out in the morning to work that seldom is interesting, that he {170}
practically never cares to do only that he must get money enough to
support himself and his family, and that requires the frequent
repetition of routine movements until he is weary, body and soul. He
must work or starve. He has very little interest in it as a rule,
often none at all, and sometimes he is thoroughly disgusted with it.
He must earn money enough to get bread to live to-day so that he shall
be able to go and work again tomorrow. And so the humdrum round from
day to day with nothing to relieve the prospect until the darkness
comes when no man can work. As to dreams of accomplishment or pleasure
in his work, as the artist has, there is practically none. He needs
must go on, and that is all about it. Is it any wonder that this
breeds discontent?
Happy is the man who has found his work. There is only one happiness
in this little life of ours and that consists in having work to do
that one cares to do, and the chance to do it in such order and with
such rewards as make life reasonably pleasant, satisfying from the
material side. There are no pleasures in life equal to the joy of the
worker in his work when he cares for it. Pleasures are at most but
passing incidents. The work is what counts. These workmen of the
Middle Ages taught in the technical schools of that olden time had
chances for happiness, chances that were well taken, such as perhaps
no other generation of workmen could have.
Of course it may be said that, after all, there {171} were only
opportunities for a few to work at the great architectural monuments
of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In a sense this is true,
but it must not be forgotten that without modern mechanical means and
with the slow, patient laborious effort required to raise these huge
edifices, much time and many men were required. Besides the cathedrals
and the abbeys there were many private castles and town halls, and
then in many places the homes of the gilds themselves, some of which,
as, for instance, the famous hall of the clothmakers at Ypres, are
among the most beautiful monuments of the architecture of that period.
In everything, however, the workmen had a chance to do beautiful work.
In the textile industries this is the time when some of the most
beautiful cloth ever made was invented and brought to perfection.
Linen was woven with wonderful skill, satin was invented and brought
to perfection, silk brocades of marvellous designs of many kinds were
made, threads of gold and silver were introduced into the textures,
wonderfully fine effects were studied out and applied in the
industries, and just as in the decorative arts so in the arts of
cloth-weaving and of many other forms of human endeavor, there was an
artistic craftsmanship such as we have lost sight of to a great extent
in our age of machinery.
The Irish poet, Yeats, in bidding a group of American friends good-bye
some five years ago, said that we had many opportunities for culture
{172} in life here in America, but we must be careful to take them
fully and not deceive ourselves with counterfeits, or we would surely
miss something of the precious privilege and development that might be
ours. Among other things he said, that we must not forget "that until
the very utensils in the kitchen are useful as well as beautiful no
nation can think of itself as really cultured." If men and women can
bear without constraint to handle things that are merely useful
without beauty in them, there is something seriously lacking in their
culture. Whatever is merely useful is hideous. Nature never made
anything that was merely useful in all the world's history. The things
of nature around us are all wonderful utilities and yet charmingly
beautiful. The pretty flowers are seed envelopes meant to attract
birds and insects, so that the seeds may be scattered. The beautiful
fruits are other seed envelopes meant to attract man and the animals,
so that the seeds may be carried far and wide. The leaves of trees are
eminently useful as lungs and stomach and yet are beautiful and have a
wondrous variety and a charm all their own.
This precious lesson of nature they seem to have understood well in
the Middle Ages and applied it with marvellous perfection. It has
often been called to attention that portions of Gothic edifices in
dark corners, out of the sight of the ordinary visitor, are just as
beautifully decorated in their own way as those which are {173}
especially on exhibition. The gravestones in their churches, though
meant to be trodden under foot and often covered by the dirt from the
shoes of passersby, yet had bronze ornaments that are so beautiful
that in the modern time artists take rubbings of them so as to carry
the designs away with them. While every portion of the church is
beautiful, the same thing was true in the castles and to a great
extent in their own homes. The furniture of that time, even in the
houses of smaller tradesmen, was beautiful in its simplicity, its
solidity, its charm of line, and then, above all, its absolute
rejection of all pretence of seeming to be anything other than it was.
Their drinking cups were beautiful, their domestic utensils of various
kinds had charming lines and, though they did not have as many as we
have in the modern time, what they had were so beautiful that now we
find them on exhibition in museums, and we are beginning to imitate
them in order that the wealthy may have as bric-a-brac ornaments in
their houses, the utensils which were in ordinary use in the homes of
the middle classes of the thirteenth century.
There was a satisfaction for the workman in making all these beauteous
things. He knew, as a rule, for whom they were to be made. He knew
where they were to be placed. He often saw his handiwork afterwards.
