The Craftsman - 1902 - 07 - July

7/27/2019 The Craftsman - 1902 - 07 - July

1/68

www.historicalworks.com


2/68

THE CRAFTSMANVol. II. No. 4

CONTENTS FOR JULY, MDCCCCII.I. Prince Kropotkins Economic Arguments, &ene Sargmt

II. The Beautifying of Our Cities, - Frederick S. LambIII. Art in Industries and the Outlook for the Art

Student, - - - - Caryl ColemanIV, The Art School, Its Relation to the Arts andCrafts, - - - - Walter S. PerryV, Some Impressions of LArt Nouveau, - -

josepbine C. Locke

ANNOUNCEMENT&esB

PRICE-The subscription price is two dollars the year, payable in ad-vance. Twenty cents the copy. Postage is prepaid on all sub-scriptions in the United States and Canada.

REMITTANCES-Remittances may be made by Post Office MoneyOr&r, Express Order, or Postage Stamps.

CHANGE OF ADDRESS-If a change of address is desired, both theold and the new address should be given ; the notice of the changeto reach this office not later than the fifteenth of the month if itis to affect the succeeding issue. The publishers can not be rc-sponsiblc for copies lost through failure to notify them of suchchanges.

PUBLISHED BY THE UNITED CRAFTSEASTWOOD. N. Y.

Copyright. 1902 br Gustave StichlerEnter-d rt thr Poatoffics Eastwood. N. Y.. as Second Class M-i1 Matte



3/68

FOREWORDT HE Craftsman of the current month has been com-piled with especial reference to the season when our&Ieges and schools send out their graduates to measuretheory with practice and to meet the rude issues of life.These young graduates are, it can not be doubted, thetrustees of the pros erity of our nation. It is therefore ofthe first necessity tKa both they and the public be im-pressed with the seriousness of the work which awaitsthem; that they be encouraged to meet and not avoidthose economic and social questions which grow graverand more insistent with every passing year; above allthat they be made to acknowledge the dignity of laborand the uses of art in the conduct of life.To this end the July number ofThe Craftsman offers first on its table of contents aresume of certain ar uments advanced by the scientificRussian economist, 5 rince Kropotkin, who urges thatpublic instruction be modified and reformed until it shalltend equally to develop the intellect and to train the hand.The article also touches upon the prophecy of this authori-tative old-world writer regarding the future of industrial-ism and the changes which are imminent in both thetheory and the practice of a riculture.+ he remaining papers containedin the current number were read at the meeting of theEastern Art Teachers Association, held in New York,April 25 and 26 of the present year. They are of wideand differing interests, earnest, practical, and written withthe desire of advancing the cause of the people in all thatmakes for enlightenment and real prosperity.

The first of these papers callsfor especial mention. Its author is Mr. Frederick S.Lamb, secretary of the Municipal Art Society of NewYork. It advocates the beautifying of our cities, as ameans of popular education, and as a moralizing agency.The terse style of the writer is rich in suggestiveness andthe plea for an elevated municipal art appeals to the noblermore unselfish element of that love of splendor which is



4/68

iv THE CRAFTSMAN

one of the strongest of human instincts. Mr. Lambs ar-ticle should gain an extended hearin alike among en-gineers, civic officers and citizens,-in act ,among alI whoconceive of the ideal city as similar to the city of the Mid-dle Ages : a strong, highly developed and beneficent organ-ism sustaining its inhabitants by ministering to theirhonor, their corporate spirit and their aesthetic sense.Mr. CaryI Colemans paperupon Art in the Industries and the Outlook for the ArtStudent commands the respect due to authority and ex-

As an artist and an inheritor of artistic tradi-roZyZ* the president of a company devoted to one of thehighest forms of decorative art, he is justified in his criti-cisms, and entitled to attention in all that he may suggestfor the development of art-industries and the training ofthe student designer and craftsman.The third paper-that of Mr.Walter S. Perry of the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn-definesand emphasizes the aim of the most advanced educatorsof our times. He indicates with convincing power theobject and mission of the art school, and its relation to thearts and crafts.grou The fifth and last paper of thetime y interest, as treating of a recent art-movement muchby Miss Josephine C. Locke of Chicago, is oftoo important to be slighted, but whose tendencies are tobe questioned, since they are subversive and revolutionary.The educative idea thus gov-erning the current issue of The Craftsman will be con-tinued in the August number, in which there will beoffered a series of articles upon Simplicity, as an ele-ment necessary to a highly civilized form of society.



5/68

Oaken Chest of Dr awers, by the U ni ted Cr afts


6/68


7/68


8/68

model for Flag M ast to be placed i n front of t he Cit y Hal l, NewYork. Designed by Charl es A . Lopez, Sculpt or. Pri ze i n com-pet it i on held by t he municipal Art Societ y.


