian thinker, Benedetto Croce, has 
 perhaps made the most mark of recent writers 
 on aesthetics in his series of works dealing with 
 the * Philosophy of the Spirit '. He conceives of 
 the Spirit acting through three or four vital 
 activities, by the Will, by Logic and Science, 
 and by Aesthetic Appreciation. In these the 
 Spirit moves by intuition, Beauty being 'pure 
 lyricism '. 
 
 This view has been adopted by Mr. Glutton- 
 Brock in The Ultimate Be/tef(i<)i6\ a very in- 
 teresting little book. Here we are told of right, 
 truth, and beauty that : 
 
 ' These three desires and these alone are desires of the 
 Spirit ; and they differ from all our other desires in that 
 they are to be pursued for their own sake' (p. 20). 
 
 ' Unless I value truth for its own sake, I cannot discover 
 truth. Unless I value beauty for its own sake, I cannot 
 see or hear or in any way experience beauty ' (p. 27). 
 
 'We exercise an aesthetic judgement about all things 
 which we know to be different from our moral or intel- 
 lectual judgements ' (p. 65). 
 
 ' Aesthetic value is distinct in itself from practical value ' 
 (P. 69). 
 
 This seems so nearly a return to the German
 
 CALL BEAUTIFUL? 159 
 
 doctrine of Art for Art's sake as to make me 
 very doubtful, or rather to make me sure in 
 opposition to the statement ; yet the author's 
 intentions are obviously most trustworthy, and 
 it is important that something very like the doc- 
 trine should be got into the minds of the people. 
 Truly the activities of the Spirit must flow out 
 in goodness, in the search for truth and the ap- 
 prehension of beauty. As a result of system- 
 making, however, Mr. Clutton-Brock seems to 
 me to be led into over-statement. For example: 
 
 ' The aesthetic value can be clearly distinguished from 
 the value of utility. We have an extreme aesthetic value for 
 some things, such as music, which have no utility, nor have 
 they any moral or intellectual value ' (p. 69). 
 
 This is as arguable as anything else, but the 
 theory will in practice be found a robe which will 
 cover curiously free forms of Art, and will be 
 taken to sanction even ' Blastism '. 
 
 Did Mr. Clutton-Brock not feel doubts when 
 Croce cleared the ground of Plato, Ruskin, and 
 Tolstoy ? The idea that our faculties should be 
 developed in the good, the true, and the beauti- 
 ful is, of course, as sound as old ; but the activ- 
 ity towards Beauty should rather be conceived 
 as directed to service, production, creation, than 
 to aesthetic enjoyment or contemplation. The 
 view is too static * possessive rather than cre- 
 ative '. Then, the doctrine of free activity is, I
 
 160 WHAT SHALL WE 
 
 believe, bad for Art itself, whose strength is in 
 service : * free activity ' is a * heady wine ', as 
 Lord Roberts said of * the Will to Power '. 
 Approaching the subject on my lines, I seem to 
 see our dear mistake of watertighting ; and I 
 do not even feel sure that the three categories 
 must be exhaustive. The scheme is a little like 
 the old question, * Animal, vegetable, or miner- 
 al ? ' Are not the desires towards activity and 
 creative energy and the regulative impulses 
 manifestations of Spirit ? The three are either 
 too few or too many. Or it should be added 
 these three are one. Croce, indeed, seems to in- 
 cline to allow a fourth division, the economic. 
 Mr. Clutton-Brock, I should say, gives all I 
 want if he would allow one of his phrases to be 
 extended all round : speaking of knowledge, he 
 says, ' without it the moral activity loses its 
 sense of direction '. I want to add of the aesthe- 
 tic activity that, without like supervision, it 
 loses its sense of direction. It is the direction 
 that counts in the long run. No one has ever 
 proved that any form of aesthetic activity has 
 more right to a free existence than the enjoy- 
 ment of: snuff-taking, or gaming, which are also 
 modes of aesthetic enjoyment. 
 
 The search for knowledge is no more a * free 
 activity ' than delight in beauty ; the subject 
 matter of science, as Tolstoy said, being infi-
 
 CALL BEAUTIFUL? 161 
 
 nite, the searcher must select. Science has se- 
 lected poison gas. All 'facts' are not truths; there 
 is a scale of values. 
 
 Recently, new material on the origins of Art 
 has been brought to light or rather, new light 
 has beenbrought toold material incaves occu- 
 pied by prehistoric peoples, the rock roofs of 
 which are covered by forceful paintings, tens 
 of thousands of years old, of animals of the 
 chase. The general view is that they were 
 painted for magical purposes rather than for 
 enjoyment. Then Capart, in an excellent study 
 of the earliest Egyptian Art, showed that even 
 patterns had quite a different origin from * the 
 futile pleasure in decoration'. Again, Delia Seta, """ 
 in considering Art as it developed historically, 
 comes to the conclusion that there was little or 
 no * free activity ' about it : rather was it reli- 
 gious, magical, and utilitarian, as Stone-Age 
 men conceived utility : 
 
 ' Art profane in origin, born to satisfy the aesthetic taste 
 which seeks for expression rather than for the utility of its / 
 products, even if this be a spiritual utility, is inconceivable, 
 and has never existed.' 
 
 Of music he says : 
 
 ' No branch of art has so detached itself from its utili- 
 tarian character.' 
 
 To one, however, who holds that all sound 
 
 2505 M
 
 1 62 WHAT SHALL WE 
 
 work is Art, it is manifestly impossible to ac- 
 cept Delia Seta's identification of Art with re- 
 ligion : that is, with religion as ordinarily con- 
 ceived ; I, as may be evident, hold that good 
 work is a prime factor in right religion. His 
 treatise, however, is an excellent account of 
 Art as it has existed in fact. A still more rigor- 
 ous examination of the origins of some phases 
 of Art has lately been published by Professor 
 Ridgeway (The Drama, &c., 1916). Mankind 
 sought to win the favour of the dead by offer- 
 ings and dances, and * tragedy arose out of these 
 dramatic dances '. Writers, instead of seeking 
 for the origin of the drama by the historical 
 method, have approached ' from the a priori 
 standpoint of pure aesthetics. . . . The study 
 of art is almost invariably based on a priori 
 assumptions '. 
 
 It may now be held as proved that Art was 
 everywhere developed for what were supposed 
 to be utilitarian purposes. Yet Croce and most 
 of the writers on aesthetics assume that the ap- 
 preciation of art is mainly a matter of a special 
 intuitive * feeling '. All that should be admitted 
 is the possibility, under conditions, of some 
 little aesthetic feeling. Our judgement acts so 
 quickly in summing up a complex subject mat- 
 ter, that it may seem an intuition, but it is a 
 very extended intuition. This * feeling ' for Art
 
 CALL BEAUTIFUL? 163 
 
 is, so to say, the Art-conscience, and has to be 
 instructed by reason and experience. Beauty can 
 only be thought of as an * aesthetic ' whole for 
 purposes of philosophy'! Practically and truly, 
 it is something quite different. Beauty is not 
 the thing in itself, but the idea of beauty arises 
 in us; * us ' being infinitely varying individuals. 
 The modern feeling for beauty in Art, as it ex- 
 ists in any given case, is likely to include per- 
 ception and estimates of: 
 
 (i) Service value, worth, desirability. (2^Fit- 
 ness for purpose. (3) Skill of the maker. (4) 
 Economy of means to ends, concentration, in- 
 tensity. (5) Completeness, order, unity, magni- 
 tude. (6) Insight into essential character. (7) 
 Freshness, health, life, growth, movement. (8) 
 Sympathy with the mind of the maker, ap- 
 proval, wonder. (9) Religious and patriotic 
 values, as liking our own people and landscape. 
 (10) Personal associations, ownership, &c.(i i) 
 Reputation the same work, when proved to 
 be by Michael Angelo, seems better than when 
 it was thought to be by Vasari. (12) Relation 
 to historical development very important: an 
 excellent f modern Gothic ' church is worthless. 
 (13) Scarcity and other accidents, the fashion 
 of the moment, strangeness, &c. (14) Then 
 there are factors like pleasure in form relations 
 and colour, a sense of rhythm and f lyricism '. 
 
 M 2
 
 164 WHAT SHALL WE 
 
 I have been told by visitors to Japan that the 
 people seem to possess a rhythmical sense lost 
 by Western people; they even walk rhythmi- 
 cally. I suppose, however, that this is a natural 
 expression of race health. Again, there seems 
 to be a natural delight in imitation and the 
 awaking of recollection. (15) Further, there are 
 other ideas of luxury, sex-attraction, and all 
 sorts of borderlands, intoxications, diseases, and 
 perversions. There is also, doubtless, some 
 sediment of the ancient feeling of the magic 
 of Art. 
 
 Through such a labyrinth the modern man 
 has to see his way in arriving at his aesthetic 
 judgements. Our appreciation of any work of 
 Art can hardly be anything else than the sum 
 of stimulus to us resulting from such factors 
 as these, which come to us as understanding, 
 contentment, approval, wonder. Beauty may be 
 sought as an absolute, but it is always found 
 as the resultant of a group of relations. Our 
 sense of beauty is the overflow of delight from 
 that which we think lovable. In free aesthetics 
 the delight may either be healthy or harmful. 
 We have to see to it that what we decide to 
 call beauty is health-giving. What I elect to 
 call beautiful is my reading in work of evidence 
 that the people producing it were healthy all 
 round and noble. I have not proved my case,
 
 CALL BEAUTIFUL? 165 
 
 of course ; what case is ever proved ? But I 
 have suggested that it is not necessary to be- 
 lieve the aesthetic writers at least, I have 
 shown that I do not believe much of them my- 
 self. 
 
 Aesthetic * institutions ' are not in any case 
 the frank desires of a child ; they are the rapid 
 judgements of an experienced man. As in a 
 conversation our instant answer leaps out from 
 the very sum of. ourselves, our temperament, 
 knowledge, and convictions ; so in the argu- 
 ment before any work of Art our responses 
 spring from no special aesthetic faculty, but 
 from all our loves and loathings. -The current 
 theories of aesthetics have been elaborated and 
 re-elaborated, cycle on epicycle, for the most 
 part by word-philosophers. I don't suppose that 
 Herr Baumgarten had any special knowledge 
 of the laws of craftsmanship ; his theories were 
 doubtless argued down from the pure idea. We 
 have perhaps not sufficiently recognized how 
 much of German thinking is frankly of the na- 
 ture of a scholastic thesis. 
 
 Ruskin speaks of the Cental expression' of 
 Art, and this is much the best thing to look for. 
 Art is a language not a grimace. 
 
 Morris,' again, says of Ruskin: 
 
 ' Ethical and political considerations have never been ab- 
 sent from his criticism of art ; and in my opinion it is just
 
 1 66 WHAT SHALL WE 
 
 this part of iiis work which has had the most enduring and 
 beneficent effect. . . . Ruskin has let a flood of daylight into 
 the cloud of sham technical twaddle which was once the 
 whole substance of art criticism.' 
 
 Morris wrote this towards the end of his life; 
 in one of his earliest utterances he said that the 
 purpose of Art, as of other rational activities, 
 was to make men wiser and better. 
 
 Again, this passage from Mr. Stephen Rey- 
 nolds's A Poor Man 's House is worth a shelf of 
 philosophic books on aesthetics: 
 
 ' I am inclined to think that the taste of the poor, the 
 uneducated, is on the right lines, though undeveloped, whilst 
 the taste of the educated consists of beautifully developed 
 wrongness, an exquisite secession from reality. . . . Degen- 
 erates love narcotics : their meats must be strange : they are 
 afraid of the greatest things of life the commonplace. Much 
 culture has debilitated them. Rank life would kill them 
 or save them.' 
 
 It would be well for our own thinking if we 
 returned to the older meaning given to * aes- 
 thetic '. 1 find by accident in H. Morley's 
 English Writers that the British schoolman Eri- 
 gena made use, a thousand years ago, of the 
 word aesthesis in the sense of perception, a femi- 
 nine quality complementary to nous. In any case 
 we need firm definitions of all these slippery 
 words. Anything will do to think with if it is 
 only made firm. * Art ', it seems to me, is right 
 activity andwork, especially complete and noble
 
 CALL BEAUTIFUL? 167 
 
 workmanship. Beauty in Art is the evidence of 
 high humanity in work. Appreciation of Beauty 
 should be one with our judgement of essential 
 quality; there should be an instant recognition 
 of what is noble and what is base. The sense 
 of Beauty is the work-conscience. 
 
