am very glad to be able to read you Mrs. Jebb's own testimony, the
fruit of her long experience. She says, 'We must give the
people--children of course included--opportunities of unofficial
intercourse with those who already love Art, and who can help them to
see and to discriminate. We must teach them to use their own hands and
eyes in doing actual Art work; even if the work done does not count
for much, it will develop their observation and quicken their
appreciation in a way which I believe nothing else will do--no mere
looking or explaining. They must be helped to make their own homes and
the things they use beautiful. They must not be helped only to learn
to do Art work, but also given ideas as to its application, shown how
and where to get materials, etc. Further, it has been resolved that
prizes shall be given to the pupils for the best copies drawn,
modelled, carved, or repoussé of the casts and designs circulated
among the various classes.'
I propose, therefore, that, with such modifications as suit our own
way of working, we should initiate on a more extended scale the
example set us by Mrs. Jebb and Mr. Leland. I think that it would not
be difficult, while retaining the machinery and the help afforded by
the South Kensington Department in painting and drawing, to establish
local clubs, classes, and societies, or, which I think much better, a
central society with local branches, either for the whole of England
or for each county or for each great city, for the purpose of
teaching, encouraging, and advancing all the Fine Arts, both small and
great. We do the whole of our collective work in this country by means
of societies: it is an Englishman's instinct, if he ardently desires
to bring about a thing, to recognise that, though he cannot get what
he wants by his own effort, he may get it by associating other people
with him and forming a society. Everything is done by societies. One
need not, therefore, make any apology for desiring to see another
society established. That of which I dream would be, to begin with,
independent of all politics, controversies, or theories whatever; it
would not be a society requiring an immense income--in fact, with a
very small income indeed very large results might be obtained, as you
will immediately see. The work of the society would consist almost
entirely of evening classes; it would not have to build schools or to
buy houses at first, but it would use, or rent, whatever rooms might
be found available-perhaps those of the day-schools. All the arts
would be taught in these schools, except those already taught by the
South Kensington Department, but especially the minor arts, for this
very important and practical reason, that these would be found almost
immediately to have a money value, and would therefore serve the
useful purpose of attracting pupils. At the outset there must be no
fees, but everybody must be invited to come in and learn. After the
value of the school has been established in the popular mind there
would be no difficulty in exacting a small fee towards the expenses of
maintenance. But, from the very first, there must be established a
system of prizes, public exhibitions of work done by the students,
concerts at which the musicians would play and the choirs would sing,
and theatricals at which the actors would perform. Partly by these
public honours, and partly by showing an actual market value for the
work, we may confidently look forward to creating and afterwards
fostering a genuine enthusiasm for Art.
How are the funds to be provided for all this work? The money required
for a commencement will be in reality very little. There are the
necessary tools and materials to be found, a certain amount of house
service to be done and paid for, gas and firing, and perhaps rent.
Observe, however, that the materials for Art students of all kinds are
not expensive, that house service costs very little, light and firing
not a great deal; and even the rent would not be heavy, since all our
schools would be situated in the poor neighbourhoods. There only
remain the teachers, and here comes in the really important part of
the scheme. _The teachers will cost nothing at all._ They will all be
members of our new society, and they will give, in addition to or in
lieu of an annual subscription, their personal services as gratuitous
teachers. This part of the scheme is sure to command your sympathies,
the more so if you consider the current of contemporary thought. More
and more we are getting volunteer labour in almost every department.
Everywhere, in every town and in every parish, along with the
professional workers, are those who work for nothing. As for the women
who work for nothing, the sisters of religious orders, the women who
collect rents, the women who live among the poor, those who read aloud
to patients in hospitals, those who go about in the poorest places,
their name is legion. And as for the men, we have no cause to be
ashamed of the part which they take in this great voluntary movement,
which is the noblest thing the world has ever seen, and which I
believe to be only just beginning. All our great religious societies,
all our hospitals, all our philanthropic societies, are worked by
unpaid committees. All our School wards over the whole country, not to
speak of the House of Commons, are unpaid. At this very moment there
are springing up here and there in East London actual
monasteries--only without monastic vows--in which live young men who
devote themselves, either wholly or in part, to work among the poor,
often to evening and night work after their own day's labours. It is
no longer a visionary thing; it is a great and solid fact, that there
are hundreds of men willing, without vows, orders, or any rule, and
without hope of reward, not even gratitude, to live for their brother
men. They give, not their money or their influence, or their
exhortations, but they give--_themselves_. Greater love hath no man.