9/68

PRINCE KROPOTKINS ECONOMICARGUMENTS D BY IRENE SARGENTA LTHOUGH the thought of this Russian writer isfamiliar to American students of science and notunknown to the legions of readers of current literatureexisting among us, his statements are of sufficient im-portance to bear repetition and comment. He deserves tobe heard and understood by all who desire to further thereal education, progress and prosperity of our people. Hiswords upon the economy of energy required for the satis-faction of human needs merit the closest attention fromparents who are now meeting the perplexing problem asto how the abilities of their children shall best be em-ployed; nor should these same words interest to a lessdegree the youth who are advancing to receive the burdenof the worlds work. Prince Kropotkins series ofessays, now published in book form, under the titleFields, Factories and Workshops, were, in the main,previously printed in The Nineteenth Century and TheForum; but as in our lar e country a few mediums ofinformation cannot accomp ish all necessary and desirableresults, a brief review of the same work will not here besuperfluous. The essays in uestion are a discussion ofthe advantages which civilize B societies could derive froma combination of industrial pursuits with scientific agri-culture, and of brain work with manual labor.The importance of such a com-bination, Prince Kropotkin says in his preface, was recog-nised a half century ago by certain investigators who gavethe proposed system various names, such as harmonizedlabor, or integral education, and these first advocatesof the fertile union of brain and hand pleaded that thegreatest sum total of well bein can be obtained when avariety of agricultural, indust rla?, and intellectual pursuitsare combined in each community ; that individual manshows at his best when he is in position to appl his va-ried capacities to several pursuits in the farm, tz e work-



10/68

158 THE CRAFTSMAN

shop, the factory, the study or the studio, instead of beingriveted for life to one of these pursuits only.When viewed from the middleof the nineteenth century such a combination could onlybe a remote possibility and desideratum, but the Russianauthor regards the wonderful simplification of the technicalprocesses in both industry and agriculture as a distinctand rapid tendency toward a synthesis of human activities.The theories of Prince Kropot-kin are contained in erm in the statement that his eco-nomic ideal is one fg a nation supplying its own wants,both as to manufactured articles and as to foodstuffs, thelatter to be obtained by a scientific tilling and care of theland which he names intensive culture. His entiresystem is therefore one of decentralization, of home-pro-ducers and home-consumers ; one which he claims woulddo away alike with the waste of the earths resources andthe waste of time and human energies,At the beginning of his essayupon the decentralization of industries, the Russian authorgives a gloomy though graphic description of the present division of labor. He pictures the modern ideal of aworkman as a man or a woman, a girl or a boy, withoutthe knowledge of any handicraft, without conception ofthe industry in which he or she is employed; who isonly capable of making all day long and for a lifetime thesame infinitesimal part of something; who from the ageof thirteen to that of sixty pushes the coal cart at a givenspot of the mine, or makes the spring of a pen-knife, or theeighteenth part of a pin ; who is a servant to some machineof a given description, having no idea how and why themachine performs its rhythmical movements.Nor would certain economistsand political men have this process of specialization stophere. They would divide entire humanity into nationalworkshops or producing centers, the outputs of whichhave been determined by nature or historical events. As



11/68

PRINCE RROPOTRINS ECONOMICS 159for instance, according to their theories, the destiny ofEngbnd is to rovide the world-market with cottons,irongoods and coa P that of Belgium to supply woolen fabrics;that of Hungary and Russia to produce corn to feed themanufacturing countries. This plan having been partiallycarried into effect, has proven to be discordant with thetendencies of human life. Individuals and nations alikerefuse to be specialized. The individual, as Plato affirmedtwenty-five centuries a

Ho, is the epitome of the State; each

being an aggregate o tastes and inclinations, of wantsand resources, of capacities and inventive powers. Thesame is true of nature herself, for varie z is her chiefcharacteristic : a variety manifest in so , climate andtopography which demands a diversity of occupations,-the integration, rather than the specialization of humancapacities. Agriculture, affirms Prince Kropotkin, callsmanufactures into existence, manufactures support agri-culture, and the two activities in combination, or inte-gration, produce the most desirable results. He empha-sizes the truth apparent to all thinkers, that technicalknowledge has become international and can no longerbe concealed : which means that each nation today mayapply the whole variety of her energies to the entire ran eof industrial and agricultural pursuits. Once again, tEeauthor refers to the division of labor as a past stage in theevolution of humanity; proclaiming what he names in-tegration as the state toward which the world is tending :a society in which each individual shall be a producer ofboth manual and intellectual work; in which each aggre-gation of individuals, large enou h to dispose of a certainvariety of natural resources, shaH produce and itself con-sume the greater part of its own agricultural and manu-factured products. As a picture of the present, hequotes from the description of international traffic venby the enthusiastic Neumann Spallart, whom he ca IE the