 1 1 may be granted that colours, sounds, scents, 
 and even touch, will induce states of conscious- 
 ness approximating to hypnosis and intoxica- 
 tion. If this field is specially marked off for 
 aesthetics, well and good or rather, well and 
 bad; but the limitations should be very clearly 
 stated, and it must be recognized that such 
 forms of emotion are subject to diseases which 
 are very dangerously infectious. Again, it should 
 be foreseen that if the laws governing the pro- 
 duction of free beauty could be discovered and 
 written in a book, the possibility of its further 
 existence in any high degree would thereby be 
 abolished. No one could care for beauty pro- 
 duced by formulas. True revealing expression 
 must always be unconscious. That which be- 
 comes known passes into the realm of science. 
 
 Whenever the tide turns towards a better 
 and saner form of civilization, the preoccupa- 
 tion of philosophers with the narrow, vague, 
 and betraying theories of aesthetics, as gene- 
 rally conceived, will make way for a philosophy 
 of right labour. Education for enjoyment will
 
 168 WHAT IS BEAUTIFUL? 
 
 be superseded by education for fine forms of 
 production. Right doing and living will neces- 
 sarily flow into noble types and beautiful forms. 
 Here, too, those who work the will shall know 
 the doctrine.
 
 XV 
 
 EXHIBITIONISM AT THE ROYAL 
 ACADEMY AND HIGHER CRITI- 
 CISM OF ART 1 
 
 IT used to be explained that the ' Higher 
 Criticism ' made no claim to the exaltation of 
 status, but that it occupied other ground than 
 the ordinary variety in trying to see particular 
 facts in their wider relations. Such criticism, 
 however it might be called, is required for all 
 our modern institutions and professionalisms. 
 It may hardly be realized by students of cur- 
 rent thought, policies, and tendencies, how the 
 annual show of pictures at the Royal Academy 
 is arranged and catalogued matter for an esti- 
 mate of the quality of modern existence. Those 
 pictures,with the foreground of moving groups 
 of * sightseers ', make a perfect cinematographic 
 exhibition of well-to-do people and their de- 
 sires. The paintings themselves by the econo- 
 mic ' higgling of the market ', assisted by the 
 skilled intervention of jurors and dealers, and 
 
 1 H'tbbcrt Journal, June 1920.
 
 170 EXHIBITIONISM 
 
 the outflow of press comment, represent exactly 
 what English culture expects of * Art' in this 
 year of grace this special year following the 
 war. There are here in fact many exhibitions 
 the waiting motors in the court, the great suite 
 of galleries, the crowds flocking through the 
 turnstiles to see the biggest picture-match of 
 the year. The paintings themselves furnish an 
 absolutely perfect exhibition of exhibitionism. 
 There is much here to suggest thought, for if 
 deep does not call to deep, shallow reflecting 
 shallow might evoke another kind of profun- 
 dity. Just this is what English artists, trained, 
 too, for the most part at the cost of the State, 
 have to supply to satisfy the national longing 
 for art. Observers and students require mate- 
 rial, statistics, and tabulated facts to work on. 
 Here are all these excellently arranged and in- 
 dexed. What does it all mean from the national, 
 human, and if I may use the word in my way 
 from the religious point of view ? 
 
 People have been put ofF by the propaganda 
 that art is a high mystery not to be understood 
 by the uninitiated. Why then do artists perform 
 in public ? There are, of course, more technical 
 and traditional approaches to art valuation, but 
 from the human point of view all that is re- 
 quired is a clear shining mind to hold the mirror 
 up to fact. We need a study of the psychology
 
 AND CRITICISM 171 
 
 of pictures which shall recognize that in them 
 we have minds invitingly laid open before us. 
 Painting is a language for mind and spirit com- 
 munication ; well, then what does it say ? These 
 pictures make up indeed a composite photo- 
 graph of the British mind and heart in 1920 
 reverence, pity, love, fashion, commercialism, 
 low comedy and harlequinade must be here in 
 their due proportion, although I must confess I 
 have thought that the latter categories are even 
 over-represented. The great picture-shows are 
 only one class of specimens of our ruling insti- 
 tutions at this time, and a study of each of them 
 should be put on record. In to-day's paper I 
 read, * Miss Lena Ashwell, speaking at Cam- 
 bridge on Saturday, said that the artistic genius 
 which ought to have been stirred by the war had 
 no chance of rinding expression because the en- 
 tertainment of the people was in the hands of 
 commercials. William Shakespeare would not 
 have a dog's chance to-day.' 
 
 We are often told that art is imagination, and 
 it may be admitted that imagination is one im- 
 portant factor. What imaginations have we at 
 the Royal Academy ? There is, in fact, hardly 
 a design for a monumental, symbolizing, sum- 
 marizing picture in the whole show. It is not 
 that we have ceased to think in that way and 
 cannot produce these imaginations, but it is a
 
 172 EXHIBITIONISM 
 
 quite astonishing fact that such serious monu- 
 mental designs of a national character have 
 gravitated to Punch, where we accept them un- 
 der the name of cartoons. The only serious de- 
 signs that 1 have seen during and since the war 
 which dared to touch the note of nobility have 
 been in the comic press. Here the artist may 
 still speak without the exhibition standard in 
 his mind or the fear of dealers in his heart. 
 Here we may still find the eye language of 
 serious imaginations. In great epochs of civil- 
 ization many of these comic-paper cartoons 
 would have been thought worthy to be put into 
 public frescoes and mosaics for speech with the 
 people : now that paintings may only be seen 
 behind barriers by paying gate-money, there is 
 * no demand for that sort of thing '. It is diffi- 
 cult to maintain an ideal in a deal 1 ' 
 
 We are also told that art requires an object 
 seen through a temperament, and that it is the 
 temperament that matters. Quite true in away, 
 so it is, and cannot be helped ; in any case we 
 are all * temperaments '. We may take it for 
 granted or go on to question the temperaments 
 and spirits what they be of. Should a painting 
 temperament be balanced and central or, if not 
 always that, should it be eccentric in noble or 
 ignoble ways ? 
 
 Arguments have raged on the question how
 
 AND CRITICISM 173 
 
 far * subject' is of importance in painting, and 
 an uncomfortable feeling has been raised that 
 to care for Subject' or to have an objection to 
 vulgarity is vulgar. That is, it is suggested that 
 it is dull and bourgeois to care for touching and 
 teaching subject matters, but that the reverse 
 and the perverse do not count as such. There is 
 here a dim reflection of a half-truth by accident. 
 A gin bottle might, once in a way, be painted 
 more nobly than a lily ; and always it is not so 
 much what the subject is called that matters as 
 the way it is * seen '. It is a question of good- 
 will, health, and sanity ; indeed, more and more 
 we shall have to fight to maintain sanity. I find 
 a passage in a book by Michaelis, the late great 
 scholar of Greek art, which I must quote as it 
 shows how similar arguments on art for art's 
 sake had been 'made up' and pressed in Ger- 
 many. 
 
 4 The work of art has a language of its own, which it is 
 our task to understand and to explain. There is not only a 
 written but a pictorial tradition, each of which follows its 
 own laws. But it does not appear right to me though these 
 may be unwelcome reflections to appreciate in a work of 
 art only the form, in a picture the colour, and to declare the 
 content more or less indifferent. Least of all can this be 
 the case in regard to ancient art. The painter Nikias ob- 
 served that the subject formed a part of painting. Ancient 
 art knows as little as ancient life of an absolute mastery of 
 form. The Athenians only considered the person perfect 
 who combined beauty with an inner efficiency, and ancient
 
 174 EXHIBITIONISM 
 
 art is not different. It may be conceded that Lysippos said 
 the last word in perfecting Greek art, yet Phidias ranks 
 above him, as his content is richer and higher, and his form 
 equals his content. The form is only the robe which the 
 content creates for itself. Content and form are inseparably 
 one. It is only their relation to one another which determines 
 the value of a work of art.' 
 
 Much well-intentioned talk about art is con- 
 fusing because art is so many-sided, and while 
 the speaker is thinking of a the listener hears in 
 relation to b. Art is not only high imagination 
 and invention, it is also skilled workmanship 
 and patient record. It is * design', but it is also 
 imitation. All art is labour as well as thought. 
 All doing indeed includes some saying, but some 
 forms of art, like building, do more and say less ; 
 while other forms, as painting, while doing less 
 should say far more. Their doing is for the say- 
 ing's sake. Painting, indeed, is another form of 
 language thought addressed to the eye in- 
 stead of to the ear. In all forms of art the spirit 
 triumphs over mere brute toil. Art is best con- 
 ceived as beneficent labour which blesses both 
 him who gives and him who receives. Beauty 
 is its evidence Beauty is virtue in being. 
 
 The purpose of this little paper is to ask for 
 interest in, and general understanding of, the 
 functions of art by all who are interested in 
 thought, and life, and civilization. 1 wish to 
 suggest that the art of picture-painting must
 
 AND CRITICISM 175 
 
 be studied from the human and communal 
 points of view and not be left to breed in and 
 in to the point of insanity. 
 
 One of the reasons for latter-day extreme doc- 
 trines and practice in painting is to be found in 
 an attempt to find a ground not occupied by 
 the photographic camera. Having made ma- 
 chines to draw, and paint, and sing, and act 
 drama, we do not know what to do with our- 
 selves. Art philosophies are very largely condi- 
 tioned by economics; 'Cubism' andEnd-of-the- 
 worldism are almost mechanically simple reac- 
 tions from mechanism. If good art is a form of 
 pleasant human speech, great art is teaching and 
 worship. All art is the wisdom of men's hands. 
 We cannot for long love triangles, zigzags, and 
 jazzeries. Beauty is that which when seen we 
 should love. I saw the other day that the elder 
 Mr. Yeats had said that beauty is that which 
 suggests affection I quote from memory, but 
 it seemed a critical saying which may hardly be 
 bettered. 
 
 Of the current exhibition at the Royal Aca- 
 demy of Arts 1 will only venture to say that 
 the four record pictures of the Peace Confer- 
 ences seem to me to be far and away the most 
 real and worth while. They at least have a 
 reason for being, and they are wonderfully skil-
 
 176 EXHIBITIONISM 
 
 ful. Then in order of reality come the portraits, 
 and these too fill a want that seems to be felt. 
 But if I may say just what I think in a world 
 where that is hardly permitted the portraits 
 as a whole, however clever they may be, seem 
 to lack humanity. Many of them are like im- 
 personations of success, competence, pride, 
 force, riches, commercialism masks rather 
 than faces. Only one of those I saw seemed to 
 be just a human creature: here there was ten- 
 derness, reflection, shyness the mystery of a 
 man; my heart leaped within me to see a soul. 
 And this reminds me that English people as 
 such have hardly been painted since Holbein; 
 they have been painted as titles, or as property, 
 or fox-hunting, or clothes and fashion. Rey- 
 nolds was an exquisite painter of perukes, pow- 
 der, and perfume; in his time, however, the 
 position of a painter as another kind of valet 
 was well understood. After the portraits come 
 some decorative pieces, about half a dozen of 
 which might be gay and delightful in a great 
 financial dining-room or a restaurant. The next 
 series in order of sincerity appeared to be the 
 studies of * interiors '; we are all interested in 
 pleasant rooms and fine old furniture and tea- 
 things. It is not exactly great-minded; but it 
 is charming, so let us be thankful. As for the 
 landscapes, there are several small portraits of
 
 AND CRITICISM 177 
 
 places which are excellent and evidently done 
 for love and interest. Of more grand-manner 
 landscape I do not remember any which had the 
 moving quality, except perhaps one of Venice by 
 a survivor from the last generation who holds 
 something of Turner and Samuel Palmer by 
 apostolic succession rather than by wilful re- 
 vivalism. There seems indeed to be a notice- 
 able failure in 'the will to ' paint poetic land- 
 scape. It may be that men are unconsciously 
 getting frightened by a feeling that un trampled 
 country only remains in the narrow cracks be- 
 tween the railways and factories. To paint a 
 landscape now requires so much * leaving out ' 
 that hearts may well fail. As Morris said of one 
 of Fred Walker's Idylls ', < But 'tisn't like that '. 
 Up to now, indeed, our composed landscapes 
 have been canvas screens put up between us and 
 our desecration of England. 
 