As for us, we shall not ask our teachers to give their whole time,
unless they offer it. One or two evenings out of the week will
suffice. I am convinced--you are all, I am sure, convinced--that there
will be no difficulty at all in getting teachers, but that the only
difficulty will be in selecting those who can add discretion to zeal,
capability to enthusiasm, skill and tact in teaching, as well as a
knowledge of an art to be taught. Think of the Working Men's College
in Great Ormond Street--perhaps you don't know of this institution. It
is a great school for working men; it teaches all subjects, and it has
been running for nearly thirty years. During the whole of that time, I
believe I am right in saying that the professors and teachers have
been all unpaid--they are volunteers. Can we fear that in Art, in
which there are so many enthusiasts, we shall not get as much
volunteer assistance as in Letters and Science?
This, then, is my proposal for creating and developing an enthusiasm
for Art. There are to be schools everywhere, controlled by local
committees, under a central society; there are to be volunteer
teachers, willing to subject themselves to rule and order; there are
to be public exhibitions and prize-givings; all the arts, not one
only, are to be taught; great prominence is to be given to the minor
arts; at first there will be no fees; above all and before all, the
great College of ours is not to be made a Government department, to be
tied and bound by the hard-and-fast rules and red tape which are the
curse of every department, nor is it to be under the direction of any
School Board, but, like most things in this country that are of any
use, it is to be governed by its own council.
One thing more. I am firmly convinced that the only institutions in
any country which endure are those which take a firm hold of the
popular mind and are supported by the people themselves. In order to
make the College of Art permanent, it must belong absolutely to the
people. This can only be effected by the gradual retirement of the
wealthy class, who will start it, from the management, and the
substitution of actual working men in their place--working men, I
mean, who have themselves been through some course of study in the
College, and have, perhaps, become teachers. And as working men will
certainly do nothing without pay--in London, whatever may be the case
elsewhere, their strongest feeling is that their only possessions are
their time and their hands--we shall have to provide that the teachers
of the schools, the directors of the college, and the clerks in the
secretariat, shall never be paid at a higher rate than the current
rate of wage for manual work. The people themselves will in the end
supply council, executive officers, and teaching staff. The time is
ripe; we are ready to begin the work; I do not fear for a moment that
the working man will not, if we begin with prudence, presently
respond, and, through him, the boys and girls.
We must, however, have a museum, although on this subject I cannot
dwell. I should like to take the Bethnal Green institution entirely
out of South Kensington hands; they have had it for fourteen years,
and you have heard what they have made of it. I think they should hand
it over, if not to our new College of Art, then to a local committee,
who would at least try to show what an educational museum should be.
Our educational museum will be a branch of the College of Art; it will
be in all respects the exact opposite of the Bethnal Green Museum; it
will have everything which is there wanting; it will have a library
and reading-room; it will have lecturers and teachers, it will have
class-rooms; the exhibits will be changed continually; there will be
an organ and concerts; there will be a theatre, there will be in it
every appliance which will teach our pupils the exquisite joy, the
true and real delight, of expressing noble thought in beautiful and
precious work.
THE AMUSEMENTS OF THE PEOPLE
'And do your workmen,' asked a London visitor of a Lancashire
mill-owner--'do your workmen really live in those hovels?'
'Certainly not,' replied the master. 'They only sleep there. They live
in my mill.'
This was forty years ago. Neither question nor answer would now be
possible. For the hovels are improved into cottages; the factory hands
no longer live only in the mill; and the opinion, which was then held
by all employers of labour, as a kind of Fortieth Article, that it is
wicked for poor people to expect or hope for anything but regular work
and sufficient food, has undergone considerable modification. Why,
indeed, they thought, should the poor man look to be merry when his
betters were content to be dull? We must remember how very little play
went on even among the comfortable and opulent classes in those days.
Dulness and a serious view of life seemed inseparable; recreations of
all kinds were so many traps and engines set for the destruction of
the soul; and to desire or seek for pleasure, reprehensible in the
rich, was for the poor a mere accusation of Providence and an opening
of the arms to welcome the devil. So that our mill-owner, after all,
may have been a very kind-hearted and humane creature, in spite of his
hovels and his views of life, and anxious to promote the highest
interests of his employés.