12/68

160 THE CRAFTSMAN

statistician and poet of the world-market: Why shallwe grow corn, rear oxen and sheep, cultivate orchards,go through the painful work of the laborer and the farmer,and anxiously watch the sky in fear of a bad crop, whenwe can get, with much less pain, mountains of corn fromIndia, America, Hungary or Russia, meat from NewZealand, vegetables from the Azores, apples from Canada,grapes from Malaga, exclaim the West Europeans.Already now they say, our food consists, even inmodest households, of produce gathered from all over theglobe. Our cloth is made of fibres grown and woolsheared in all arts of the world.tribute their sK, All races of men con-re in supplying us with our staple foodand luxuries, with plain clothing and expensive fabrics,while we are sending them in exchange the results of ourhigher intelligence, our technical knowledge, our powerfulindustrial and commercial organizing capacities. Is it nota$ rand sight, this busy and intricate exchange of producea over the earth, which has suddenly grown up withina few years ? The comments of Prince Kropotkin upon this quoted passage are most thou htful andinteresting. H e c Ia ms that economists and po iticians ingeneral have mistaken a temporary sta e in the evolutionof society for a permanent state; that ta e world-wide ex-isting specialization and division of labor is but a sin Iephase in the consecutive development of nations. + osustain his point he draws illustrations from modernEuropean history. The Napoleonic wars between Eng-land and France had, he insists, a foundation much deeperthan political causes. They were economic,wars for the supremacy of the world market. They wereThe victorin the contest, Great Britain, was favored by an era ofinvention and began to produce in great quantities bothimproved machinery and manufactured articles. In lessthan seventy years, says our writer,-from 18 10 to 1878,-the output of coal grew from 10,000,000 to 133,000,OOO



13/68

PRINCE KROPOTKINS ECONOMICS 161

tons; and the exports of manufactured oods from an in-significant figure to 200,000,000 poun s. The tonnageTof the commercial fleet was nearly trebled, and fifteenthousand miles of railways were built,These results were obtained bytyranny and torture exercised over the manufacturingpeople. Meanwhile, capital accumulated in the hands ofthe privileged classes to the degree that today a personconsidered rich on the continent appears only as oneof modest means in the British Isles, Industrial produc-tion was thus monopolized for nearly a half-century byEngland, at the end of which France, having repaired theinjuries to her industries inflicted by the Great Revolution,reasserted herself in the world-trade, becoming strongerand stronger, until she now shows a marked tendencytoward becoming a self-supporting country, relying upona wealthy home market for the sale of her manufacturedarticles, Germany, according to our au-thor, has followed the initiative of France : havin reor-anized her industries since the war of 1870, andL L vinggun her new manufactures at the point at which Man-chester arrived only after a century of costly experiment.And thus the march of indus-trial progress continues to the eastward, Russia givingcertain promise that while remaining an agriculturalcountry, she will expand her industrial powers to the ex-tent of producing in manufactures all that she needs. Andthis desirable result will be obtained partly through hernatural resources, and partly through the efforts of herlaborious and intelligent youth, who even now are firmadvocates and exponents of technical education, of work-manship combined with science.The lesson drawn from theseeconomic changes and progress, from this consecutive de-velo ment of nations, is that the two industrial pioneers,Eng %nd and France, instead of ignoring facts, should



14/68

162 THE CRAFTSMAN

seek a new direction for their creativer&3

enius;should utilize both land and

that theyindust power to securewell-being to the entire nation and not to the privilegedfew. The tendency toward emanci-pation from foreign guardianship is everywhere apparent,Italy-in the words of a native economist, a country hav-ing neither fuel nor minerals of her own-has developed,within a few years, a notable metallurgical industry.Brazil, doomed by the old economists, to export raw cot-

ton, has recently developed her manufactures to the degreeof producin cotton stuffs by millions of yards annually,and in qua ty equal to the imported article. India alsobids fair to produce her own cotton textiles : even nowowning, according to the statements of the German cham-bers of commerce, spinnin mills almost rivaling those ofthe German Empire, an f possessing native workmen,whose natural talent is equaled alone by the operatives ofLancashire, Japan has also entered the list of manufact-urin a nations, with China soon to follow, according to theprop ecy of Prince Kropotkin, who builds his statementsupon figures rather than fancies. In closing his argu-ment he gives utterance to words which deserve to bequoted, saying : Industries of all kinds decentralize andare scattered all over the globe; and everywhere a variet ,an integrated varie

?i, of trades grows, instead of rpecia i-zation, Such are twhich we live. e prominent features of the times inEach nation becomes *h its turn a manu-fact&n

nation o Europe, as well as the United States, and evennation; and the time is not far off when each

the most backward nations of Asia and America, willthemselves manufacture nearly everything of which theystand in need. Wars and several accidental causes maycheck for some time the scattering of industries : the willnot stop it ; it is unavoidable. As soon as any in cr stryhas taken firm root, it calls into existence hundreds ofother trades. . . . This fact is so well understood



15/68

PRINCE KROPOTRINS ECONOMICS 163

that colonization : that is, means to provide markets formanufactured goods-has become the distinctive featureof the last twenty years, . . . But colonies will nothelp. There is not a second India in the world, and theold conditions will be repeated no more. Nay, some ofthe British colonies already threaten to become seriouscompetitors of their mother country ; others, like Australia,will not fail to follow the same lines. .gress is in another direction. But proIt is in prod&mg for homeuse, . . ;spreadin