His reputation depended on it. There was a happiness then in doing it
well, and in taking his time to it, that surpasses {174} any idle
pleasure away from his work, as happiness always surpasses pleasure.
There was the joy of the doing, and joys we are coming to appreciate
mean ever so much more than pleasures. What we want at the present
time are more joys and less pleasures. How many men and women were
blessed in that time because they had found their work. That is the
only real happiness in life. How profusely it was scattered over the
mediaeval world.
Almost nothing that was made was of a character that could be done by
mere routine. A man had to occupy both mind and body in the making of
the textiles, of the kitchen utensils, of the furniture, of the
various metal utensils required for houses, and so for nearly
everything else. It is the workman who has mere routine work that has
opportunity to think about other things and brood over his lot and
grow more and more dissatisfied. It is the man who does not have to
give his mind to what he is doing, but who while his body grows more
and more tired accomplishing a limited set of constantly repeated
movements, may allow his mind to ponder gloomily over his condition,
compare it with that of others and grow envious, who has the worst
possible seeds of discontent in his occupation.
Men who did this sort of work that required active mental attention,
learned to think for themselves. When they had moments of leisure, not
having newspapers and superficial shallow books {175} to waste their
time on, they did some thinking. Any one who has had a little intimate
contact with the old-fashioned artisans, the shoemakers, the
harnessmakers, the cabinetmakers who work at benches, the woodcarvers,
men who have real trades, knows how often one finds among them a deep,
serious thinker with regard to the problems of life around. They do
not drink in other people's opinions and then think that they are
thinking, because they are able to repeat some formulas of words. Such
men are not easily led. They make good jurymen, they have logic; above
all, they are thoughtful. There must have been much of this in the old
time among the handicraftsmen of the Middle Ages. It is doubtless to
this that we owe the fact that these men were gradually organized in
many wonderful ways into the basic democracy on which the liberties of
the English-speaking people of the world are founded. We shall have
much more to say of this in treating of the wonderful fraternal
organizations, with solutions for nearly every problem of social need,
which these men succeeded in working out for themselves in times
considered to have been benighted.
There was another phase of the education of these members of the gilds
that is even more interesting because it trenches particularly on the
intellectual side of life, the provision of entertainment and solves
an important social problem. This was the organization of dramatic
{176} performances for the people in which the members of the gilds
took part. The stories of the Old Testament and of the New, and of the
lives of the Saints, and of various incidents connected with Church
history, were worked up into plays and were presented in the various
cities. We have the remains of many cycles of these plays. They
represent the beginnings of our modern dramatic literature. They were
simple and very naive, but they were interesting and they concerned
some of the deepest and most beautiful thoughts with which man has
ever been concerned. The members of the gilds and their families took
part in them. The principal sets of plays were given in the springtime
at the various festivals of the Church, so frequent then. Most of the
spare time from Christmas on, especially the long hours of the winter
evenings, were occupied in preparations of various kinds for these
spring dramatic performances. It is impossible to conceive of anything
more likely to give people innocent and joyful yet absorbing
occupations of mind than these preparations.
Some of the young men and women were chosen as the actors and had to
learn their parts and be rehearsing them. Choruses had to be trained,
costumes had to be made, some scenery had to be arranged, everything
was done by the members of the particular gild for each special
portion of the cycle of the play assigned to them. Garments had
actually to be manufactured out of the wool, {177} the dyeing of them
had to be managed, spangles had to be made for them, there must have
been busy occupation of the most interesting kind for many hands. Of
course it is easy to say that these naive productions could not have
meant very much for the people. Any one who thinks so, however, has
had no experience with private theatricals, and above all has never
had the opportunity to see how much they mean for the occupation of
young folks' minds and the keeping of them out of mischief during the
winter months when they are much indoors. When the Jesuits founded
their great schools in Europe they laid it down as one of the rules of
the institute to be observed in all their schools, that plays in
certain number should be given every year, partly for the sake of the
educational effect of such occupation with dramatic literature, but
mainly because of the interest aroused by them and the occupation of
mind for young folks which they involve.
As to how much they may mean, perhaps the best way for those of our
day to realize it is to take the example of Oberammergau with its
great Passion Play still given. Here we have a typical instance of a
Passion play of the olden time maintaining itself. The preparations
for it occupy the villagers in their mountain home not for months
only, but for years before it is given. It represents the centre of
the village life, is the main portion of its activities. The place of
a {178} family with regard to the play constitutes its position in the
village aristocracy. Something of this must have been true in the
gilds of the Middle Ages in these dramatic performances. Just as at
Oberammergau nearly every one of the villagers has something to do or
is in some way connected with the preparation of the play, so most of
the members of the particular gilds and probably their families had
some connection with their plays. The children had their interest and
curiosity aroused and were allowed to help in their measure, and then
when the glorious day of the performance came, there must have been
joy in the hearts of all and rejoicing over its success. This is the
sort of occupation of mind that we would like to be able to provide
for our people in the cities and towns, but circumstances are such
that we cannot.