 Of course there are dozens of nice little pic- 
 tures of slight incidents and pretty corners, 
 very well done. As a whole, indeed, the artists 
 are competent and sometimes amazingly skil- 
 ful. It has been said recently that painters have 
 lost the traditions of their art, but I have not 
 found it explained whether this refers to the 
 types of pictures produced or to sound methods 
 in workmanship. In the knowledge of pigments 
 and how to mix and lay them so that pictures
 
 178 EXHIBITIONISM 
 
 will last, there has probably been a most serious 
 loss of workman-like tradition. ('You might 
 make an artist, but a workman never!' said 
 Stevenson.) On the other hand, it must, in fair- 
 ness, be said that the traditions which well- 
 equipped modern painters still have are only 
 acquired by earnest work for a dozen years. 
 The loss of purpose and the general anarchy 
 are largely the result of exhibitionism itself, 
 by which our artificial standard takes the place 
 of common realities. Still our painters and 
 craftsmen of every kind would do true and 
 impressive work if they could get out of the 
 limelight of the Press and find other ways of 
 employment than that of amusing the financial 
 world. The great fact of the whole business is 
 that we are witnessing the maturing of the 
 Capitalistic school of painting. If the Royal 
 Academy, as a powerful and wealthy corpora- 
 tion enjoying the hospitality of the nation in 
 regard to its premises, had had guild rules, it 
 might have been different, but possibly only in 
 a small degree. The Royal Academy regime, as 
 it is, has led to the sad identification of * art ' 
 with painting, especially the oil variety, and 
 further, with the sort of oil painting which is 
 likely to sell at an annual bazaar and bring in 
 gate-money. It is an old, and in many ways a 
 generous body, but there is some danger of
 
 AND CRITICISM 179 
 
 confusion between its functions as a semi-public 
 institution and as a private corporation. While I 
 am finishing this, 1 read: * Purchase of Paintings. 
 The President and Council of the RoyalAca- 
 demy have purchased thefollowing works under 
 the terms of the Chantrey Bequest : Feeding the 
 Fowls, oil painting by , R. A. ; Epsom 
 
 Downs, oil painting by - , A.R.A.' As 
 
 far as may be judged from the titles, these do 
 not appear to be pictures of an epic character 
 and of national importance. The selection, how- 
 ever, is manifestly impartial as between the two 
 classes of members of the institution. 
 
 Painting is properly a craft and. should be or- 
 ganized as a trade-guild having relations with 
 house-painting, the parent art. Then the drain- 
 age of all c art ' to London should be intercepted 
 and diverted to many centres of civilization. 
 Above all, public bodies should spend less in 
 educating artists and more in obtaining sound 
 work of all kinds in their several towns. It seems 
 a silly sacrifice, this education for what is not re- 
 quired, or required only as oil paintings in gilt 
 frames to hang on the walls of the smoking- and 
 billiard-rooms of the * moneyed classes '. They 
 who pay for paintings certainly call the pictorial 
 tunes. c How can it be otherwise ? ' may be 
 asked : but why should art students be brought 
 
 N 2
 
 180 EXHIBITIONISM 
 
 up at the public expense for such a fate ? An- 
 other way must be found at one end or the 
 other. I said to a serious old student the other 
 day that if the faculty for art was a * gift ', then 
 its mission must be to give and not to show off. 
 f Yes ', he replied, * but no one wants our 
 giving.' 
 
 Artists wish to give ; they want to be allowed 
 to work. A few * fine arts', so called, are the last 
 refuges left in a world which has destroyed rea- 
 sonable employments. Artists have the proud 
 distinction of making things, and doing some- 
 thing with their hands. Many, indeed most, of 
 the rebellions in art and the resorts to shock tac- 
 tics are theresult of disillusion. Theexhibitional 
 way is too severe a task ; a few only can fight 
 their way through with expert swordsmanship 
 to journalistic recognition and high prices. The 
 heart of art must wither under such condi- 
 tions. Art should be peaceable, modest, helpful, 
 health-giving. * All great art is praise ' ; yes ! 
 and forgive the word for the meaning the 
 greatest pictures are preached. Was any ser- 
 mon, indeed, of the whole nineteenth century 
 so prophetic as Madox Brown's Work y with the 
 philosophers and politicians of 1860 riding by 
 on the other side tor an outing ? As it is, what 
 has been accomplished save the stuffing of sale- 
 rooms ? Hardly anything has been done for a
 
 AND CRITICISM 181 
 
 serious purpose since the Death of Nelson was 
 painted at the Houses of Parliament. A private 
 person may hardly be sure of getting a compe- 
 tent portrait painted without going to one of 
 half a dozen fashionables and paying an un- 
 known sum. We must begin again at the other 
 end and commission young painters to do their 
 best for ten or. twenty pounds. That is on a 
 small scale, and as drawings tinted or otherwise, 
 rather than as show pieces in oil paint. The fact 
 is, exhibitionist portraits do not make house 
 portraits, ' nor gallery pictures room pictures, 
 nor popular successes food for human joy. In 
 truth there is an artificial standard all along 'the 
 line '.Too many pictures are merely professional 
 products. Picture-making maybe strictly analo- 
 gous to the better-understood * book-making ' 
 exercise. The right way to get art is to pick a 
 man and trust him to do something for you 
 personally, if necessary mentioning a sum of 
 money * what can you do for me in painting 
 up this room for fifty pounds ? ' That is the way 
 our national arts might be improved. Visit local 
 Art Schools and draw out the spirit of locality. 
 Every town should have its pleasantnesses (if 
 any) and its antiquities (if not torn down) re- 
 corded, and its public buildings adorned in 
 some civilizing way. The men are able and 
 waiting, it is the tradition of employment which
 
 182 EXHIBITIONISM 
 
 has broken down. We must bring back simplic- 
 ity and confidence. The setting up of an aristo- 
 cracy, an aesthetic house of lords, has not an- 
 swered in the democracy of art. Was it this 
 Blake had in mind when he said something to 
 the effect that all are equal in the heaven of art ? 
 It is a great national question the cause of art 
 is the cause of civilization ; but this exhibition- 
 ism is one of many symptoms of * the sickness 
 of acquisitive society '.
 
 XVI 
 RUSKIN : DEFEAT AND VICTORY ' 
 
 AN American journal recently printed an ap- 
 preciative centenary article entitled 'The De- 
 feat of Ruskin'. He, so it was said, had hoped 
 that the truth would make the people free ; 
 they, however, did not wish to receive truth and 
 freedom, and so his long strife ended in defeat. 
 But the end cannot be said to have come. Per- 
 haps, after all, so great is the coiled complexity 
 of human things, there may be no full and final 
 defeat nor yet victory. As time passes seeming 
 opposites intermix and weave the web of reality. 
 On many fields, indeed, Ruskinhas already van- 
 quished his conquerors as the mind of Greece 
 subjugated Rome. 
 
 A prophet, however much he may appear to 
 be in opposition to his age, yet in a peculiar way 
 represents that particular time. He is the anti- 
 dote, the balance, the complement, and his is 
 the voice which awakes all those who are ready 
 to be like minded. If he is wholly successful, 
 
 1 For the Arts and Crafts Society : April 1919.
 
 184 RUSK1N: 
 
 and his teaching is absorbed, it may afterwards 
 hardly be understood how any one might ever 
 have believed otherwise. The flashing inspira- 
 tion becomes a commonplace. It is the prophet's 
 aim to be thus abolished in absorption ; to be 
 lost by diffusion. 
 
 Ruskin having been defeated while he lived 
 has perhaps his greatest reward in being forgot- 
 ten. His was not a business for showy recogni- 
 tion, but his thought saturates this generation 
 through and through. 
 
 Arguments are endless, and criticism is vain 
 unless it is convincing ; as it is mostly practised 
 it is merely recording how little men do not 
 agree with big ones. The critic really is criticiz- 
 ing himself as those who judge are thereby 
 judged. Thewriter of this little note would wish 
 that someword might chance toexplain Ruskin 
 to any who think him difficult to understand. 
 Like all men he was a compound. He was wist- 
 ful and elf-like, just what we imagine of the 
 Celtic temper ; an artist and wit ; something of 
 an egoist driven by his loneliness, and yet the 
 servant of all ; a severe controversialist torn by 
 compassion and compunction a mixture of 
 fury and tenderness. He was of like passions 
 with ourselves, but as hesaid of Elijah, 'Yes, but 
 he had them better under control', and ever his 
 thoughts and efforts were set on building a
 
 DEFEAT AND VICTORY 185 
 
 reasonable society, a house for wisdom to dwell 
 in. In all, his wit must be taken into considera- 
 tion. When some one tried to convict him of in- 
 consistency his reply was: 'No one should ever 
 believe me until I have contradicted myself 
 three times '! When another complained of his 
 irony he replied that its only sting was in its 
 truth. 
 
 Instead of turning over one of a score of vol- 
 umes to find points to comment on I will quickly 
 put down what I find in my mind as the general 
 impression of his teaching : 
 
 1 . Art is not a luxury, it is an essential ele- 
 ment in all right work. 'Industry without art is 
 brutality ; life without industry is guilt.' True 
 work is the highest mode of life. 
 
 2. Science is not properly an endless heaping 
 up of * facts ', regardless of form and direction ; 
 choice is involved ; it should be wisdom and 
 service. 
 
 3. Economics called political need not be iden- 
 tified with a theory of bank balances regardless 
 of who holds the cheque books, and what the 
 cheques are drawn for. A reasonable system of 
 economics would be a doctrine of wise produc- 
 tion and beneficent distribution. * There is no 
 wealth but life.' The * orthodox 'economists 
 who had forgotten life, who never heard of
 
 1 86 RUSKIN: 
 
 quality in workmanship, and neglected even to 
 foresee war, nearly burst themselves with rage 
 at such simple utterances. 
 
 4. Education need not necessarily be con- 
 ceived as an introduction to the competitive 
 scramble, it might be a tempering of the human 
 spirit. 
 
 5. An artist, poet, or musician is not properly 
 an acrobat engaged in showing off, his proper 
 office is to teach and inspire. 
 
 6. The land is not a mine for exploitation and 
 a dumping heap for refuse, but it is our garden 
 home. 
 
 7. Property must observe propriety. 
 
 8. Quality of life is the end of all rational ac- 
 tivity. 
 
 It was a thousand pities that Ruskin wrote 
 some petulant words about Whistler's exquisite 
 'Nocturne', but if we approach this unfortunate 
 matter from the side of Ruskin's * principles ' 
 and * doctrine', we may get to understand even 
 that ; it was like Morris's disregard of the mag- 
 nificence of St. Paul's, and Tolstoy's doubt as to 
 what he would have to do if his grandmother 
 were being attacked. It was the logic of a posi- 
 tion. 
 
 Once I had the delight of hearing the master 
 it was at one of the * Storm Cloud ' series.
 
 DEFEAT AND VICTORY 187 
 
 Here, in a lecture as it was given, more than 
 half asides, he explained how he had studied 
 sunsets and cloud formation, * bottling records 
 as my father bottled wine'. One observation he 
 told us of was of a cloud effect seen at Coniston. 
 In crystal clear air a pure white cloud had a 
 patch of iridescence f like like why like a 
 handful of jewels thrown on a snow bank.' ' 
 
 1 In the late exhibition of his drawings I recognized one 
 as being of this phenomenon.
 
 XVII 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY OR PRO- 
 DUCTIVE ECONOMY. 1 
 
 MY little paper has not written itself with 
 the tone I like, but this, I hope, is only the result 
 of compression. When I promised to write a 
 note on the Arts and Crafts and Political Eco- 
 nomy, I hardly sufficiently felt the rashness of 
 using the words * Political Economy ' without 
 being an expert in the 'orthodox' writings. In 
 fact, when one thinks of it, it is bold for the 
 ordinary person to use nearly any words or to 
 have any opinions on any subject whatever. As 
 things go on, they become more complex and 
 can only be dealt with by specialization, so that 
 no place is left for the average man of goodwill. 
 It seems that the chaos of warring philosophies 
 should be settled as a preliminary, then the in- 
 quirer would find other c subjects ' like Ethics 
 and Psychology, which properly should be dealt 
 with before he came to the hundred volumes 
 on Economics all dismal. Even then he must 
 
 1 Arts and Crafts Society, November 23, 1915.
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY 189 
 
 not teach till he had taken a certificate in peda- 
 gogy. If, as a matter of fact, a mere man ven- 
 tures to touch on any subject whatever without 
 some such preparation, he is at the mercy of the 
 trained assassin's polished weapons of debate. 
 Fancy venturinga word on theology to an Arch- 
 bishop! It is like that to speak of Political Eco- 
 nomy with the humblest of its professors. Itmay 
 not be done: he turns with hurt surprise and 
 then says drily (as Tolstoy noticed) 'Ah, but 
 have you read Schwartzberg?' The priests of 
 Economicsseem to seek to shield their doctrines 
 with a theory of inspiration. Everything de- 
 pends on it, the priest of Economics will tellyou, 
 but unless you are initiated you can't under- 
 stand ; * you must ' (and here the fanatic blazes 
 out) * receive it as written, it is political econo- 
 my and settled' ! But this is only their way with 
 the outer world: amongst themselves, their 
 science, so called, is rent through and through 
 and across like a torn-up letter, and their quar- 
 rels are so bitter that they have (happy paradox) 
 to take the plain man into their confidence to 
 arbitrate between them. I am now arbitrating. 
 For the purpose of this paper, I thought I 
 should best obtain a neutral statement as to what 
 it was all about, and what it proposed to do, in 
 the new Encyclopaedia Britannica y and here, as a 
 matter of fact, I found that doubt, disillusion,
 
 1 90 POLITICAL ECONOMY OR 
 
 and disintegration had gone farther than I had 
 any suspicion of. The article is half apology, half 
 an alarm. There are only three or four positive 
 statements in the whole thing, and these are 
 qualified in effect to this Political Economy 
 concerns itself with wealth (if any one could say 
 what should be considered wealth): a sound sys- 
 tem would be of great value in international re- 
 lations (if such a system could be found) : a 
 statistical method of inquiry is probably the 
 best (if one could know what to inquire about 
 and could get hold of all the factors of the pro- 
 blem, which in itself is almost impossible). After 
 more hedging and some mystification, the most 
 positive statement in this scientific article is 
 reached, and that is a piece of commonplace 
 rhetoric: - 
 
 1 At present, ethics has more to learn from economics 
 than the latter has from ethics.' 
 
 Then come the outpourings of confidence, of 
 which I copy a sentence or two : 
 
 (1) ' The economists of the classical period, with the one 
 exception of Adam Smith, will be forgotten, and the Wealth 
 of Nationt itself has long ceased to be a scientific text-book. 
 The old political economy is not likely (in the future) to 
 be a question of any interest.' 
 