Under the present conditions of labor, theof industries over new fields is accompanied byhorrible acts of pitiless oppression, massacre of children,pauperism, and insecurity of life. The Russian FabricsInspectors Reports, the Reports of the PIauen Handels-kammer, and the Italian inquests are full of the samerevelations as the Reports of the Parliamentary Commis-sions of 1840 to 1842, or the modern revelations with re-gard to the sweating system at White Chapel andGIas ow, and London pauperism. The Capital and Laborprob em is thus universalised; but, at the same time, it isalso simplified. To return to a state of affairs where cornis grown and manufactured goods are fabricated for theuse of those very persons who grow and produce them,-such will be, no doubt, the problem to be solved duringthe next coming years of European history.One of the steps or processes ofthis problem Prince Kropotkin discusses under the title of The Possibilities of Agriculture. He begins by recall-in the teachings of the older school of economists and

po iticians, that overpopulated territories must import food;and export manufactured articles ; also, that even if itwere possible to grow in such regions all the food neces-sary for their inhabitants, there would be no advanta e indoing this, since foodstuffs are obtained most cheaply ZIomthose countries which are destined by nature to producethem. To refute the first point, Prince Kropotkin ad-duces the case of Great Britain, which at present yields



16/68

164 THE CRAFTSMAN

food for one-third only of its inhabitants, and possesses aportionfz of onIy one acre of cultivatable Iand to each in-bitant, an acreage most insufficient under the presentsystem of agriculture, But hope lies even in these figures ;for statistics prove that while in 1853-60 the soiI of Britainnourished one inhabitant upon every two acres cultivated,three acres were re uired for the same work toward theend of the nineteent%cIine of agriculture. century : a fact which argues the de-And such de&e has been inevita-ble, for within the last half-century one-third of the farm

laborers of Great Britain have gone to reinforce the arti-sans of the towns, leaving the fields, in the phrase of asymby tIY thetic writer, sfarw dof human l abor. And now,e showing of the census returns, only 1,383,OOOmenand women in England and Wales work in the fields,whiIe more than sixteen millions belong to the profes-sional, domestic, indefinite and unproductive class, Forthe recaII and the reinforcement of the a riculturists PrinceKropotkin offers a scheme which is to f e mentioned later.For the betterment of the results of field labor he urges intensive culture : discoveries in biolo that is, the application of the Iatestto the production oY chemistry, and science in generaliereals and green cro s ; such intelli-gent culture as is found in Belgium, the i s%nd of Jersey,the neighborhood of Paris, the irrigated plain of Lom-bardy, and the truck farms of America. At aII thesepoints, as is indicated in the essay, Iife and growth aretreated physioIogicaIIy, and according to the Iaw of thesurvival of the fittest. Whatever may be the plant, it i streated Iike an individual, it i s developed and trained tohighest de

Hee of its possibikties, Nor is there more aquestion o good or bad lands, since the soil i s made:made even in such quantities that in the cast of marketgardening, it must be removed in part each year,-a factwhich in itself creates a source of income for the cultiva-tor. Indeed, the production of soil is so sure and success-ful that the Parisian market-gardener defies both natural



17/68


formation and climatic conditions. It is said of him inpleasantry that he could grow his crops, did he so desire,upon the asphalt of the boulevards, and that he has givento his city the two degrees less of latitude afterwhich a noted French scientist spent his days in IonPrince Kropotkin sums up the accomplishments o ng.ff thisstrenuous tiller of the soil by saying that he supplies thecity with mountains of grapes and fruit at any season ;and in the early spring he inundates and perfumes it withflowers, But he does not only grow articles of luxury.The culture of plain vegetables is spreading every year;and the results are so good that there are now practicalcultivators who maintain that if all the food, animal andvegetable, necessary for the three million, five hundredthousand inhabitants of the departments of the Seine, andthe Seine-et-Oise had to be grown on their own terri-tory, it could be produced without resorting to any othermethods of culture than those already in use ; since thesemethods have already been tested on a large scale, andhave proven themselves successful.Continuing his ar ment, theessayist confesses that even here he does not ind his idealagriculturist; for the Frenchman thus employed, has notime in which to live the life of a human being; devoting,as he does, his entire. time, together with prodigies oflabor, intelligence and imagination to the manufacture ofsoil and the protection of plant-life by providing moistureand an equable temperature. To some degree the painsof this laborer are lost, since the first essential, the soil,-can be made as well by machinery as by hand : an aidand alleviation of which the agriculturist would avail him-self, if a right social and political or anization prevailed toprevent fraud in the manufacture oP fertilizers, and exces-sive profits in the production of implements. Were suchor anization in force, and were agriculturists everywheresu ficiently enlightened to discard tradition for the latestresults in invention and science, each country of the tern*



18/68

166 THE CRAFTSMAN

perate zone would easily-at least, such is the opinion ofone who bases his belief upon facts and statistics-supplyits own foodstuffs, both vegetable and animal; satisfyingthe needs of all in spite of teemin population.culture This p%a for intensive agri-is no Utopian, impossible scheme. Rather itcontains elements of certainty, as may be proven by acomparison between the farms of different regions of ourown country, in which the average crop of the chiefwheat-growing States of the West is from eleven totwelve bushels the acre, while thirty to forty bushels onthe same area are produced by intensive farming in someof the Eastern States, where the soil is the work of manshands. In this s stemRussian finds the refutation of Malt K of culture theuss so-calkd Prin-ciple of Population which has directed for three genera-tions the current of economic thouf htthat the poverty of the many isnot by the assertionue to institutions, butthat it i s a natural law as fixed as are the governing princi-ples of the natural world. Malthus wrote in the eight-eenth century that population increases too rapidly andthat the new-comers find no room at the feast ofnature ; that there exists but a l imi t ed and insuffckntsuppl y of t he necessi t i es of l i fe. This theory superficiallyshowing an affinity with certain of Darwins ideas, andthus apparently gaining scientific sanction, has long justi-fied the wealthy classes and deprived the poor of hope;while both ssessors and dispossessed have alike believedthat a popu izFion which should double each thirty yearswould soon be confronted by a lack of the necessities of life.The rapid increase of industrialwealth, through the development of steam and electricalpower, has latterly somewhat shaken the Malthusiandoctrine, since it is a rate of growth which no increase ofpopulation could reach; but economists still maintain thatthe surface of the soil, as well as the productive power of



