out anything at all concerning their amusements. Certainly one can see
a few of them any Sunday walking about in the lanes and in the fields
of northern London, with their lovers; in the evening they may also be
observed having tea in the tea-gardens. These, however, are the better
sort of girls; they are well dressed, and generally quiet in their
behaviour. The domestic servants, for the most part, spend their
'evening out' in taking tea with other servants, whose evening is in.
On the same principle, an actor when he has a holiday goes to another
theatre; and no doubt it must be interesting for a cook to observe the
_differentiæ_, the finer shades of difference, in the conduct of a
kitchen. When women are married and the cares of maternity set in, one
does not see how they can get any holiday or recreation at all; but I
believe a good deal is done for their amusement by the mothers'
meetings and other clerical agencies. There is, however, below the
shop girls, the dressmakers, the servants, and the working girls whom
the world, so to speak, knows, a very large class of women whom the
world does not know, and is not anxious to know. They are the factory
hands of London; you can see them, if you wish, trooping out of the
factories and places where they work on any Saturday afternoon, and
thus get them, so to speak, in the lump. Their amusement seems to
consist of nothing but walking about the streets, two and three
abreast, and they laugh and shout as they go so noisily that they must
needs be extraordinarily happy. These girls are, I am told, for the
most part so ignorant and helpless, that many of them do not know even
how to use a needle; they cannot read, or, if they can, they never do;
they carry the virtue of independence as far as they are able, and
insist on living by themselves, two sharing a single room; nor will
they brook the least interference with their freedom, even from those
who try to help them. Who are their friends, what becomes of them in
the end, why they all seem to be about eighteen years of age, at what
period of life they begin to get tired of walking up and down the
streets, who their sweethearts are, what are their thoughts, what are
their hopes--these are questions which no man can answer, because no
man could make them communicate their experiences and opinions.
Perhaps only a Bible-woman or two know the history, and could tell it,
of the London factory girl. Their pay is said to be wretched, whatever
work they do; their food, I am told, is insufficient for young and
hearty girls, consisting generally of tea and bread or
bread-and-butter for breakfast and supper, and for dinner a lump of
fried fish and a piece of bread. What can be done? The proprietors of
the factory will give no better wage, the girls cannot combine, and
there is no one to help them. One would not willingly add another to
the 'rights' of man or woman; but surely, if there is such a thing at
all as a 'right,' it is that a day's labour shall earn enough to pay
for sufficient food, for shelter, and for clothes. As for the
amusements of these girls, it is a thing which may be considered when
something has been done for their material condition. The possibility
of amusement only begins when we have reached the level of the well
fed. Great Gaster will let no one enjoy play who is hungry. Would it
be possible, one asks in curiosity, to stop the noisy and mirthless
laughter of these girls with a hot supper of chops fresh from the
grill? Would they, if they were first well fed, incline their hearts
to rest, reflection, instruction, and a little music? The cheap
excursions, the school feasts, the concerts given for the people, the
increased brightness of religious services, the Bank holidays, the
Saturday half-holiday, all point to the gradual recognition of the
great natural law that men and women, as well as boys and girls, must
have play. At the present moment we have just arrived at the stage of
acknowledging this law; the next step will be that of respecting it,
and preparing to obey it, just now we are willing and anxious that all
should play; and it grieves us to see that in their leisure hours the
people do not play because they do not know how.
