As We Are and As We May Be - Walter Besant (most recommended books txt) 📗

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 employes.

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,