19/68

PRINCE KROPOTKINS ECONOMICS 167the earth, is limited ; therefore that the danger is notaverted by the rise of the new agents. Confrontinwith fact, Prince Kropotkin cites the case of theory5? rance,whose peasant cultivators, within the last century, havenearly doubled the area given up to wheat, and have in-creased almost fourfold the returns from each acre; while,at the same time, the po tionone per cent., facts whit RJ has increased but forty-show that the ratio of increaseof the wheat crop has been six times greater than the ratioof increase of population. Farther on, the essayist recom-mends the horticultural, that is, the individual or pedi-gree treatment of cereals, by means of which the productof a wheat or barlecredible degree. T K field is multiplied to an almost in-e treatment, as described, consists oftwo processes: a process of selection, in order to createnew varieties of cereals, similar to the breeding of newvarieties of earth; and a method of immensely increasingthe crop from each grain by planting each seed seand wide apart, so as to provide room for the e!? ratelydevof the youn plants which, under the old s opmentstem of broadcasting see d , are stifled and deteriorated, e human lifeunder the tenement system.In concluding b&s essay uponthe possibilities of agriculture, the scientific economist isgrimly humorous when he says: The obstacles a ainst intensive culture are not in the imperfections of a e artof husbandry, or in the unfertility of the soil, or in climate.They are entirely in our institutions, in our inheritancesand survivals from the past-in the Ghosts whichoppress us. But again, he strikes a high note of hopeand optimism in the words : Our means of obtainingfrom the soil whatever we want, under any climate andupon any soil, have lately been improved at such a ratethat we cannot yet foresee what is the limit of productivityof a few acres of land. The limit vanishes in proportionto our better study of the subject, and every year makesit vanish farther and farther from our sight.



20/68

168 THE CRAFTSMANOnce again the essayist insists

that this intensive agriculture of which he is so fervent anadvocate could not make the tiller of the soil a slave, as isnow the case with the skilful farmers of France, or theChannel Islands, and even in America. The remedywhich he proposes for the present evil is a return to thatunion of the farm with the workshop which existed priorto the development of machinery. And in his belief thedissensions between labor and capital which now agitatethe economic and social world must be ended by a speedycombination of a riculture with industry, by a ruralmanufacture whit a shall supply the wants of the million,and shall infuse a new interest in the lives of countlessfamilies and individuals who are now made hopeless bythe monotony of a single and exacting labor. He wouldnot,as might be inferred, displace the factory with itsfacilities for rapid production, but he regards the extensionof small industries as an economic necessity dependentupon large enterprises. He ar ues that each new factorycalls into existence a number o workshops, partly to supply its own needs, and partly to submit its produce to afurther transformation; also, that each new industry, how-ever important its destiny, passes through a preliminaryprocess before arriving at the factory sta e;the number of these rising industries stan 8 again, thats in proportionto the inventive genius of the peoples among whom theare developed; finally, that the factory stimulates the bir Jof small trades by creatinthe effect of the cheap pro d new wants, as is instanced inuction of cottons, woolens, paperand brass, which has filled our households with thingsmade from them and quite largely of very recent inven-tion. For examples of small industries Prince Kropotkinturns to France, a count 2: which he considers as success-ful in this department ofricutture, bor as in highly developed ag-In this connection he makes the interesting com-ment that small industries-at least such as are essentiallygood and useful-do not disappear at the establishment of



21/68


the factory ; but rather modify and adapt themselves tothe new conditions, precisely after the manner of organ-isms in the natural world. This fact is especially notice-able in the hill country about Lyons, where, within thepast thirty years, the small industries have undergone athorough transformation, preserving their original finan-cial imwa K sK

rtance, but altering larowing the advanta eI their products : in this4hywit craftsmanship as we # es o t e union of agricultureas the creative genius of theGallic race; making credible also the popular opinion thatFrance, if the mass of her ople be considered, is therichest country of Europe. ? o the assiduous practice ofsmall industries is also attributable to the position of theParisian workmen, who have a hi her intellectual devel-opment than the artisans of any t! er European capital,and whose powers are used constantly to produce newdesi !Ys and to perfect technical methods. But as theidea tiller of the soil is not realized in the alert, laboriousand intelligent market- Hardener of the suburbs of Paris,no more is the ideal era tsman incarnate in one who prod-i1&ally spends his delicate manual skiff at the bench of an -lighted workshop within the walls of the same overcrowded city. According to Prince Kropotkin, the idealartisan can develop only under condition that his work-shop be carried into the field, that his capacities be inte-grated, so that he may use at will his brain and his hand;that he ma labor alternately in his field and in his cot-tage ; that Ke may not be the slave of a certain section ofhis brain or of a single set of muscles.