Compare, for instance, the young workman with the young gentleman--the
public schoolman, one of the kind who makes his life as 'all round' as
he can, and learns and practises whatever his hand findeth to do. Or,
if you please, compare him with one of the better sort of young City
clerks; or, again, compare him with one of the lads who belong to the
classes now held in the building of the old Polytechnic; or with the
lads who are found every evening at the classes of the Birkbeck. First
of all, the young workman cannot play any game at all, neither
cricket, football, tennis, racquets, fives, or any of the other games
which the young fellows in the class above him love so passionately:
there are, in fact, no places for him where these games can be played;
for though the boys may play cricket in Victoria Park, I do not
understand that the carpenters, shoemakers, or painters have got clubs
and play there too. There is no gymnasium for them, and so they never
learn the use of their limbs; they cannot row, though they have a
splendid river to row upon; they cannot fence, box, wrestle, play
single-stick, or shoot with the rifle; they do not, as a rule, join
the Volunteer corps; they do not run, leap, or practise athletics of
any kind; they cannot swim; they cannot sing in parts, unless, which
is naturally rare, they belong to a church choir; they cannot play any
kind of instrument--to be sure the public schoolboy is generally
grovelling in the same shameful ignorance of music; they cannot dance;
in the whole of this vast city there is not a single place where a
couple, so minded, can go for an evening's dancing, unless they are
prepared to journey as far as North Woolwich. Not one. Ought it not to
be felt and resented as an intolerable grievance that grandmotherly
legislation actually forbids the people to dance? That the working men
themselves do not seem to feel and resent it is really a mournful
thing. Then, they cannot paint, draw, model, or carve. They cannot
act, and seemingly do not care greatly about seeing others act; and,
as already stated, they never read books. Think what it must be to be
shut out entirely from the world of history, philosophy, poetry,
fiction, essays, and travels! Yet our working classes are thus
practically excluded. Partly they have done this for themselves,
because they have never felt the desire to read books; partly, as I
said above, we have done it for them, because we have never taken any
steps to create the demand. Now, as regards these arts and
accomplishments, the public schoolman and the better class City clerk
have the chance of learning some of them at least, and of practising
them, both before and after they have left school. What a poor
creature would that young man seem who could do none of these things!
Yet the working man has no chance of learning any. There are no
teachers for him; the schools for the small arts, the accomplishments,
and the graces of life are not open to him; one never hears, for
instance, of a working man learning to waltz or dance, unless it is in
imitation of a music-hall performer. In other words, the public
schoolman has gone through a mill of discipline out of school as well
as in. Law reigns in his sports as in his studies. Whether he sits
over his books or plays in the fields, he learns to be obedient to
law, order, and rule: he obeys, and expects to be obeyed; it is not
himself whom he must study to please: it is the whole body of his
fellows. And this discipline of self, much more useful than the
discipline of books, the young workman knows not. Worse than this, and
worst of all, not only is he unable to do any of these things, but he
is even ignorant of their uses and their pleasures, and has no desire
to learn any of them, and does not suspect at all that the possession
of these accomplishments would multiply the joys of life. He is
content to go on without them. Now contentment is the most mischievous
of all the virtues; if anything is to be done, and any improvement is
to be effected, the wickedness of discontent must first be explained
away.
Let us, if you please, brighten this gloomy picture by recognising the
existence of the artisan who pursues knowledge for its own sake. There
are many of this kind. You may come across some of them botanizing,
collecting insects, moths and butterflies in the fields on Sundays;
others you will find reading works on astronomy, geometry, physics, or
electricity: they have not gone through the early training, and so
they often make blunders; but yet they are real students. One of them
I knew once who had taught himself Hebrew; another, who read so much
about co-operation, that he lifted himself clean out of the
co-operative ranks, and is now a master; another and yet another and
another, who read perpetually, and meditate upon, books of political
and social economy; and there are thousands whose lives are made
dignified for them, and sacred, by the continual meditation on
religious things. Let us make every kind of allowance for these
students of the working class; and let us not forget, as well, the
occasional appearance of those heaven-born artists who are fain to
play music or die, and presently get into orchestras of one kind or
another, and so leave the ranks of daily labour and join the great
clan or caste of musicians, who are a race or family apart, and carry
on their mystery from father to son.