 (2) ' In fact, there never was a scientific system at all ; 
 what was mistaken for it was fashioned by men whose in- 
 terests were practical rather than scientific, who could not
 
 PRODUCTIVE ECONOMY 191 
 
 write English and revealed in reasoning the usual fallacies. 
 ... So the old political economy lies shattered.' 
 
 (3) 'There is (at present) economic agnosticism, com- 
 bined with unwillingness to cut adrift from old moorings.' 
 
 This is all rather astonishing from the expert 
 of the Encyclopaedia. In aiming his bolts at the 
 heads of other economists and leading up to his 
 conclusion, which is * see, Chamberlain, Joseph', 
 he seems to have forgotten that non-professors 
 will read the mixture of assertion and avowal 
 which gives the whole 'science' away. 
 
 There is little, hardly a word, about building 
 up a strong and healthy state, nothing of beauti- 
 ful and learned cities, nothing of sound work 
 and fair art, nothing of a noble and confident 
 national spirit : little beyond text-book exposi- 
 tion and despair. The writer does not even say 
 whether that which ethics is to take from eco- 
 nomics is the celebrated axiom that men's ac- 
 tions are founded in self-interest. 
 
 The truth is, as anybody who just knows the 
 lie of the land will see at once, there are an infi- 
 nite series of possible political economies. The 
 system of Judea was one, the system of Athens 
 was another, and that of Sparta a third. In our 
 own day, the Germans, I believe, sweep aside 
 English political'economy as mere { Manchester- 
 dom'. There can be no one scheme of economics 
 which shall apply to peoples in varying stages
 
 192 POLITICAL ECONOMY OR 
 
 of development. What we require is a scheme 
 of national economy which shall be ideal or ser- 
 viceable to us. 
 
 Our problem like that of Judea, of Athens, 
 of Sparta, is to dare to think a theory of the 
 State, then to educate a national spirit which 
 shall sustain it, and further to draw our eco- 
 nomics and sciences into helpful and harmonious 
 relations with it. We have to bring all our arts, 
 sciences, and philosophies to the service of life 
 in the State, for without such a centre they run 
 to waste in the infinite sands. 
 
 This political economy 'was never broad- 
 based on general considerations of national wel- 
 fare : it has always been the apologetic of com- 
 mercial expansion and, in its attempt to make 
 itself look like a science, it has taken up the posi- 
 tion of analysing what comes of verbal defini- 
 tions rather than of pointing to an ideal. In the 
 language of the moment, it is a * cross-section ', 
 not a stream, it is static not moving. On its own 
 ground and at play with its own definitions, its 
 reasoning may sometimes have been fairly cor- 
 rect in form, but the ground was not that of the 
 real world, and as a science it may be compared 
 to pre-Copernican astronomy it had no centre 
 to its system. We seek in vain in it for guidance 
 in regard to such serious questions as national 
 vitality, intelligence, and spirit. There is no
 
 PRODUCTIVE ECONOMY 193 
 
 sufficient discrimination as to what are desirable 
 employments, and it does not make plain that 
 the quality of the people can only be kept up by 
 the practice of highly skilled industries. There 
 is too much about bulk, too little about quality. 
 There is no appreciation of the meaning of Art, 
 and generally no teaching on the needs for good 
 life in our towns, which may be hideous and 
 wretched for all'the political economist seems to 
 care. He does not sufficiently point out that the 
 energy of a nation should be given rather to 
 production than to dealing. It is not merely a 
 question of profit, but too much dealing seems 
 to kill production and high intelligence. 
 
 Like our other philosophers, the economists 
 have wanted to find out some isolated * truth ', 
 some new philosopher's stone. They have not 
 seen political theory as part of the problem of 
 action. They never, for instance, thought of 
 such questions as What would happen if, 
 under machine rule, men forgot the crafts of 
 their hands ? If most of the art interest of the 
 country for fifty years is directed by dealers to 
 antiques, what will happen to productive art ? 
 Does it pay best for towns to be fair or foul ? 
 Suppose millions are put into { art' education, and 
 nobody will have any art when it is educated, of 
 what good is the education ? What are the rela- 
 tive advantages of a production for quality as 
 
 2685 O
 
 194 POLITICAL ECONOMY OR 
 
 against quantity production ? Is it desirable, all 
 things considered, including our relations with 
 India, that the use of true Indigo dyes should 
 be abandoned ? Compare the vague abstractions 
 of any of our economical writers with the mas- 
 terly memorandum of Hakluy t (in 1582): 
 
 ' touching natural vent of our commodities and the labour 
 of our poor people withall and of the general enriching of 
 the realm . . . and to bring in the excellence of the art of 
 Dyeing ... to endeavour the sale of such of our cloths as be 
 coloured with our own natural colours rather than with 
 foreign colours. But with this proviso always, that our cloth 
 goes out with as much labour of our people as may be : for 
 it would, be madness to vent our wool not in cloth. . . . 
 Also, not to carry out any cloth white, but dyed, if it may 
 be, that the subjects of this realm may take as much benefit 
 as possible.' 
 
 Then, for proper groundwork and motive, take 
 the statement 
 
 4 Men are born as well to seek the common commodity 
 of their country as their own private benefit.' 
 
 That is politics and economics and sociologyand 
 common sense. How clearly is here understood 
 the immense importance of keeping alive the 
 skilled crafts, as against falling back on crude 
 labour and the selling of England itself in the 
 form of coal and iron. Without art and culture 
 ideals, it is evident that the productivity of a 
 state is always tending to lower levels. If we do
 
 PRODUCTIVE ECONOMY 195 
 
 not weave and dye, we have to hew coal and 
 smelt iron. We have to try to get the value of 
 national arts and crafts understood by the vague 
 and visionary writers on economics who love to 
 deal with it all in mass by mathematical formu- 
 las, ignoring all questions of quality as disturb- 
 ing elements, and chattering about f unskilled 
 labour ' little they know ! 
 
 It is only two years since that the economi- 
 cally wise were very anxious as to whether it 
 would be right to take due measures to bring 
 back the art of dyeing, but they seem to have 
 been won over by calling it a * key industry ' 
 great in 'science' is the power of words 
 should we laugh or cry ? Now, however, that 
 the new catchword has been invented, we must 
 try to get what we can out of it. For instance, if 
 we keep on saying that Spitalfields silk-weaving 
 is a * key industry ', it is possible we might get 
 the real economists to give it a thought before 
 it is too late. 
 
 A reasonable system of productive economy 
 would not begin in mid-air with expositions that 
 capital is a wages fund, and so on, but it would 
 lay out a scheme on visible foundations, such 
 as 
 
 1 . Work and Food. 
 
 2. Clothing and Health. 
 
 3. Shelter and Family Life. 
 
 o 2
 
 196 POLITICAL ECONOMY OR 
 
 4. Community and Justice. 
 
 5. Motives and Sanctions. 
 
 6. Ends of Production, &c., &c. 
 
 I have left little time to speak of the arts in 
 relation to economics, but I do want to say that 
 here again our besetting trick of seeking water- 
 tight isolation has done us terrible harm, and we 
 have isolated our art until most people seem to 
 think in the equation : Art = Oil-paintings by 
 a real R.A. They do not realize that the next 
 stage will be that that is not art either ; it will 
 wither for want of roots. 
 
 Art is the element of good quality in all pro- 
 duction, and perhaps the greatest problem of all 
 just now is this one of art. Certainly, to a com- 
 mercial nation, the need to keep up the quality 
 of its goods is vital. It is essential to national 
 persistence that skilled industries should be 
 maintained as against falling back on unskilled 
 ones; for the craft subdues the craftsman to that 
 he works in. If we are driven from the tradi- 
 tional crafts into mere crude labour, we have 
 become an enslaved nation. I have lately seen 
 this truth very clearly set out in the publica- 
 tions of the German Werkbund. Industry re- 
 quiring intelligence must be maintained by 
 Germans, because intelligence is necessary to 
 them as a nation, and some residuum of interest 
 in work helps to content the worker. Think of
 
 PRODUCTIVE ECONOMY 197 
 
 that now ! Soon after the Franco-German war, a 
 consciously thought-out effort was begun to 
 capture for Germany all scientific and skilled 
 crafts they might be useful in time of war, 
 for one thing. Nearly twenty-five years ago, I 
 was in a railway carriage in East Europe, some- 
 where near Nisch, I fancy, when a German 
 commercial traveller, knowing all languages 
 and possessing competitive enthusiasm, pulled 
 a nice four-bladed knife out of his pocket. 
 * That 's as good as Sheffield, isn't it ? ' said he. 
 About six years ago, it was decided in Germany 
 to adapt the English Arts and Crafts to their 
 machine industries, and so the Werkbund 1 just 
 mentioned was formed, which in marvellously 
 quick time has brought a commercially capti- 
 vating type of design into vogue. Personally, 
 I hate it, but it was not done for me. 
 
 Germany proposes that we shall not do any 
 dyeing of stuffs,or clock-making, or instrument- 
 making,or piano-making, or even any wall-paper 
 printing. Coal-digging is quite good enough 
 for us, and I suppose, if the aggregate trade 
 returns are kept up for owners and shippers, 
 the economists won't much mind; nor will they 
 foresee coal difficulties before they come. As the 
 
 1 Naumann and others of the ablest modern economists 
 in Germany are, I believe, interested in the ideals of the 
 WerHwd.
 
 198 POLITICAL ECONOMY OR 
 
 Encyclopaedia said, they don't like to relinquish 
 their ' old moorings '. 
 
 Only six months or so before the war, quite 
 a learned Austrian came to call on me. He had 
 taken his Doctor's degree in Political Economy, 
 and he told me his thesis was on what do you 
 think? 'The Arts and Crafts', which now 
 form, he said, a well-defined branch of political 
 science in Germany. He hoped to get appointed 
 to a chair in this particular department. No 
 English economist has ever heard of the Arts 
 and Crafts, I fear; certainly none would waste 
 his time in calling on me. Our economist is pro- 
 bably engaged on some abstract theory in 'pure' 
 economics on 'coefficients of value', without 
 having any more idea about the value of design 
 than a cat. My Austrian said he had come to 
 England as the Motherland of the Arts and 
 Crafts, but he was disappointed with what he 
 had seen ; the untidy streets, miserable railway 
 stations, inefficient architecture, were entirely 
 different from what he had been led to expect 
 from the fame of the Arts and Crafts which he 
 had come to inspect. In a frank way, he was 
 almost scornful. 'How is it,' he said, 'that you, 
 who had it all twenty years ago, are now neglect- 
 ing the Arts and Crafts?' I did not like to ex- 
 plain to him that our press was very interested 
 in exhibitions of oil-paintings and dealing in
 
 PRODUCTIVE ECONOMY 199 
 
 antiques, and that, moreover, there was the 
 sportsman's love of killing things, so that the 
 critics (so called) after a year or two of doubting 
 indulgence to a new plaything, had practically 
 killed our craft exhibitions: moreover, in this 
 country, art was settled by the R.A. 
 
 I remember that I asked this Austrian Doctor 
 of Arts and Crafts why it was that no such 
 branch of the 'science of wealth' as his was re- 
 cognized here, and why we had no professor- 
 ships like his, say in Liverpool or London, not 
 Oxford, of course. C I do not know,' he said,' but 
 the competition, //will make you'. My heart 
 sank within me: here was a man of academic 
 distinction, but without 'side', who not only 
 talked to me mind to mind, but who also looked 
 at things with his eyes, instead of for ever spin- 
 ning word arguments in the void. 
 