The inte al education dis-cussed in the last chapter of Prince 5z ropotkins treatise,s a scheme for the training of a youth, by which the in-dividual, man or woman, at the age of twenty, might befitted easily to earn a competence from the exercise ofsome manual trade or art; which trade or art would beacquired not to the detriment, but rather to the advantageof intellectual development, through provision being made



22/68

170 THE CRAFTSMANfor the more natural and rapid acquirement of the sciencesand mathematics. This education, or Zea&g out ofhumantion of wers, would be accomplished by the co-opera-Ke brain, the eye and the hand. It would createa society in which producer and consumer should nolonger be se arate and hostile forces, but should be joinedin one and tKe same individual. Such education at oncescientific, artistic, technical, and industrial, would conserveand augment the energy required for the satisfaction ofhuman needs. And as an example of its workings, wemight see the discoverer or inventor, the civil engineer,and the artisan combined in one man capable of piercingthe secrets of nature, of applying what he has found toractical uses, and of fashioning the apparatus by whichEl s discovery or invention is made to supply a real need,or to increase comfort and happiness. By such meanswould the productiveness of labor be immensely increased,and work itself be rendered easy and pleasant, since everytask would be thoroughly understood as to its purposeand relative importance. It i s the plea of the Russianeconomist that the school and the factory or workshopshould be regarded as a single place of training and culture,and that in the decentralization of industries-which isthe spontaneous e7 ression of our times-the factory andthe workshop shou d be set within the fields and at gardenates,a There men and women would not be driven byunger, but rather they would be attracted to a placewhere, aided by the motor and the machine, they wouldchoose that branch of usefulness which bests suits theirinclinations. Such are in brief the theoriesadvanced in Fields, Factories and Workshops, andhere almost quoted in the words of the author. But toappreciate the enthusiasm and optimism of these argu-ments a personal contact with the work is essential. Thebook is not one to be avoided by those who distrust Uto



23/68

PRINCE KROPOTKINS ECONOMICS 171pias and Ideal Republics. It is based upon facts, andproceeds with scientific reasoning to justifiable conclusions.It does not deny the statement today heard on all sides :It is good to be rich. It modifies the assertion by ahigher and finer knowledge. It teaches that men in orderto be rich need not take the bread from the mouths ofothers, but that there is possible a society in which men,by the work of their hands, their own intelligence, andthe aid of machinery already invented and to be invented,may themselves create all imaginable riches,

Each nation her own agricul-turist and manufacturer, each individual working in thefield and in some industrial art, each individual combiningscientific knowledge with the knowledge of a handicraft,-such is, we affirm, the present tendency of civilizednations.

Pr i nce Kropo fk fn, i n Fiel ds, Fact ori es and Work shops, Page 6.



24/68

THE BEAUTIFYING OF OUR CITIESBY FREDERICK S. LAMB a & eWE appealor an art broader than the art we havetoday-an art that touches the lives of the peo Ie;an art that will be in their streets, in their parks, in J: eirhomes. Not for the isolated statue torn from the portalof the cathedral and placed in a Ii ht for which it wasnever intended, in a museum or ga H;ry, where it can beseen but at infrequent intervals.We appeal for monuments : notthe monument such as we now have it, when we desistfrom our ordinary vocations and decide to purchase bysubscription some hideous combination of granite andmarble: we appeal for the monumentalizing of the greatutilities of a city. What finer memorial could there be ina city than one of its great bridges properly desi ned ?What finer monument than one of our reat bu dingsa Bproperly created? Yet our bridges are astily thrownto ether, inadequate in design and poor in conception,w a ile many of our public buildings are of inferior con-struction.

We appeal for sanity in streetfixtures and the arrangement of our thoroughfares. Whyshould a people claiming to be interested in art, claimingto appreciate architecture, allow every street, everythoroughfare, to be desecrated by signs of a character toohideous to describe ? Every discussion eventuallyleads to the conclusion that the only remedy for our ills,whether political or artistic, is education. It thereforebehooves us carefully to scrutinize our system of teachingand to see whether there may not be certain featuresadded in the future which will be of benefit. With thecreation and development of the union and federations oflabor the old apprentice system practically disappeared.Each trade and each union made stringent regulations asto the number of those to be employed as apprentices ineach factory, and as competition among workmen becauseof immigration increased, the number of apprentices per-