But, as regards any place or institution where the people may learn or
practise or be taught the beauty and desirability of any of the
commoner amusements, arts, and accomplishments, there is not one,
anywhere in London. The Bethnal Green Museum certainly proposed unto
itself, at first, to 'do something,' in a vague and uncertain way, for
the people. Nobody dared to say that it would be first of all
necessary to make the people discontented, because this would have
been considered as flying in the face of Providence; and there was,
besides, a sort of nebulous hope, not strong enough for a theory, that
by dint of long gazing upon vases and tapestry everybody would in time
acquire a true feeling for art, and begin to crave for culture. Many
very beautiful things have, from time to time, been sent
there--pictures, collections, priceless vases; and I am sure that
those visitors who brought with them the sense of beauty and feeling
for artistic work which comes of culture, have carried away memories
and lessons which will last them for a lifetime. On the other hand, to
those who visit the Museum chiefly in order to see the people, it has
long been painfully evident that the folk who do not bring that sense
with them go away carrying nothing of it home with them. Nothing at
all. Those glass cases, those pictures, those big jugs, say no more to
the crowd than a cuneiform or a Hittite inscription. They have now, or
had quite recently, on exhibition a collection of turnips and carrots
beautifully modelled in wax: it is perhaps hoped that the
contemplation of these precious but homely things may carry the people
a step farther in the direction of culture than Sir Richard Wallace's
pictures could effect. In fact, the Bethnal Green Museum does no more
to educate the people than the British Museum. It is to them simply a
collection of curious things which is sometimes changed. It is cold
and dumb. It is merely a dull and unintelligent branch of a
department; and it will remain so, because whatever the collections
may be, a Museum can teach nothing, unless there is someone to expound
the meaning of the things. Why, even that wonderful Museum of the
House Beautiful could teach the pilgrims no lessons at all until the
Sisters explained to them what were the rare and curious things
preserved in their glass cases.
Is it possible that, by any persuasion, attraction, or teaching, the
walking men of this country can be induced to aim at those organized,
highly skilled, and disciplined forms of recreation which make up the
better pleasure of life? Will they consent, without hope of gain, to
give the labour, patience, and practice required of every man who
would become master of any art or accomplishment, or even any game?
There are men, one is happy to find, who think that it is not only
possible, but even easy, to effect this, and the thing is about to be
transferred from the region or theory to that of practice, by the
creation of the People's Palace.
The general scheme is already well known. Because the Mile End Road
runs through the most extensive portion of the most dismal city in the
world, the city which has been suffered to exist without recreation,
it has been chosen as the fitting site of the Palace. As regards
simple absence of joy, Hoxton, Haggerston, Pentonville, Clerkenwell,
or Kentish Town, might contend, and have a fair chance of success,
with any portion whatever of the East-end proper. But, then, around
Mile End lie Stepney, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, the Cambridge Road,
the Commercial Road, Bow, Stratford, Shadwell, Limehouse, Wapping, and
St. George's-in-the-East. Without doubt the real centre, the [Greek:
omphalos] of dreariness, is situated somewhere in the Mile End Road,
and it is to be hoped that the Palace may be placed upon the very
centre itself.
Let me say a few words as to what this Palace may and may not do. In
the first place, it can do nothing, absolutely nothing, to relieve the
great starvation and misery which lies all about London, but more
especially at the East-end. People who are out of work and starving do
not want amusement, not even of the highest kind; still less do they
want University extension. Therefore, as regards the Palace, let us
forget for a while the miserable condition of the very poor who live
in East London; we are concerned only with the well fed, those who are
in steady work, the respectable artisans and _petits commis_, the
artists in the hundred little industries which are carried on in the
East-end; those, in fact, who have already acquired some power of
enjoyment because they are separated by a sensible distance from their
hand-to-mouth brothers and sisters, and are pretty certain to-day that
they will have enough to eat to-morrow. It is for these, and such as
these, that the Palace will be established. It is to contain: (1)
class-rooms, where all kinds of study can be carried on; (2) concert
rooms; (3) conversation-rooms; (4) a gymnasium; (5) a library; and
lastly, a winter garden. In other words, it is to be an institution
which will recognise the fact, that for some of those who have to work
all day at, perhaps, uncongenial and tedious labour, the best form of
recreation may be study and intellectual effort; while for
others--that is to say, for the great majority--music, reading,
tobacco, and rest will be desired. Let us be under no illusions as to
the supposed thirst for knowledge. Those who desire to learn are even
in youth always a minority. How many men do we know, among our own