 If we art workers could combine in some 
 way with the people calling themselves scientific 
 economists, some good might come out of it. 
 We know hard facts about quality in work- 
 manship, the limit of untidiness in cities and 
 the advertisement disease, which no people 
 calling itself civilized should endure. We know 
 about the crafts and design and architecture and 
 outward order in the cities of Europe. We have 
 eyes. On their side, they have unction and con- 
 viction; they can touch the springs of faith in
 
 200 POLITICAL ECONOMY 
 
 the modern mind about 'science 'with texts on 
 supply and demand, margins of economic rent, 
 and laws of diminishing returns. As it is, those 
 who produce, and have eyes that see, are every- 
 where enslaved by busy people with office-boy 
 wits. That 1 take it is the true, scientific, and 
 economic reason for the clear failure to produce 
 genius, beauty, or happiness. With the Arts and 
 Crafts lies the founding of a new school of Pro- 
 ductive Economy in England. 
 
 'Tocentralize wealth is to disperse the people : 
 to distribute wealth is to collect the people.' 
 (Chinese maxim.)
 
 XVIII 
 
 MANY ideas are usually covered by the little 
 word Art. Ordinary manipulative skill and the 
 greatest imaginative design are both Art. Now, 
 in one sense, Art is merely a matter of routine 
 training. With industry, any one can learn to 
 draw, any one can learn to paint, any one can 
 learn sculpture. Thatis/more or less' of course; 
 but still, given sufficient application, a large pro- 
 portion of persons could be taught to practise 
 any of these arts with considerable skill. We 
 need clearly to realize that such painting, sculp- 
 ture, and ornamentation are entirely unneces- 
 sary things, and, produced for a thoughtless 
 market, they may be worse than useless. It is 
 desirable to gain clear sight of the distinction 
 between this ordinary commercial output called 
 art and really fresh and vital work. There is 
 nothing especially honourable in doing so many 
 commonplace pictures or sculptures to be ex- 
 
 1 From The Quest, Birmingham. 1896.
 
 202 ARTS AND THE 
 
 hibited in galleries because it passes under the 
 name of Art. 
 
 In the higher arts, some very distinct gift is 
 required; it may be supreme skill in handling, 
 with only average power of thought, but more 
 generallyitwillbe the power of suggesting ideas 
 andstimulatingthe imagination. Without these, 
 the higher arts fail of their chief reason* for ex- 
 istence. The mere manufacture of so many 
 thousands of pictures and statues, of so many 
 yards of ornamentation and tons of illustrated 
 journals, may well become a burden to society. 
 For such reasons as these, I think that the way 
 leading to the practice of 'unapplied' art should 
 be thicklysetwith notice-boards and man-traps. 
 Only a genius should be permitted to follow 
 'fine art' exclusively. 
 
 On a different plane to that of the imagina- 
 tive arts of design rest the illustrative arts, and 
 here there is room for less than genius. It is a 
 great pity that careful natural history drawing 
 is so little in favour, and that the art of copying 
 pictures is not encouraged. One careful draw- 
 ing from nature, or one good copy of a fine 
 picture, is worth a dining-room full of middling 
 paintings. Every schoolroom in the country 
 might have a Giotto and a Turner which only 
 an expert could distinguish from originals, if 
 supply and demand might be arranged to work
 
 FUNCTION OF GUILDS 203 
 
 to such an end. Old architecture should be drawn 
 before * restoration ' has too far falsified every 
 building in the country. Such records will, at a 
 day not far distant, be almost the only memo- 
 rials of our ancient national architecture. 
 
 But the safest, widest standing-ground for 
 most of us is to deal with art only in relation to 
 the making of necessary things to deal with 
 it as craftsmen. This brings before us the great 
 problems of modern days : How can ordinary 
 wares once more be made beautiful ? How can 
 the modern city be made less hideous ? It is 
 not by endeavouring to produce a few geniuses 
 that general production will be much bettered : 
 beauty can only be brought back to common 
 life by our doing common work in an interest- 
 ing way. We seem for the most part to think 
 that the way in which we see work carried on 
 day by day is very much in the nature of things, 
 that * it always has been so and always will be 
 so '. The study of the past,- however, shows us 
 that, so far from its always having been so, pro- 
 duction has recently become art-less for the first 
 time in history. Some knowledge of the crafts, 
 particularly those of Greece and the Middle 
 Ages, enables us to interpret history in a way 
 unknown to students of books alone. 1 By com- 
 paring the works then produced with other 
 
 1 Cf. Prof. Petrie as quoted on the title-page.
 
 204 ARTS AND THE 
 
 records, it becomes abundantly evident that the 
 most distinctive characteristic of the Middle 
 Ages was the honourable position in the State 
 then taken up by labour. 
 
 In every city which did anything, from Flo- 
 rence and Nuremburg to Paris and London, 
 the craftsmen were not only honoured citi- 
 zens but, through the organized craft guilds, 
 masons, bakers, tanners, largely governed the 
 towns. I do not mean tradesmen * retired ' and 
 respectable, but workers with their aprons on. 
 How about the Feudal Lords ? At bottom, 
 aristocracy rests on the conquest of one body 
 of people by another, usually of different race. 
 In one sense the nobles or the Middle Ages 
 formed a class almost as much apart as if they 
 had possessed wings. Still, they were but a sec- 
 tion of society, not a stratum over the whole 
 area : as has been well said, society was then 
 divided vertically, not horizontally. The nobles 
 formed, as it were, the guild of war lords, as 
 the Church formed the guild for religion; but 
 labour also won an estate in the towns and 
 governed them openly. The town of the Middle 
 Ages was an assemblage of craftsmen and traders 
 governed by the delegates of their organiza- 
 tions. The King knockedatTempleBar,tobe ad- 
 mitted by thegoldsmith or mercer who,as mayor, 
 represented the citizens.
 
 FUNCTION OF GUILDS 205 
 
 Step by step with the assumption of power 
 by the craft guilds in the Free Towns, archi- 
 tecture that is, the harmonious association of 
 all the crafts progressed, until the towns of 
 Europe were not mere squalid heaps of bricks 
 and mortar, but great organic works of art. 
 
 The bettering of the conditions of labour, in 
 respect to shortening hours of work and in- 
 creasing wages as much as may be, is not a very 
 large or philosophic programme for the im- 
 mense organization of the modern trade unions. 
 Is that to be their only purpose, and are their 
 functions to cease when that is worked out ? I 
 hope not ; the crafts are theirs, and they must 
 see to all that concerns them. Why should not 
 the unions have apprentices enter into agree- 
 ments with them,as apprenticeship to employers 
 has almost entirely broken down ? The unions 
 should also see to it that wares are of a certain 
 standard quality. They have, in a word, to find 
 a way in which beautiful crafstmanship will once 
 again become so common that it will reach the 
 homes of their members. 
 
 We are now so unaccustomed to beauty that 
 we are apt to look upon it as luxury and to re- 
 gard with suspicion those who talk of art: and, 
 indeed, I began by admitting that much which 
 passes by the name is sheer waste and foolish- 
 ness. But the art with which we are here con-
 
 206 ARTS AND THE 
 
 cerned is nothing more than an intelligent mas- 
 tery in work done; it is the element of quality 
 in workmanship. Unfortunately, as quality can- 
 not easily be measured by statistics, that self- 
 deluded person, the economist, has proceeded 
 to ignore it altogether,and has dealt with labour 
 only as quantity. Quality in workmanship has 
 been very largely destroyed in the name of 
 science and wealth. I can see no hope of labour 
 being de-brutalized by the isolated works of the 
 self-regarding art-genius or by the efforts of 
 the ignorant political expert; organized labour 
 can alone accomplish it. 
 
 Whatever the trade societies do or leave un- 
 done, they must ultimately, if they are to con- 
 tinue, take up the supervision of quality in the 
 common interest. If society generally gets to 
 understand that the unions, as far as may be, 
 are interesting themselves in the quality of 
 commodities, it will soon pay back the debt in 
 sympathy. The unions, in a word, must become 
 craft guilds, and, as such, be responsible to so- 
 ciety in their several mysteries: they must dis- 
 cuss materials and methods and build up a new 
 tradition of worthy workmanship. Only the 
 properly proficient must become master-crafts- 
 men: foremen in the guilds must be the only 
 foremen acceptable in the works. The architect 
 must be the man who has gone through the
 
 FUNCTION OF GUILDS 207 
 
 shops and the masons 1 or carpenters' guild, and 
 is elected 'Master' by the suffrage of those who 
 know what good workmanship is. I don't mean 
 elected to any particular work, of course: the 
 employer comes in there: but passed on as a 
 qualified master under whom members of the 
 guild will serve. If the existing middleman- 
 contractor won't permit good work, he must be 
 setaside. If the existing architect will not join in 
 the quest for beauty, which is delightful crafts- 
 manship,he too must go. These must both learn 
 that theirs are not vested interests against so- 
 ciety, but that they are the servants of society.
 
 XIX 
 ART AND WORKMANSHIP 1 
 
 WE have been in the habit of writing so lyri- 
 cally of art and of the temperament of the artist 
 that the average man who lives in the street, 
 sometimes a very mean street, is likely to think 
 of it as remote and luxurious, not 'for the likes 
 of him'. There is the danger in habitual excess 
 of language that the plain man is likely to be 
 frightened by it and it may be feared that much 
 current exposition of the place and purpose of 
 art only widens the gap between it and common 
 lives. 
 
 A proper function of criticism should be to 
 foster our national arts and not to frighten timid 
 people off with high-pitched definitions and far- 
 fetched metaphors mixed with a flood of (as 
 Morris said) 'sham technical twaddle'. It is a 
 pity to make a mystery of what should most 
 easily be understood. There is nothing occult 
 about the thought that all things may be made 
 well or made ill. A work of art is first of all a 
 well-made thing. It may be a well-made statue or 
 a well-made chair, or a well-made book. Art is 
 
 1 From the Imprint, January 1913.
 
 ART AND WORKMANSHIP 209 
 
 not a special sauce applied to ordinary cooking; 
 it is the cooking itself if it is good. Most simply 
 and generally art may be thought of as the well- 
 doingofwhat needs doing. If the thing is not worth 
 doing it can hardly be a work of art, however 
 well it may be done. A thing worth doing which 
 is ill done is hardly a thing at all. 
 
 Fortunately people are artists who know it 
 not bootmakers (the few left), gardeners and 
 basket-makers, and all players of games. We do 
 not allow shoddy in cricket or football, but re- 
 serve it forserious things likehouses and books, 
 furniture and funerals. 
 
 If it is necessary that everything must be 
 translated into words, our art critics might oc- 
 cupy quite a useful place if they would be good 
 enough to realize that behind the picture-shows 
 of the moment is the vast and important art of 
 the country, the arts of the builder, furniture 
 maker, printer, and the rest, which are matters 
 of national well-being. 
 
 It is doubtful if we have it in us to form a 
 leading school of painting at the present time; 
 indeed, we seem to be occupied in trying to 
 catch up with Europe at the wrong moment. It 
 cannot be doubted, however, that we might lead 
 in the domestic arts. And this is shown by the 
 great interest which foreign observers take in 
 the English Arts and Crafts movement.TheGer-
 
 210 ART AND WORKMANSHIP 
 
 mans, indeed, who know the history of this 
 development in England better thanwe do our- 
 selves, realizing its importance from an econo- 
 mic point of view, have gone so far as to consti- 
 tute a special branch of political economy which 
 shall deal with the subject. One university, I 
 believe, has established a professor's chair in the 
 economics of arts and crafts. English study of 
 fine lettering has in Germany been put into 
 types which English printers are hastening to 
 buy. We have now many highly trained men 
 among us who might make books as notable as 
 those of the finest presses if there were a steady 
 demand for fine modern work. 
 
 During the last thirty years many English 
 designers have set themselves to learn the crafts 
 as artists; that is, so that they may have com- 
 plete mastery of both design and workmanship. 
 I may remark here that a characteristic of a 
 work of art is that the design interpenetrates 
 workmanship as in a painting, so that one may 
 hardly know where one ends and the other be- 
 gins. The master-workman, further, must have 
 complete control from first to last to shape and 
 finish as he will. If I were asked for some simple 
 test by which we might hope to know a work of 
 art when we saw one I should suggest some- 
 thing like this: Every work of art shows that it was 
 made by a human being for a human being. Art is
 
 ART AND WORKMANSHIP 211 
 
 the humanity put into workmanship, the rest is 
 slavery. The difference between a man-made 
 work and a commercially-made work is like the 
 difference between a gem and paste. We may 
 not be able to tell the difference at first, but, 
 when we find out, the intrinsic worth of the one 
 is self-evident. Still it is highly important that 
 commercial work shall be properly done after 
 its own kind. 
 