25/68

THE BEAUTIFYING OF OUR CITIES 179

mitted was made less and less, until, at the present time,the ap rentice system can be counted upon to supply buta sm a! amount of the necessary skilled labor. It there-fore devolves upon the schools to take the place formerlyoccupied by the workshop apprenticeshitheir classes and teaching, the loss which 1 and supply byas been evolvedfrom this peculiar condition of affairs.Art education has two distinctpoints of view: one, the general education of the indi-vidual, training the observation and creating a love forthe beautiful; second, the imparting of technical knowl-edge which will give the individual the necessary prelimi-nary training for earning a livelihood. Either point ofview is possible. It is merely a question of the conditionof the times as to which is preferable. In the early days,the first was the only one considered, and drawing andmusic were taught as accomplishments,-perhaps one ortwo hours a week being given to each,-but they werenever considered essential. In many of our privateschools this teaching was of the most trivial kind and theresult, as far as the community was concerned, of little orno value. No one considered a knowledge of art in anyother light than that of additional, but unnecessary inform-ation, But at the present day, when our cities are grow-ing to such enormous proportions, is not technical art-training a commercial necessity ? And in our cities, dowe not require for their welfare and financial advance-ment, a broader knowledge of municipal aesthetics ?It has been demonstrated againand again that municipal art is a paying investment ; thatit costs no more to build a well-designed fixture than apoor one; that there is a competition of cities just as thereis a competition of individuals; and that to succeed in thiscompetition, the broadest municipal intelligence is neces-sary. The welfare of a city in the future will depend asmuch upon the craftsmen or artists, as upon any othersingle factor. The ugliness of a small city may be out-



26/68

174 THE CRAFTSMAN

lived and outgrown ; the ugliness of a large ~~~~~eco~.c~an insurmountable obstacle to its success.Paris and even Washington owe to their beauty ?Our commercialinterests shouldrecognize that the greatest product can onI be securedunder the most favorable conditions. In Ph%delphia, theexperiment was tried of introducing music on certain daysin a factory where the work was extremely monotonous,with the result that on those days the production wasgreater. Several factories throughout the country aretrying the experiment of pleasanter surroundings andmore sanitary conditions with satisfactory results. Whatis true of the individual factory is doubly true of the city.With this point in view, The Municipal Art Society ofNew York has made the suggestion through the FineArts Federation that photographs of representative cities,showing the best example of city plans, street fixtures,parks, sculpture, bridges, improved markets, and otherpoints of interest, be secured and hung in our publicschools, so that unconsciously the risingbe made familiar with the best, so that eneration mayi;ose who laterbecome employes of the city (and we are told that in NewYork City alone there are forty-five thousand), will have,at least, a casual knowledge of what is being done inother parts of the world. The Middle Ages understoodthe commercial necessity of strict discipline and training.The Florentine Gilds for two hundred years held su-premacy in Europe by their intelligent insistence upon thecareful training of the apprentice, and their severity in con-demning poor and uncraftsmanlike work. The numberof men permitted to engage in a craft was strictly limited.The quality, the weight, the measure of each piece werecarefully scrutinized and offenders severely punished.Thus was laid the foundation for one of the greatest artsthe world has ever seen. The artists of the Renascencewere but apprentices on a higher plane. They did their



27/68


work in a simple, unassuming way, and future ages haverecorded them as great. There were no differentiations :no high art, municipal art, or applied art. Art was recog-nized as a force contributing to the welfare of the com-munity and valuable alike for pleasure or profit,the alembic of man, Art is nature passed throughand it is neither nature pure andsimple on the one hand, nor personality of man alone onthe other. How difficult it has been to demonstrate thissimple truth ! The photographer demands to have hisphotographs ranked as art, although they are but mechani-cal reproductions of nature, His opponent avoids nature,creates abstract ideals and claims them to be art.The history of the teaching ofart shows it to have been either too conventional on theone hand, or too unrestrained on the other. Precedent isused as a club to repress originality, reaction sets in andunrestrained license in the opposite direction is the result. LArt Nouveau is but one of the many revolts againstprecedent; and while it has much that is good it also hasmuch that is unfortunate. The craving for variety andnovelty is a powerful influence in the human mind. TheFreatest works cease to please after a time, and temporaryashion may occasionally lord it over the perennial taste.Every style or development of art, in order to live, mustfrom time to time return to nature to be refreshed and re-juvenated. An impression produced without comparisonwith nature becomes in time meaningless. If a scholarfollows the masters work literally, hL, oses that intelligentappreciation of its purpose which makes it virile,-whether it be ornament, architecture or painting, Thescholars scholar becomes an imitator and with imitationcomes decadence, There are but two ways of ex-pressing facts in art. To apply old forms to new ideas, orto express old ideas with new methods. Early schools



28/68

176 THE CRAFTSMAN

followed continental precedent, and were but a faint repe-tition of the then existing fashion. Our far-famed HudsonRiver School was but a weak imitation of the RoyalAcademy. A single copy of a famous portrait of Hogarthis said to have revolutionized the American portrait paint-ers point of view. Benjamin West stands as much forthe foreign school as for American influence. Our artistswere training themselves to answer a demand existingnthe continent, but not existing here.In former years, it did not mat-ter how poorly our artists deported themselves or whatvagaries they exhibited, for they were not an importantfactor in the welfare of the community. Today, theproblem has changed. Much of the commercial success,as well as the better municipal conditions which make ahigher living possible, depends upon the education andtraining of our artists. It must be admitted by the mostradical that in the early settlement of the country, it wouldhave been impossible for the most imaginative to haveconceived a city plan suitable to the requirements ofmodern life, and yet, that much can be done by a logicalscheme strictly adhered to, is shown by Washington andbL the experience of those who have recently formulatedp ns for the citys adornment, The wide interest in theaesthetic side of our cities led to the appointment of a Com-mission for the replanning of Washington. The Com-mission went abroad, studied the best of continental work,compared plans, compiled data, and when all was said anddone, returned to this country and reproduced the plan ofLEnfant, originally prepared, a hundred years ago, underthe direction of Washington, which unfortunately, wasfollowed but for a short time, This stands as one of themost marked examples of the possibility of planning inadvance for the future of a great city ; and owing to thepeculiar character of Washington, the Ian will undoubt-edly be adequate for years to come, ?p his would not be