Those who would think that these old Passion and mystery plays meant
very little for the people who did not take part in them and, above
all, very little for the spectators, in an educational way, forget
entirely that this side of the work of the old plays can also be
studied at Oberammergau. This little town of 1,400 inhabitants
occupies itself for years to such good effect that, when the
performances are given crowds flock from all over the world to witness
them. When I was there in 1900 I think that I saw the most
cosmopolitan gathering that I had ever been in, though I have been to
several International {179} Medical Congresses. There were Russians
and Poles, and Scandinavians and Americans and Australians, and there
stayed in the house with us a little party from Buenos Ayres, and our
seat companions in the train were English, who had been born in India,
and they pointed out to us some South Africans who had come to see the
Passion Play. This village of 1,400 inhabitants succeeds in producing
actors who are capable of arousing thus the interest of the world, and
they have artistic taste enough to mount it well, and they manage
their performances in thoroughly dignified fashion, and yet in many
ways they have the simplicity and, above all, the dear old simple
faith of the mediaeval people from whom they come. This is the best
possible evidence that we could have of the place of the old plays in
the life of the people.
We have another form of evidence that is extremely interesting. Out of
these old mystery plays, dramas of the Nativity and of the Passion
with the introductions and interludes to these central facts of
creation, there developed first the morality plays and then the drama
of the modern time. Twice in the history of the world, each time quite
independent of the other, the drama has originated anew out of
religious ceremonials. In old Greece this is the origin of the drama;
in the Middle Ages exactly the same thing happened. Nor was this
origin unworthy in any way of the great development that came. Some of
the old {180} mystery plays were written with wonderful dramatic
insight and with a capacity to bring out dramatic moments that is very
admirable. As for the morality plays we have had one of them repeated
to us in recent years, "Everyman," and well it has served to show how
able was the genius of these old dramatic writers. People of the
modern sordid time listened for two hours enraptured and then went
away, paying the tribute of silence to this wonderful arrangement of
the ideas connected with such a familiar theme as the four last things
to be remembered--death, judgment, heaven and hell. Fine as is
"Everyman," there are some critics who think the "Castle of
Perseverance," written about the same time, the latter part of the
fifteenth century, an even greater play.
The most important feature of this work in dramatics of the old gilds
was not the entertainment, though with what we know of how low
entertainment can sink and how much it can mean for degradation,
surely that would be sufficient, but the fact that all of the workmen
and their families in the towns were occupied with the high thoughts
and the beautiful phrases and the uplifting motives and the deep
significance of the Bible stories. These are so simple that no one
could fail to understand. They are written so close to the heart of
human nature that even the simplest child can appreciate their
meaning. They are full of the most precious lessons, yet without {181}
any of that moralizing that is often so sterile and so characteristic
of what we call mere preaching. All the townspeople were occupied for
months beforehand with these stories. They got ever closer and closer
to the heart of the mystery in them. They got closer thus to the heart
of the mystery of life. They were made to feel the presence of the
Creator and of Providence while occupying themselves with thoughts
that are the essence of deepest poetry. What would one not give to be
able to occupy a great number of people, for many hours every winter,
with such thoughts, not alone for their moral effect but their real
educational value. They did not add useless information to useless
information, but they did bring development of mind and, above all,
heart. In my book "The Thirteenth the Greatest of Centuries,"
[Footnote 14] I tell the story of how the various trades gilds in the
towns divided these phases of the mystery plays among themselves.
Every one had an opportunity to do something. They were the tanners
and the plasterers, the cardmakers and the fullers, the coopers, the
armorers, the gaunters and glovers, the shipwrights, the pessners,
fishmongers and mariners, the parchment-makers and bookbinders, the
hosiers, the spicers, the pewterers and founders, the tylers and
smiths, the chandlers, the orfevers, the goldsmiths, the goldbeaters,
the money-makers, and then many other trades whose names sound curious
to us of {182} the modern time. The bowyers or makers of bows; the
fletchers or arrow featherers; the hay-resters or workers in
horsehair, the bowlers or bowlmakers, the feystours, makers of
saddle-trees; the verrours, glaciers; the dubbers, refurbishers of
clothes; the lumniners or illuminators, the scriveners or public
writers; the drapers, the mercers; the lorymers or bridle-makers; the
spurriers, makers of spurs; the cordwaners; the bladesmiths; the
curriers; the scalers, and many others, all had their chances to take
part in these old plays.