friends, who have ever set themselves to learn anything since they
left school? It is a great mistake to suppose that the working man,
any more than the merchant-man or the clerk-man, or the tradesman, is
ardently desirous of learning. But there will always be n few; and
especially there are the young who would fain, if they could, make a
ladder of learning, and so, as has ever been the goodly and godly
custom in this realm of England, mount unto higher things. The Palace
of the People would be incomplete indeed if it gave no assistance to
ambitious youths. Next to the classes in literature and science come
those in music and painting. There is no reason whatever why the
Palace should not include an academy of music, an academy of arts, and
an academy of acting, in a few months after its establishment it
should have its own choir, its own orchestra, its own concerts, its
own opera, and its own theatre, with a company formed of its own
_alumni_. And in a year or two it should have its own exhibition of
paintings, drawings, and sculpture. As regards the simpler amusements,
there must be rooms where the men can smoke, and others where the
girls and women can work, read, and talk; there must be a debating
society for questions, social and political, but especially the
former; there must be a dancing school, and a ball once every week,
all the year round; it should be possible to convert the great hall
into either theatre, concert-room, or ball-room; there must be a bar
for beer as well as for coffee, and at a price calculated so as to pay
just the bare expenses; there must be a library and writing-room, and
the winter garden must be a place where the women and children can
come in the daytime while the men are at work. One thing must be kept
out of the place: there must not be allowed to grow up in the minds
even of the most suspicious the least jealousy that religious
influences are at work; more than this, the institution must be
carefully watched to prevent the rise of such a suspicion; religious
controversy must be kept out of the debating-room, and even in the
conversation-rooms there ought to be power to exclude a man who makes
himself offensive by the exhibition and parade of his religious or
irreligious opinions.
As for the teaching of the classes, we must look for voluntary work
rather than to a great endowment. The history of the College in Great
Ormond Street shows how much may be done by unpaid labour, and I do
not think it too much to expect that the Palace of the People may be
started by unpaid teachers in every branch of science and art:
moreover, as regards science, history and language, the University
Extension Society will probably find the staff. There must be,
however, volunteers, women as well as men, to teach singing, music,
dancing, sewing, acting, speaking, drawing, painting, carving,
modelling, and many other things. This kind of help should only be
wanted at the outset, because, before long, all the art departments
ought to be conducted by ex-students who have become in their turn
teachers, they should be paid, but not on the West-end scale, from
fees--so that the schools may support themselves. Let us not _give_
more than is necessary; for every class and every course there should
be some kind of fee, though a liberal system of small scholarships
should encourage the students, and there should be the power of
remitting fees in certain cases. As for the difficulty of starting the
classes, I think that the assistance of Board School masters, foremen
of works, Sunday schools, the political clubs, and debating societies
should be invited; and that besides small scholarships, substantial
prizes of musical and mathematical instruments, books, artists'
materials, and so forth, should be offered, with the glory of public
exhibition and public performances. After the first year there should
be nothing exhibited in the Palace except work done in the classes,
and no performances of music or of plays should be given but by the
students themselves.
There has been going on in Philadelphia for the last two years an
experiment, conducted by Mr. Charles Leland, whose sagacious and
active mind is as pleased to be engaged upon things practical as upon
the construction of humorous poems. He has founded, and now conducts
personally, an academy for the teaching of the minor arts; he gets
shop girls, work girls, factory girls, boys and young men of all
classes together, and teaches them how to make things, pretty things,
artistic things. 'Nothing,' he writes to me, 'can describe the joy
which fills a poor girl's mind when she finds that she, too, possesses
and can exercise a real accomplishment.' He takes them as ignorant,
perhaps--but I have no means of comparing--as the London factory girl,
the girl of freedom, the girl with the fringe--and he shows them how
to do crewel-work, fretwork, brass work; how to carve in wood; how to
design; how to draw--he maintains that it is possible to teach nearly
every one to draw; how to make and ornament leather work, boxes,
rolls, and all kinds of pretty things in leather. What has been done
in Philadelphia amounts, in fact, to this: that one man who loves his
brother man is bringing purpose, brightness, and hope into thousands
of lives previously made dismal by hard and monotonous work; he has
put new and higher thoughts into their heads; he has introduced the
discipline of methodical training; he has awakened in them the sense
of beauty. Such a man is nothing less than a benefactor to humanity.