 Although a machine-made thing can never 
 be a work of art in the proper sense, there is no 
 reason why it should not be good in a secondary 
 order shapely, smooth, strong, well fitting, 
 useful; in fact, like a machine itself. Machine- 
 work should show quite frankly that it is the 
 child of the machine; it is the pretence and sub- 
 terfuge of most machine-made things which 
 make them disgusting. 
 
 In the reaction from the dull monotony of 
 early Victorian days it must be admitted that 
 many workers fell into the affectation of over- 
 designing their things. Rightly understood, 
 'design' is not an agony of contortion but an 
 effort to arrive at what will be obviously fit and 
 true. The best design is one which, cost apart, 
 should become a commonplace. A fine piece of 
 furniture or a fine book-binding should be 
 shaped as inevitably as a fiddle. 
 
 Usually the best method of designing has 
 p 2
 
 212 ART AND WORKMANSHIP 
 
 been to improve on an existing model by better- 
 ing it a point at a time; a perfect table or chair 
 or book has to be very well bred. 
 
 Another phase of the reaction from modern 
 ways has been an excessive regard for old things, 
 so that original workers have not had a fair 
 chance of maintaining the full traditionsof their 
 arts. For instance, the social results of 'collect- 
 ing old furniture* of course were not foreseen, 
 but they certainly inflicted great injury on an 
 essentially noble craft. At the present moment 
 people who would like to do things in the best 
 way would be well advised to have what they 
 require made by capable men in modern forms. 
 Now that we know all about it there is some- 
 thing pawnshoppy about gatherings from auc- 
 tions, and the highly misdirected skill of the 
 imitator has often made it next to impossible for 
 even the expert to tell the difference between an 
 original work and a copy. 
 
 Of course the scarcity, value, and historical 
 interest of old pictures, and of books printed by 
 Caxton, made it inevitable that they should be 
 sought for and bought at great prices, but un- 
 doubtedly such collecting of antiques has had a 
 most injurious effect on all kinds of modern 
 production. One of the great phenomena of re- 
 cent time has been a drift away from production 
 towards dealing. We have to re-establish doing.
 
 ART AND WORKMANSHIP 213 
 
 Of many problems this one of bringing back 
 art to workmanship is not the least serious, or 
 the most hopeful. It is a tremendous thing that 
 whereas a century or so ago the great mass of 
 the people exercised arts, such as bootmaking, 
 bookbinding, chair-making, smithing, and the 
 rest, now a great wedge has been driven in be- 
 tween the craftsman of every kind and his cus- 
 tomers by the method of large production by 
 machinery. ' We cannot go back ' true ; and it 
 is as true that we cannot stay where we are. 
 
 Once more let me try to make it clear that by 
 art, instructed thinkers do not only mean pic- 
 tures or quaint and curious things, or neces- 
 sarily costly ones, certainly not luxurious ones. 
 They mean worthy and complete workmanship 
 by competent workmen. 
 
 ART IS THOUGHTFUL WORKMANSHIP.
 
 XX 
 
 THE FOUNDATION IN LABOUR 1 
 
 BY way of text to my little sermon, the words 
 occur to me: 'Let him labour with his hands.' 
 By way of illustration to my subject, the follow- 
 ing little story was told me only an hour ago 
 from some lives of early Breton saints. A monk 
 of, say, the sixth century, having laboured in 
 the fields all day found that a little bird had built 
 its nest in the mantle he had laid on the ground. 
 Understanding what labour meant, he lent his 
 cloak to the bird for the rest of the season. 
 
 I was asked to lecture on Art in the life of the 
 worker, but I begged to be allowed to change 
 the title into Work and the Worker. I find the 
 word Art is a very ambiguous one which wants 
 yards of definition before one can venture to say 
 anything clear about it; and, for myself, I have 
 long settled that what I elected to call Art was 
 not some high essence which might lead to 
 aesthetic excitements, but simply any soundand 
 complete form of human work: the art of agri- 
 culture, the art of cookery, the art of picture 
 painting, and so on. Human work, I say, not 
 
 1 From the Highway, March 1917.
 
 FOUNDATION IN LABOUR 215 
 
 machine grinding. Machining is no more real 
 work than hand-organ noises are real music. 
 
 As societies and men come of age in the 
 several ages of the world they awake to the 
 consciousness that they make use of words and 
 that little but custom settles the meaning of 
 those words. Justice, art, morality, what do they 
 mean? Then custom itself begins to break up 
 and a new problem arises. The question is not 
 now, Whatdo the words actually mean? but : As 
 we have these nice words in use, what meaning 
 shall we fit to them? 'Philosophy, religion, lib- 
 erty, the State ', what shall we make these old 
 words mean? This was the problem of Plato; 
 this is the problem of to-day. Now we find our- 
 selves in the possession of the little word Art, 
 about which such heaps of rubbish have been 
 written and in the name of which so many silli- 
 nesses are committed. What shall we make it 
 mean? 
 
 Philosophers have noticed that certain forms 
 of production tend to be free from direct ma- 
 terial service and to become media for express- 
 ing emotion directed to the end ofgivingdelight, 
 or stimulus, to others. Modern use is in favour 
 of trying to limit the use of the word Art to this 
 aesthetic essence or its manifestation. Now this 
 would be all right if it were not all wrong, wrong 
 in history and wrong in results. Historically,
 
 216 THE FOUNDATION 
 
 the word Art has meant work, production, mak- 
 ing, doing, and it was not conceived that the 
 spirit, the expression, the meaning of the several 
 kinds of work could be separated from a resi- 
 duum which without it becomes brute labour. 
 Art is the substance as well as the expression ; it is 
 the labour as well as the emotion\ it is the service 
 as well as the delight', and the two aspects cannot 
 be torn apart except to the ruin of both. 
 
 Thus the art of speech may be conceived as 
 oratory, eloquence, or rhetoric, but these things 
 are only dangerous diseases without the serious 
 meaning and purpose. There is an attractive 
 aesthetic of the cooking art, but it is dangerous 
 if too much thought is given to its thrills. Art, 
 the aesthetic ones say, is intuition, imagination, 
 pure lyricism, and so on and on. Very true in 
 a way, but very dangerous. It is only true, in- 
 deed, when you say nothing about it. Tell a 
 child that his manners and ways and tricks are 
 wonderful art, and if you can get him to under- 
 stand you have frozen the free beauty (which 
 was inherent in healthy action) into affectation 
 and etiquette. Our concern is with the veracities 
 of conduct, speech, work; the expression, the 
 beauty, the emotion will take care of themselves. 
 Do I make myself clear? I do not deny the poeti- 
 cal content of workmanship, but what I do say 
 is: Keep the work, the service, the meaning,
 
 IN LABOUR 217 
 
 strong and healthy, and due expression is bound 
 to be there, too. In concentrating too much on 
 the emotional content in certain chosen forms, 
 as poetry, music, painting, you are, firstly, beat- 
 ing down other forms of production into non- 
 arts, into mere brute labour; and, secondly, by 
 isolating those very selected arts themselves 
 too much from service and the common under- 
 standing you lay them open to speedy disease 
 and decay. Beauty is the floweringof labour and 
 service. 
 
 Art, then, I choose to believe, is sound and 
 complete human workmanship. A work of art 
 is a well-made boot, a well-made chair, a well- 
 made picture. 
 
 The purpose of this litde lecture is tosay that 
 to me work is not only art, but it is almost 
 everything else as well. The 'Curse' if you will, 
 but also the blessing, the discipline, thesubject- 
 matter of life. Work is a great Necessity, one of 
 the absolute things. We have to learn to accept, 
 and even to worship, work. We live by con- 
 sumption, consumption of fuel, food, clothing, 
 service. Is it not strange that this should be ob- 
 viously so and yet that there is no bodyofteach- 
 ing as to this great prime essential of life? I re- 
 member only a few years ago reading the pro- 
 nouncement of some sweet and cultivated soul
 
 218 THE FOUNDATION 
 
 as to the ideal man. The ideal man, he thought, 
 should be a Christian, a gentleman, a scholar, 
 and an athlete, and I almost think hehadtohave 
 a sense of humour as well. Very nice, though, 
 perhaps, a little cloistered; but really not thick 
 enough forlife. Wemustgather together a teach- 
 ing about life which recognizes that life is found- 
 ed on work. We have to induce a deep reverence 
 for work and the worker. Work is paying one's 
 way; it is service; it is honour and righteous- 
 ness. There may have been other words for 
 other times, but for us the password is Work. In 
 the last few generations there are fashions in 
 these things there has been much talk of self- 
 sacrifice, very confusing, as I can testify, to 
 growing youths; but there has been far toolittle 
 telling about service, service of cleaning drains, 
 ploughing, and building. Why is it so? Why is 
 the great continuous and necessary martyrdom 
 of hard labour so universally and constantly 
 ignored? 
 
 There have been deep historical causeswhich 
 have led philosophers and teachers of all kinds to 
 ignore the basis of life in work and to begin 
 their thinking high in the air. For one thing, 
 the problems, or, at least, the kind of problems 
 which philosophers have ever since gone turning 
 round and round, were set by the Greeks, and 
 notably by Plato. Now the Greek State was
 
 IN LABOUR 219 
 
 founded on slavery, and it simply did not do for 
 the boldest thinkers to question that. Labour 
 was provided by the very constitution of things, 
 and the great talking men- worried little more 
 about it than we do about the philosophies of 
 horses and cows. After correcting their slaves in 
 the morning they would put on the philoso- 
 pher's garb, meet in the portico, and discourse 
 exquisitely on the nature of justice and the es- 
 sence of aesthetic delight. 
 
 At what we call the revival of learning, we 
 took over all this body of thought and called it 
 specifically philosophy, not recognizing that it 
 was in no sense a complete scheme of thinking 
 for life (for you cannot live on theories as to how 
 you really know knowledge, but have to have 
 bread and boots as a preliminary). Philosophy 
 thus became the thinking of those with nothing 
 else to do. 
 
 Then at the end of the classical periodanother 
 way of thinking arose which involved in some 
 degree a philosophy of labour. It seems to have 
 been obscured and overlaid, but still there it is, 
 and an objecting modern thinker has called it 
 slave morality. How far it was complete I will 
 not venture to say, but, looking at it historically, 
 it may not be denied that Christianity did in- 
 clude within itself a body of teaching in regard 
 to the slave, the labourer, the poor. It was, to
 
 220 THE FOUNDATION 
 
 some degree at least, the scheme of thinking of 
 working men. 
 
 Turning from this backward view, it seems 
 to me that in all the weltering, infinite field of 
 thought-possibilities we just at this time can 
 only hope to find a firm constructive centre in 
 the idea of a noble, j ust,and inclusive ci vilization . 
 A civilization inspired by a teaching which shall 
 not ignore the groundwork, the first needs of 
 life, but which shall be based here and now on 
 common labour, a common life, and a common 
 aim. 
 
 I do not say this as an idealist and would-be 
 philanthropist, but as one who wants a more 
 reasonable and beautiful world for himself. As 
 it is, one cannot sufficiently hide away from the 
 ugliness of things under about ,4,000 a year, 
 a country house, and two motors. 
 
 The question of machinery is one that trou- 
 bles many minds, as well it may. At times I am 
 drawn to the belief that machinery, gunpowder, 
 electricity are too astounding powers for feeble- 
 willed men to control. Indeed, it is quite think- 
 able that machinery is the wrecking force in the 
 world, which will, in fact, be shattered by it. 
 But, some will say, * Machinery has come to 
 stay.' That may be true. Drunkenness seems to 
 have come to stay, but we have at least to try
 
 IN LABOUR 221 
 
 to control it. Machine production has, in fact, 
 swiftly changed the character of our population, 
 and whereas, not many generations ago, they 
 were mostly craftsmen that is, little artists 
 they are now an aggregate of machine-tenders, 
 under gangers. These are the sort of facts which 
 political economists never foresaw. Machinery 
 is such a mighty power that it must be con- 
 trolled; and 1 must say that mass production 
 by machinery should imply production for the 
 mass. No single individual should fire off a 
 powerful machine for his own profit any more 
 than he should work a cannon in Oxford Street 
 to the terror of well-doers. The owner of ma- 
 chinery must be licensed to shoot. In truth, 
 machinery is the artillery of commerce, and it 
 must be controlled by wise generalship. We 
 have as much right to control any form of 
 machinery as we have to protect ourselves from 
 firearms. 
 