A hundred years ago, however, before the country became serious, the
people, especially in London, really had a great many amusements,
sports, and pastimes. For instance, they could go baiting of bulls and
bears, and nothing is more historically certain than the fact that the
more infuriated the animals became, the more delighted were the
spectators; they 'drew' badgers, and rejoiced in the tenacity and the
courage of their dogs; they enjoyed the noble sport of the cock-pit;
they fought dogs and killed rats; they 'squalled' fowls--that is to
say, they tied them to stakes and hurled cudgels at them, but only
once a year, and on Shrove Tuesday, for a treat; they boxed and
fought, and were continually privileged to witness the most stubborn
and spirited prize-fights; every day in the streets there was the
chance for everybody of getting a fight with a light-porter, or a
carter, or a passenger--this prospect must have greatly enhanced the
pleasures of a walk abroad; there were wrestling, cudgelling, and
quarter-staff; there were frequent matches made up and wagers laid
over all kinds of things: there were bonfires, with the hurling of
squibs at passers-by; there were public hangings at regular intervals
and on a generous scale; there were open-air floggings for the joy of
the people; there were the stocks and the pillory, also free and
open-air exhibitions; there were the great fairs of Bartholomew,
Charlton, Fairlop Oak, and Barnet; there were also lotteries. Besides
these amusements, which were all for the lower orders as well as for
the rich, they had their mug-houses, whither the men resorted to drink
beer, spruce, and purl; and for music there was the street
ballad-singer, to say nothing of the bear-warden's fiddle and the band
of marrow-bones and cleavers. Lastly, for those of more elevated
tastes, there was the ringing of the church bells. Now, with the
exception of the last named, we have suppressed every single one of
these amusements. What have we put in their place? Since the working
classes are no longer permitted to amuse themselves after the old
fashions--which, to do them justice, they certainly do not seem to
regret--how do they amuse themselves?
Everybody knows, in general terms, how the English working classes do
amuse themselves. Let us, however, set down the exact facts, so far as
we can get at them, and consider them. First, it must be remembered as
a gain--so many other things having been lost--that the workman of the
present day possesses an accomplishment, one weapon, which was denied
to his fathers--_he can read_. That possession ought to open a
boundless field; but it has not yet done so, for the simple reason
that we have entirely forgotten to give the working man anything to
read. This, if any, is a case in which the supply should have preceded
and created the demand. Books are dear; besides, if a man wants to buy
books, there is no one to guide him or tell him what he should get.
Suppose, for instance, a studious working man anxious to teach himself
natural history, how is he to know the best, latest, and most
trustworthy books? And so for every branch of learning. Secondly,
there are no free libraries to speak of; I find, in London, one for
Camden Town, one for Bethnal Green, one for South London, one for
Notting Hill, one for Westminster, and one for the City; and this
seems to exhaust the list. It would be interesting to know the daily
average of evening visitors at these libraries. There are three
millions of the working classes in London: there is, therefore, one
free library for every half-million, or, leaving out a whole
three-fourths in order to allow for the children and the old people
and those who are wanted at home, there is one library for every
125,000 people. The accommodation does not seem liberal, but one has
as yet heard no complaints of overcrowding. It may be said, however,
that the workman reads his paper regularly. That is quite true. The
paper which he most loves is red-hot on politics; and its readers are
assumed to be politicians of the type which consider the Millennium
only delayed by the existence of the Church, the House of Lords, and a
few other institutions. Yet our English working man is not a
firebrand, and though he listens to an immense quantity of fiery
oratory, and reads endless fiery articles, he has the good sense to
perceive that none of the destructive measures recommended by his
friends are likely to improve his own wages or reduce the price of
food. It is unfortunate that the favourite and popular papers, which
might instruct the people in so many important matters--such as the
growth, extent, and nature of the trades by which they live, the
meaning of the word Constitution, the history of the British Empire,
the rise and development of our liberties, and so forth--teach little
or nothing on these or any other points.