Let us follow his example in the Palace of the People.
I venture, further, to express my strong conviction that the success
of the Palace will depend entirely upon its being governed, within
limits at first, but these limits constantly broadening, by the people
themselves. If they think the Palace is a trap to catch them, and make
them sober, good, religious and temperate, there will be an end. In
the first place, therefore, there must be a real element of the
working man upon the council; there must be real working men on every
sub-committee or branch; the students must be wholly recruited from
the working classes; and gradually the council must be elected by the
people who use the Palace. Fortunately, there would be no difficulty
at the outset in introducing this element, because the great factories
and breweries in the neighbourhood might be asked each to elect one or
more representatives to sit upon the council of the new University. It
'goes without saying' that the police work, the maintenance of order,
the out-kicking of offenders, must be also entirely managed by a
voluntary corps of efficient working men. Rows there will undoubtedly
be, since we are all of us, even the working man, human; but there
need be no scandals.
I must not go on, though there is so much to be said. I see before us
in the immediate future a vast University whose home is in the Mile
End Road; but it has affiliated colleges in all the suburbs, so that
even poor, dismal, uncared-for Hoxton shall no longer be neglected;
the graduates of this University are the men and women whose lives,
now unlovely and dismal, shall be made beautiful for them by their
studies, and their heavy eyes uplifted to meet the sunlight; the
subjects or examination shall be, first, the arts of every kind: so
that unless a man have neither eyes to see nor hand to work with, he
may here find something or other which he may learn to do; and next,
the games, sports, and amusements with which we cheat the weariness of
leisure and court the joy of exercising brain and wit and strength.
From the crowded class-rooms I hear already the busy hum of those who
learn and those who teach. Outside, in the street, are those--a vast
multitude to be sure--who are too lazy and too sluggish of brain to
learn anything: but these, too, will flock into the Palace presently
to sit, talk, and argue in the smoking-rooms; to read in the library;
to see the students' pictures upon the walls; to listen to the
students' orchestra, discoursing such music as they have never dreamed
of before; to look on while His Majesty's Servants of the People's
Palace perform a play, and to hear the bright-eyed girls sing
madrigals.
[1884.]
THE ASSOCIATED LIFE. [The substance of this paper was delivered as the
presidential speech at the opening of the Hoxton Library and
Institute.]
It has seemed to me--for reasons which I hope to make clear to
you--that the present occasion, the opening of our newly-acquired
Place of Gathering, is one on which something may be said upon the
subject of the Associated Life--that is to say, on the union, or
combination of men, or of men and women, in order to effect by
collective action objects--objects worthy of effort--impossible for
the individual to attempt.
It would seem at first sight that combination should be the very
simplest thing in the world. It is self-evident that those who want
anything have a much better chance of getting it if they join together
in order to demand it, or to work for it. Like one or two other simple
laws of human nature, this, though the simplest, is the hardest to get
people to understand and to accept. Nothing is so difficult as to
persuade people to trust each other, even to the extent of standing
together and sticking together and working together in order to get
what they want.
The first association of men was forced upon them for protection, I
wonder how many ages--hundreds of thousands of years--it took to teach
men to join together in order to protect themselves against
starvation, wild beasts, and each other. The necessity of
self-preservation first made men associate, and changed hunters into
soldiers, and turned the whole world into a camp. It was war, which
brought men together; it was war which taught men the necessity of
order, discipline, and obedience; without the necessity for fighting,
without the military spirit, no association at all would now be
possible. A vast number of men practically use modern safety at this
day for the purpose of being fighters, every man against his
neighbour. Just as no one would, even now, do any work but for the
necessity of finding food for himself and his family, so no one would
ever have begun to stand side by side with his neighbour but for the
absolute certainty that he would be killed if he did not.