 At the same time, all our ideals are so com- 
 plicated by the huge question of international 
 commerce that our very survival through this 
 machine age may depend on our working the 
 cranks and wheels as well as others. The posi- 
 tion may be likened to that of a coach plunging 
 downhill after a team of maddened horses. It is 
 not the time for any horse or the driver to give 
 way to his private wishes to lie down; the facts
 
 222 THE FOUNDATION 
 
 of the position may best be dealt with by racing 
 along. Nevertheless, machinery must be con- 
 trolled; it must not be allowed, for instance, to 
 go on ruining our towns and country-side so 
 much as in the immediate past. Machinery must 
 be controlled. 
 
 I shall be told that I have ignored brain- 
 work; so in a way I have, as I have ignored 
 amusement work. Much of this talk of brain- 
 work is a trick parallel to the dividing offof art 
 from labour. Do you not think that the skipper 
 of the fishing-boat or the thatcher of the corn- 
 rick works with his brain as usefully as a 
 company promoter or member of Parliament? 
 Why, of course he does. But we do want brain- 
 work in the modern sense, the very best that 
 may be got, and it is worth paying extortionate 
 charges, as we do to good doctors, if we cannot 
 get it otherwise. But it needs to be good brain- 
 work used in the interest of civilization and not 
 forming a camp against it. How might we hope 
 to secure that? 
 
 We have to set up a sympathetic and under- 
 standing contact and contract between all brain- 
 workers and the completer men who work both 
 with hands and brain. How may our brain- 
 workers, directors, and teachers obtain such a 
 contact with labour? First, some teaching about
 
 IN LABOUR 223 
 
 the service of labour must be got into all our 
 educational schemes, not only in the elementary 
 schools the children there are likely to learn 
 in another way later but at Eton, Oxford, and 
 theological seminaries. It must be impressed in 
 our very natures as one of the great things of life. 
 
 There are many, especially old-fashioned, 
 people who in their families have had close 
 touch with poverty, who have a horror, deeply 
 inlaid in their hearts, of waste of food. The new 
 automobile way of thinking, * I can pay for it, 
 and do what I like with my own', does not ap- 
 peal to them; they have a superstition in their 
 very bones that waste of food is what used to be 
 called wicked. Many, I am sure, feel a similar 
 reverence for labour and the results of labour. 
 Waste of food is waste of a means of life; but 
 waste of labour is the waste of life itself, it is 
 half murder, it has something of the horribly 
 and blackly satanic about it. To my mind, it is 
 the great typical modern sin. It had hardly 
 arisen when the Decalogue was written. 
 
 This is the point above all others that I have 
 tried to say which I should like to din and dint 
 into your minds by repetition. We have drifted 
 into easy ways of lift and live behind screens, 
 really not knowing what the world of winning 
 the bare means of life is like. Money is a key 
 which we apply, and the results of labour just
 
 224 THE FOUNDATION 
 
 flow from a tap if you have the key. You get it at 
 shops. 
 
 Consumption, we have even been told, is 
 good for trade. If a better type of civilization is 
 ever to be developed, one of the very corners of 
 the scheme must be understanding of and reve- 
 rence for labour. Reverence for labour is the 
 basis of art, for art is the labour which is fully 
 worthy of reverence. 
 
 But merely being told is not enough. If ever 
 we are to have a reasonable apprenticeship to 
 life, say, in 500 years time, it will have to in- 
 clude some actual service in labour. This is not 
 a joke, but a true ideal which I should like for 
 myself and everybody. We all, as part of a nor- 
 mal minimum training in manliness, should be 
 apprenticed to State service for at least a year. 
 No one should be allowed to pass into 'brain- 
 work ' such as stock-broking without his year of 
 manual drill; and others Members of Parlia- 
 ment, architects, and all kinds of pastors and 
 teachers should, I think, be asked to have two 
 years to show their good faith. If there were 
 this basis of actual experience, then, perhaps, we 
 might hope to control the machines before they 
 tear civilization to bits. 
 
 Again, and I suggest this as an immediate 
 policy, some acknowledged turnpike should be 
 made by which a certain percentage of those in
 
 IN LABOUR 225 
 
 our schools may pass into the exercise of skilled 
 crafts and be saved from machine-minding. 
 The skilled crafts or arts must be preserved, 
 and some day we may wake up to find that the 
 welfare of the nation depends on them. 1 1 would 
 have the educational bodies provide, as part of 
 their scholarship programme, a few final Esta- 
 blishment-in-Business Bursaries for specially 
 promising students in the technical schools. 
 Never so small a wicket-gate leading out of the 
 iron city of industrial toil would turn many faces 
 hopefully in that direction,and it would be only 
 an extension of the old and wise apprenticeship 
 provisions. 
 
 Art in the life of the worker can only spring 
 of hope and joy. When labour has been organ- 
 ized as an honoured national service, and when 
 our towns have been made tidyand fit to live in, 
 beauty will spring up of itself, and we shall not 
 need any theory of art thrills, for beauty will 
 be about us. 
 
 1 See The Crafts and Reconstruction. (Arts and Crafts 
 Society, 1919). 
 
 .-
 
 XXI 
 THE CENTRE OF GRAVITY 1 
 
 AN old friend of mine used to say that the 
 world, like a ship, had a wonderful self-righting 
 power. We should all, 1 am sure, agree that a 
 comparatively stable form of society depends 
 like a ship on balance ; and balance depends 
 upon having the weighty things in the right 
 place. 
 
 What is the first great necessity of Life? It is 
 daily Labour. That is really all my little lecture, 
 its text and theme. Work, as the first necessity 
 of life, has to be recognized as the centre ot 
 gravity of the whole structure, and everything 
 else in a sound and developing society should 
 be seen in relation to productive work. Brain- 
 work, sciences, fine-arts may all be noble and 
 beneficial, but only so far as they are functions 
 of the common society and part of a steady 
 development of the great body of those who 
 toil. Directly the brain-works go beyond this 
 they are likely to become fevers and diseases in 
 the social body. For instance, bombing is an 
 
 1 Summer School at Cambridge, 1 920.
 
 THE CENTRE OF GRAVITY 227 
 
 amazing development of art and science, but it 
 is a projection far from the centre of welfare. 
 The answer is, I suppose, that while others do it 
 so must we, but we are ourselves 'others' as 
 well as 'we'. But all I am suggesting for the 
 moment is that it would be well if 'science' had 
 never found out the way. If science made a big 
 gun that would blow the moon to bits some 
 experimenter would feel justified in pulling 
 the trigger. Further, while bombing flourishes 
 housing must be neglected. We have not end- 
 less energy. It does not justify murder and 
 robbery to call them science. 
 
 On looking back I see that I have always 
 been puzzled to find myself in a world of people 
 who had no teaching to give about living. I 
 have found many curious separate spheres of 
 thinking, whirling round, and grinding their 
 own axes, but no general theory of ends and 
 aims was discernible only anxiety as to ways 
 and means of going nowhere. Thus Political 
 Economy called itself the science of wealth, but 
 never attempted to say what wealth is; or if we 
 accepted the assumption that it is profit, it has 
 never set itself to explain 'what shall it profit' 
 or what we should buy with it. 
 
 Education, too, has been conceived as con- 
 cerned with 'knowledge', or sometimes as what 
 the ' educated ' called character their know- 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 THE CENTRE OF GRAVITY 
 
 ledge and their character! This knowledge has 
 for the most part become a knowledge of what 
 is in print, an acquaintance with what may be 
 said about things. Like economics, philosophy 
 and theology, scholarship is largely a know- 
 ledge of stock answers, a method of out-argu- 
 ing the other fellow, a way of scoring. Here I 
 think I come near something fundamental to 
 this age ; our education from base to apex has 
 very largely been a training in the art of scoring, 
 a preparation for a professional career, a learn- 
 ing how to play cricket with words and football 
 with lives. 
 
 We still live so near the origins of scholastic 
 learning that we feel instinctively that there is a 
 wizard mystery in writing and reading, and that 
 people who can do it should be fattened at the 
 public expense. It was well enough or no great 
 harm, in the Middle Ages, that certain privileges 
 should be granted to the little fringe of word- 
 scholars, but obviously we can not all live by 
 knowing names and writi ng : we can not all gov- 
 ern by giving posing or parliamentary answers: 
 we can not all be fed by benefit of clergy : we may 
 not always persuade the rest that work is low and 
 that really good people must be protected from 
 it. Just as we come to succeed the system will not 
 work, for the rest will want to be good too! 
 
 Again, notice another subtlety of uncon-
 
 THE CENTRE OF GRAVITY 229 
 
 scious drift. For two or three hundred years, in 
 fact ever since what has been called 'the revival 
 of learning', there has been in process of devel- 
 opment a method of skimming off a certain 
 surface the cream or grease of work, and 
 calling it by another name for the same thing, 
 'Art', thus to bribe 'artists' to separate from 
 the great stock of which they are really only a 
 part. This isolated art is all very well, but in 
 truth, looking back on the exhibitions and 
 press reviews, the collections and dispersals at 
 Christie's, it is easy to see that it has beenmainly 
 regulated by dealers and provided as a back- 
 ground for financiers' dinner parties. When its 
 history comes to be written it will doubtless be 
 called dealer's art. 
 
 Labour, work, art, really make up what 
 should be one body of human service, but 'fine 
 art' has been trained to turn round and revile 
 the rest for not being 'aesthetic' whateverthat 
 may be and then it gathers itself together in 
 shilling bazaars for the annual amusement of 
 country cousins in town. 
 
 It is really astounding, one of the unbeliev- 
 able facts, that not only has it been bred into all 
 the texture of our modern thinking that mere 
 handiwork, doing things, being productive, and 
 serving the world by labour is low, but our soul 
 teachers have further seemed to suggest that
 
 230 THE CENTRE OF GRAVITY 
 
 work is wicked. They told us it was the 'curse'. 
 They may say they found it so written, but 
 hardly so. They were free to translate and stress 
 and explain the dark old story as they liked, yet 
 generations of people, since * the revival of 
 learning' especially, got the impression that 
 labour was the curse. No wonder that all decent 
 people and their teachers sought to be main- 
 tained remote from contact with anything so 
 vile. The time has come, I am sure, for 'restate- 
 ments', but pity 'tis they were not given before. 
 If the world is to go on labour will have to be 
 recognized by religion and philosophy. If any 
 man would be a saint let him clean drains and dig 
 the ground. Hidden in early Christian teach- 
 ing are ideas which we never hear of now. One 
 of these was the thought that the 'curse' was a 
 blessing. It is probable, indeed, that the whole 
 glorious unfolding of mediaeval art sprang from 
 a thought of the heroism of labour, just as the 
 expansion of the newspaper, now the news- 
 manipulator, rests on the modern idea of the 
 great glory of reading words in print. 
 
 I remember a beautiful sculptured sarcopha- 
 gus of the fourth century. In the first panel was 
 represented the Fall by eating the fruit of the 
 Tree of Knowledge ! In the next the Creator 
 gave Adam a sheaf of corn and Eve a fleece 
 for spinning. As the explanation of the illustra-
 
 THE CENTRE OF GRAVITY 231 
 
 tion says, these were to be * the instruments 
 of their redemption '. In the celebrated early 
 painted book, the Cotton Genesis, Adam and 
 Eve are shown taking their digging and spin- 
 ning implements with them out of Paradise 
 at least the blessed tools were holy things ! Again, 
 in the catacombs the tools of the crafts were so 
 frequently represented that it is clear those who 
 were buried had been proud of being producers. 
 In one compartment which belonged to the 
 guild of coopers there was a picture of them 
 with their barrels anything so real would be 
 impossible in a modern church. It is significant, 
 too, of the art of ancient Greece that Athene was 
 the goddess of crafts Athene the Worker. On 
 the pedestal of her great gold and ivory image 
 in the Parthenon Pheidias represented her 
 giving a garment she had woven to the first 
 woman, Pandora the idea was the * revelation' 
 of the crafts to men. 
 
 Again, another most serious attack was made 
 on honourable workmanship in the last century 
 in the name of science, and people readily be- 
 lieved it, for Science' was the favourite super- 
 stition of the time. This science under the spe- 
 cious title of political economy set to work to 
 frame an apology for the violences of the indus- 
 trial revolution, the tyranny of the great com- 
 panies and the destruction of the beauty of our
 
 232 THE CENTRE OF GRAVITY 
 
 towns. The world-old traditions of noble work- 
 manship were undermined, and gave way before 
 the teaching of this new and true science of 
 profit grinding and grabbing. 
 
 But even this was not all, there has been a 
 tide in the affairs of men, and to crown and con- 
 summate nineteenth-century relations to work- 
 manship came the organized ignorance called 
 the Education Act of 1870, which turned the 
 youth of the country from the practice of things 
 into readers of print, leaving the print itself to 
 be supplied by competitive publishers and the 
 continuous journalism of the new press lords 
 and viscounts. 
 