[Footnote 14: Catholic Summer School Press, New York, 1907.]
They were not being entertained, but were themselves active agents in
the doing of things for themselves and for others. This is what brings
real contentment with it. Superficial entertainment that occupies the
surface of the mind for the moment means very little for real
recreation of mind. What men need is to have something that makes them
think along lines different to those in which they are engaged in
their daily work. This gives real rest. The blood gets away from parts
of the brain where it has been all day, flows to new parts, and
recreation is the result. Such entertainment, however, must occupy the
very centre of interest for the moment and not be something seen in
passing and then forgotten. The modern psychotherapeutist would say,
that no better amusement than this could possibly be obtained since it
brought real diversion of mind. Above all, we of the modern time who
know how vicious, how immoral in its tendencies, how {183} suggestive
of all that is evil, how familiarizing with what is worst in men until
familiarity begets contempt, commercial entertainment in the shape of
dramatics, so-called at least, may be, cannot help but admire and envy
and would emulate, if we could, this fine solution of a very pressing
social problem that the gilds found in an educational feature that is
of surpassing value.
There are three post-graduate courses in modern life that are quite
beyond the control of our educational authorities, though we talk much
of our interest and our accomplishments in education. These three have
more influence over the people than all of our popular education. They
are the newspaper, the library and the theatre. Some of us who know
what the library is doing are not at all satisfied with it. We are
spending an immense amount of money mainly to furnish the cheapest
kind of mere superficial amusement to the people of our cities. In so
doing we are probably hurting their power of concentration of mind
instead of helping it, and it is this concentration of mind that is
the best fruit of education. This is, however, another story. Of the
newspaper, as we now have it, the less said the better. It is bringing
our young people particularly into intimate contact with many of the
vicious and brutalizing things of life, the sex crimes, brutal murders
and prize-fights, so that uplift and refinement almost become
impossible. As for the theatre, no one now thinks of it as {184}
educationally valuable. Our plays are such superficial presentations
of the life around us that once they have had their run no one thinks
of reviving them. This is the better side of the theatre. The worst
side is absolutely in the hands of the powers of evil and is
confessedly growing worse all the time.
Besides these indirect educational features the gilds encouraged
certain formal educational institutions that are of great interest,
and that have been misunderstood for several centuries until recent
years. In many places they maintained grammar schools and these
grammar schools were eminently successful in helping to make scholars
of such of the sons of the members of the gilds as wanted to lift
themselves above their trades into the intellectual life. We know more
about the grammar school at Stratford-on-Avon than of any of the
others. The reason for this is that we have been interested in the
antiquities of Shakespeare's town and the conditions which obtained in
it, before as well as during his lifetime. The Gild of the Holy Cross
of Stratford maintained a grammar school in which many pupils were
educated. That this was not a singular feature of gild work is evident
from what we know of many other gilds. These gild schools were
suppressed in the reformation time and then later had to be replaced
by the so-called Edward VI grammar schools, in one of which it is
usually said that Shakespeare was educated. As the English {185}
historian Gairdner declared not long since in his "History of the
Pre-Reformation Times in England," Edward has obtained a reputation
for foundations in charity and in education that he by no means
deserved. The schools founded by him particularly were nothing more
than re-establishments of popular schools of the olden time whose
endowment had been confiscated. The new foundations were makeshifts to
appease popular clamor.
The old gilds did not believe in devoting all the early years of
children to mere book-learning. Some few with special aptitudes for
this were provided with opportunities. The rest were educated in
various ways at home until their apprenticeship to a trade began, and
then their real education commenced. Our own experience with education
in the early years from six to eight or nine is not particularly
favorable. Children who enter school a little later than the legal age
graduate sooner and with even higher marks than those who begin at the
age of six. This has been shown by statistics in England in many
cities. What is learned with so much fuss and worry and bother for the
children and the teachers from six to eight, is rapidly picked up in a
few months at the age of eight or nine, and then is better
assimilated. The grammar schools of the gilds took the children about
the age of nine or ten and then gave them education in letters. That
education, by the way, began at six in the morning and, {186} with two
hours of intervals, continued until four in the afternoon. They
believed in the eight-hour day for children, but they began it good
and early so that artificial light might not constitute a problem.