If the workman does not read, however, he talks. At present he talks
for the most part on the pavement and in public-houses, but there is
every indication that we shall see before long a rapid growth of
workmen's clubs--not the tea-and-coffee make-believes set up by the
well-meaning, but honest, independent clubs, in every respect such as
those in Pall Mall, managed by the workmen themselves, who are not,
and never will become, total abstainers, but have shown themselves, up
to the present moment, strangely tolerant of those weaker brethren who
can only keep themselves sober by putting on the blue ribbon.
Meantime, there is the public house for a club, and perhaps the
workmen spends, night after night, more than he should upon beer. Let
us remember, if he needs excuse, that his employers have found him no
better place and no better amusement than to sit in a tavern, drink
beer (generally in moderation), and talk and smoke tobacco. Why not? A
respectable tavern is a very harmless place; the circle which meets
there is the society of the workman: it is his life: without it he
might as well have been a factory hand of the good old time--such as
hands were forty years ago; and then he would have made but two
journeys a day--one from bed to mill, and the other from mill to bed.
Another magnificent gift he has obtained of late years--the excursion
train and the cheap steamboat. For a small sum he can get far away
from the close and smoky town, to the seaside perhaps, but certainly
to the fields and country air; he can make of every fine Sunday in the
summer a holiday indeed. Is not the cheap excursion an immense gain?
Again, for those who cannot afford the country excursion, there is now
a Park accessible from almost every quarter. And I seriously recommend
to all those who are inclined to take a gloomy view concerning their
fellow-creatures, and the mischievous and dangerous tendencies of the
lower classes, to pay a visit to Battersea Park on any Sunday evening
in the summer.
As regards the working man's theatrical tastes, they lean, so far as
they go, to the melodrama; but as a matter of fact there are great
masses of working people who never go to the theatre at all. If you
think of it, there are so few theatres accessible that they cannot go
often. For instance, there are for the accommodation of the West-end
and the visitors to London some thirty theatres, and these are nearly
always kept running; but for the densely populous districts of
Islington, Somers Town, Pentonville, and Clerkenwell, combined, there
are only two; for Hoxton and Haggerston, there is only one; for the
vast region of Marylebone and Paddington, only one; for Whitechapel,
'and her daughters,' two; for Shoreditch and Bethnal Green, one; for
Southwark and Blackfriars, one; for the towns of Hampstead, Highgate,
Camden Town, Kentish Town, Stratford, Bow, Bromley, Bermondsey,
Camberwell, Kensington, or Deptford, not one. And yet each one of
these places, taken separately, is a good large town. Stratford, for
instance, has 60,000 inhabitants, and Deptford 80,000. Only half a
dozen theatres for three millions of people! It is quite clear,
therefore, that there is not yet a craving for dramatic art among our
working classes. Music-halls there are, certainly, and these provide
shows more or less dramatic, and, though they are not so numerous as
might have been expected, they form a considerable part of the
amusements of the people; it is therefore a thousand pities that among
the 'topical' songs, the break-downs, and the comic songs, room has
never been found for part-songs or for music of a quiet and somewhat
better kind. The proprietors doubtless know their audience, but
wherever the Kyrle Society have given concerts to working people, they
have succeeded in interesting them by music and songs of a kind to
which they are not accustomed in their music-halls.
The theatre, the music-hall, the public-house, the Sunday excursion,
the parks--these seem almost to exhaust the list of amusements. There
are, also, however, the suburban gardens, such as North Woolwich and
Rosherville, where there are entertainments of all kinds and dancing;
there are the tea-gardens all round London; there are such places of
resort as Kew and Hampton Court, Bushey, Burnham Beeches, Epping,
Hainault and Rye House. There are also the harmonic meetings, the
free-and-easy evenings, and the friendly leads at the public-houses.
Until last year there was one place, in the middle of a very poor
district, where dancing went on all the year round. And there are the
various clubs, debating societies, and local parliaments which have
been lately springing up all over London. One may add the pleasure of
listening to the stump orator, whether he exhorts to repentance, to
temperance, to republicanism, to atheism, or to the return of Sir
Roger. He is everywhere on Sunday in the streets, in the country
roads, and in the parks. The people listen, but with apathy; they are
accustomed to the white-heat of oratory; they hear the same thing
every Sunday: their pulses would beat no faster if Peter the Hermit
himself or Bernard were to exhort them to assume the Cross. It is
comic, indeed, only to think of the blank stare with which a British
workman would receive an invitation to take up arms in order to drive
out the accursed Moslem.