 It had to be : as those who could read and 
 make curious black marks on paper claimed to 
 be so different from the rest all at last had to be 
 passed through one and the same mill. Pro- 
 bably, indeed, of course as it happened, it was 
 inevitable; but if the world is to go on and up 
 we shall (having acquired the print habit so 
 that it can be naturally picked up in the home) 
 have to educate for the proper works of life 
 once more all over again. 
 
 If ever we are to remake civilization on a 
 plan, we shall have to begin by recognizing that 
 it is founded first of all on labour, without which 
 it cannot last a day. We must understand and, 
 as it is so mighty a necessity, we must even
 
 THE CENTRE OF GRAVITY 233 
 
 learn to worship work. We must learn to see in 
 steady labourers the saints of Society. The 
 ability to make is a form of culture as well as the 
 ability to talk, and producing is really not less 
 honourable than'consuming. Even literary edu- 
 cation itself has been far too much at war with 
 creation, and the thoroughly educated literary 
 person is such a fine and fragile flower that he is 
 little likely to produce anything beyond critical 
 and even cynical and corrosive opinions. 
 
 It is very disgusting to 'pure thought', but 
 the first of propositions is that we live by daily 
 eating. It is horrid to mention anything so vul- 
 gar, and such facts, like legs, are usually hand- 
 somely draped. That elegant exercise of high 
 intelligences, * philosophy ', ignores the legs by 
 cutting in on a superior plane: *I think, there- 
 fore I am', it says, but this noble brainy struc- 
 ture will not march without legs. I eat, therefore 
 I work, and I work, therefore I think, are neces- 
 sary preliminaries. Now we are ready for a 
 reasonable and not falsely refined life-philo- 
 sophy I eat, work, and think, therefore I am. 
 As work is the first necessity of existence, the 
 very centre of gravity of our moral system, so a 
 proper recognition of work is a necessary basis 
 for all right religion, art, and civilization. So- 
 ciety becomes diseased in direct ratio to its 
 neglect and contempt of labour.
 
 XXII 
 
 THE PRESERVATION OF ANCIENT 
 ARCHITECTURE. ' 
 
 IN thecourseof the eighteenth and nineteenth 
 centuries a great interest was developed in the 
 ancient monuments of old lands, and the gra- 
 dual and systematic study of ancient art has led 
 to the perfecting of a second method of histori- 
 cal research, the history of Civilization by its 
 monuments. 
 
 At the same time, while so much has been 
 changing in the fashion of the world and of our 
 lives, a conscious love of old works of art has 
 been awakened in many minds, and a deep 
 sentiment of communion with the men of the 
 past through the works they have left to us has 
 been aroused. 
 
 These, the historical and poetical aspects of 
 old buildings are, it is self-evident, very largely 
 dependent upon their authenticity as handed 
 down from age to age. Such monuments it 
 must be realized, are not mere records, they are 
 
 1 The Architectural Conference, 1906.
 
 ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE 235 
 
 survivals, and a land in which they had been care- 
 fully conserved would carry on its past in actual 
 being. We want not mere models and abstract 
 shapes of buildings, but the very handiwork of 
 the men of old, and the stones they laid. On the 
 historical side, nothing else is a valid document 
 to be reasoned on, and, on the side of feeling 
 and beauty, nothing else can really touch our 
 imaginations. 
 
 While the branch of Archaeology dealing 
 with the scienceof old buildings was beingbuilt 
 up experts were naturally betrayed into mis- 
 takes by delight in their method of comparison 
 and the consciousness of learning, by which 
 they could see to some extent the completed 
 form of fragmentary buildings ; their mistakes, 
 however, were manifold. They did not, in their 
 eagerness, think of the difference between the 
 mere imitation of an old monument (a model at 
 full size, as it were, of what it might have been) 
 and the actual living building itself. They, as is 
 well known, to bring the old and the new into 
 ' harmony ', often took away the oldness of the 
 old part and made all new ; and when they did not 
 do this, they refused to see how they wounded 
 the old by placing their office-made conjectures 
 by the side of the actual works of art which they 
 thought they were improving. It is impossible 
 to tell of the involutions of error and confusion
 
 236 THE PRESERVATION OF 
 
 which have followed ; the maddening contradic- 
 tions of learned ignorance, of careful violence, 
 of loving destruction, which have arisen in the 
 application of the method. 
 
 Regrets for the past are vain, but in the pre- 
 sent the charge, nay, the judgement, against 
 restorers is that they are slow to learn. They ac- 
 knowledge the irreparable harm that was done 
 in the past, that was being done yesterday, and 
 then, with all professions of understanding and 
 sympathy, they go and do likewise ; often, in- 
 deed, taking the new words, ' necessary repair,' 
 for the discredited old words, 'thorough restora- 
 tion,' with a very similar result. 
 
 Notwithstanding all thedestruction wrought 
 in the last century, restoration is going forward 
 at an accelerated rate all over Europe, and, of 
 course, it is precisely the most ancient, remark- 
 able, and beautiful buildings, which are laid 
 hold of, passed through the mill of erudite 
 restoration, and left desolate ghosts of them- 
 selves, ghosts to shudder at and pass on. 
 
 To tell of these things is too sadly absurd : 
 of St. Front, at Perigueux, which excited so 
 much interest in France that they made it over 
 again with learned corrections : of Charle- 
 magne's wonderful chapel at Aachen, a riddle 
 which has never been read, where they are cov- 
 ering over the fine old masonry with fashion-
 
 ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE 237 
 
 able marbles and mosaics like those in the smok- 
 ing roomof an hotel; and of Murano Cathedral, 
 where the once mysterious and romantic apses 
 now look as if they had been supplied from 
 some cathedral factory in Chicago. 
 
 At San Vitale, Ravenna, astounding things 
 have been going on for years under the direc- 
 tion of a learned scholar, but again it is the 
 trivial, the obvious,, and the vulgar which result 
 from all this arrogance of learning. I say the 
 trivial, and this may be illustrated by a point. 
 Every one knows of the existence of a few 
 wonderful old windows filled with sheets of 
 translucent marble. The restorer simply cannot 
 resist a chance like this of falling into a pitfall. 
 Few and mysterious, are they ? That is just 
 what he wants, so with the help of a marble con- 
 tractor he exploits them until they become a 
 mere restorer's joke, and the Mausoleum of 
 GallaPlacidia looks like some grotto lit through 
 yellow glass. The mosaics of St. Mark's, the 
 West Front ofRheims,the porches of Chartres, 
 the glass of Bourges, Chartres and Sens the 
 great things of the world all are being dealt 
 with while we talk. As for England, I could 
 tell many stories, but I know too much to trust 
 myself. 
 
 In every country protests have been made. 
 In France, Victor Hugo was stirred to passion
 
 238 THE PRESERVATION OF 
 
 by attacks on his Notre Dame, and lately a bril- 
 liant exposition of the method has been written 
 by Emile Hovelacque. In Germany, Professor 
 Strzygowski of Gratz has written an illuminat- 
 ing examination of the new splendours of the 
 Dom of Aachen. In Italy, Cavaliere Boni has 
 criticized the restorations at Parenzo. 
 
 Thus, in one case, an Austrian Professor pro- 
 tests against what is done at Aachen, in the 
 other, an Italian protests against the Austrians. 
 I protest against the Italians and French, and 
 invite any foreign member of this conference to 
 protest against what we are doing in England, 
 so as to complete a somewhat vicious circle of 
 protestation, although undoubtedly each coun- 
 try has also had voices raised in its midst, as we 
 have had Ruskin and Morris. But for the most 
 part it must be said that everywhere the custo- 
 dians of ancient buildings, and their architects, 
 make a few verbal concessions and go smiling 
 on their predestined way, while subscriptions ob- 
 tained for urgent repairs are frequently trans- 
 muted into carvings and stained glass. In the 
 recent report as to works said to be urgently re- 
 quired at St. Mark's, .5,000 is allocated to 
 structural work and nearly ,1,000 to decora- 
 tive restorations, including a sum of .432 for 
 further restorations of the Capitals, and propo- 
 sals for restoring the pavement without esti-
 
 ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE 239 
 
 mate. As to these Capitals of St. Mark's, when 
 in Venice I searched for three of the sixth cen- 
 tury, which had on them monograms of the Em- 
 peror Justinian. It happened that all three had 
 been cut out and replaced by exquisitely mech- 
 anical copies of fresh white marble, and I know 
 of half a dozen sixth-century Capitals from St. 
 Mark's in a private collection in London. None 
 of us, I venture to say, could, without long re- 
 search, say whether any of the old Capitals of 
 the Ducal Palace are still in place. 
 
 What is the alternative to this now custom- 
 ary method of dealing with old buildings ? It is 
 persistent care and repair, as of national treasure 
 to be guarded. Instead of the long intervals of 
 neglect alternating with great 'restoration' cam- 
 paigns, we need constant examination and mi- 
 nute reparations. 
 
 You have noticed some masterpieces in our 
 Museums the Venus of Milo at the Louvre, 
 fragmentary sculptures from the Parthenon at 
 the British Museum, the faded frescoes at the 
 Brera and felt that by the care taken of them 
 they seemed all the more precious for showing 
 a history of antiquity, loss, and disintegration. 
 How precious must the armless Venus bewhich 
 is set in such a place of honour in the greatest 
 Museum in the world! Why are tiny pieces of 
 red and black pottery brought from Greece and
 
 2 4 o THE PRESERVATION OF 
 
 stuck together with such infinite pains, and 
 placed so carefully in costly cases ? They must 
 surely have great historical value and beauty. 
 So an old building, however much is lost, what- 
 ever be its state, should be cared for, in this 
 spirit of proud guardianship; and then no neces- 
 sary strengthening and upholding will harm it. 
 It is usual to object that old buildings are not 
 in a Museum, and that they have to be main- 
 tained in use. All the better, use would not hurt 
 them. We must try to be honest there, and not 
 let our pretences about use lead up to their be- 
 dizenment. The use and stability of our Cathe- 
 drals have again and again been sacrificed for 
 the caprices of ornamental restoration, profuse 
 in carvings, stained glass, and giant organs. 
 Why should we call a building sacred as a pre- 
 paration to making it a vulgar fraud? If the prin- 
 ciple is accepted loyally that our object, while be- 
 ing guardians of a national or a world's treasure, 
 is its integrity and obvious authenticity, we can 
 hardly go wrong, and the horrors of restoration 
 would fall away naturally. Time does not permit 
 me to deal with detailed suggestions for the 
 scientific protection of Ancient Buildings, but 
 much experience is stored up in the printed 
 matter issued by the Society I represent the 
 Society for the Protection of Ancient Build- 
 ings.
 
 ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE 241 
 
 The great difficulty of the case is caused by the 
 natural enthusiasm of the guardians and archi- 
 tects of old buildings for their own views about 
 them. They have found out this and that they 
 believe that it was formerly so and straight- 
 way they are anxious to make it so, not realizing 
 that they cannot, and that even the theory is 
 never certain. We know of the many supposed 
 correct restorations which have been suggested 
 on paper for the Parthenon and the Erechtheum, 
 and of the continually shifting opinion on the 
 evidence. Think of the confusion which has re- 
 sulted from encouraging modern architects to 
 build their theories of ancient buildings instead 
 of embodying them in a tract,where they might 
 be properly exposed and laughed at. In a treatise 
 they could point to what actually remained, as 
 evidence. In *&& their solid theories the evi- 
 dence itself disappears, the validity of the old 
 work is destroyed, and the whole becomes a 
 monument of conjecture, a tantalizing mass of 
 confusion which no one may read. They vio- 
 lently impose their ideas on old buildings, and 
 we have not even the satisfaction of being able 
 to show where they are wrong. Dead buildings 
 tell no tales. 
 
 When I think of what is being done all over 
 Europe, and being done now faster than at any 
 other time, I am, indeed, filled with astonish-
 
 242 ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE 
 
 ment. It is almost impossible to visit any famous 
 monument without finding it screened by scaf- 
 folding, and resounding with hammer strokes. 
 I wonder here in England that it can still be 
 done after all that has been said; I wonder in 
 Italy that they do not realize that their ancient 
 buildings give that country its pre-eminent 
 value in the world; I wonder in France that 
 their quick intelligence and artistic insight have 
 not guided them in this question; but most 
 of all I think I wonder at the things which are 
 being done in Germany, the land soj ustly famous 
 for its historical criticism. Baedeker's guides to 
 North and South Germany are hardly any longer 
 indexes to old buildings so much as chronicles 
 of restorations completed or in progress. 
 
 Unless this age of change and destruction is 
 soon followed by one of anxious preservation 
 there will be little left which is truly ancient to 
 hand on to the Europe of the next generation.
 
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