29/68

THE BEAUTIFYING OF OUR CITIES 177true if the scheme had been pre ared for one of our greatcommercial centers, as a ment 9 comparison of New YorkCity in 1700 with New York City of to-day would show ;and we are reluctantly forced to admit that the solution-an ideal plan for rapid transit and intercommunication,as well as beauty-has not as yet been achieved.The invention of machinery,with the necessary congestion of population caused thereby,has so increased the area demanded by great cities as tomake the old form of plan rudimentary and impracticable.But you say: Our cities are already planned-why dis-cuss something that cannot be changed? They are,however, changin year by year in response to demandsof commerce+ WKy, therefore, if these modifications areto take place, should they not be conducted, under intelfi-gent guidance, on a comprehensive plan? Why shouldnot the old portions of the city, as well as the new, beconsidered ? It is true that changes take place graduallyand cannot be too radical; but such as they are, theymi ht all be carried out with reference to an ultimate re-su t to be obtained, say fifty years hence. It has beensaid that within the memory of those living, certain sec-tions of a great city have been built three times. Howmuch better would the present result have been had thisfact been recognized in advance, and the two rebuildings,been carried out with reference to the requirements of acity as it is to-day. We have in the recent FrenchExposition a most striking example of the possibility ofdesigning a new and radical feature in the center of an oldcity. Whatever criticisms may be advanced against thearchitectural and artistic quality of the buildings as awhole, no one can possibly find fault with the masterlyplan which has been evolved. Certain old buildings inthe Champs Elysees, which had outlived their usefulnesswere torn down, and new buildings designed and con-structed in their place. These were connected by the



30/68

178 THE CRAFTSMAN

utilization of the bridges and the water-fronts of the Seinewith certain park places in front of the Hotel des Invalidesand the Trocadero. The result was that a new ExpositionCity was practically created in the center of the old Cityof Paris. When the Exposition was removed, certainmain features, such as the Bridge of Alexander III., the PetitPaIais and the Grand PaIais remain as permanent featuresin the city itself. Thus, in a most masterful way, the tran-sient scheme, which was placed in the heart of an oldmetropolis, fulfilled its purpose for the time being, andwhen destroyed and removed, has left certain fixed factors,which are of permanent aesthetic value to the city itself.Again, in Vienna, we find acity that has outgrown its mediaeval walls, It becamenecessary to have more space, and, at the same time, toremove the old walls, in order to obtain the required com-munication. A remarkable scheme of connecting parkswith occasional buildings was devised, and what, a fewyears ago, was a restriction to the growth of Vienna, hasnow become its Ring Strasse, one of its most beautifulacquisitions, Th f daun mental principle of the plan isthe necessity for communication, and the commercialnecessity is that the communication should be of the mostdirect and expeditious character. If it were possible toplan cities in advance and then induce them to grow asby the scheme laid down, our problem would be a simpleone; but, unfortunately, the question is complicated bythe rapid growth of our great commercial centers, modi-fied from time to time by varying conditions which wecannot foresee. In mediaeval times the citieswere built for defense, the circular plan being the onemost frequently adopted with the citadel or castle in thecenter, surrounded by an external wall, As the citiesgrew and other buildings were necessary, the walls wereextended; but the lines of communication were alwaysthe most direct,



31/68


While it is proper to admit thatevery plan must have a certain elasticity, and while wemust recognize that individual cities must have individualrequirements, stiIl in the main, every city must developcertain basic needs: thus there must be a commercialsection, there must be a residential section, there must bea section set aside for amusements, or recreation; andthese must be connected in a way that will alIow of themost direct intercommunication. Modern life has shownthe impossibility of exercising in any great city thesethree markedIy different functions in any one quarter.While in mediaeval cities it may have been possible forthe residence and the shop to be combined, under presentconditions it is avowedI impracticable.measure, is true of the K The same, in aome and of recreation : whiIe insparseI settled sections, the home may have contained thepossibi ities for amusement and recreation, in the Iargecongested centers this again is an impossibility, and certainsections, parks, or reservation, must be set aside for thisPurpose. People in large cities become addicted more oress to sedentary habits, and children have suffered morefrom overcrowding than from any other cause. It, there-fore, becomes the province of the designer so to plan hiscity as to compensate for the Iimitations which have beenbrought upon us by modern conditions.Can we propose improvementsof aesthetic value, without in any way decreasing thecommerciaI value of our cities ? The first thing thatsuggests it& is the diagonal or radiating street whichgives more extended vista and suggests the possibility ofthis vista being terminated by some great public monu-ment or statue. The radiating angles give by their inter-section with cross streets, corner spaces, which can besuccessfuIIy treated with artistic memo&&, or objects ofutility, as for example, the Fontaine St. Michef in Paris.There are hundreds of such opportunities in our cities,none of which have as yet been utilized When a city



32/68

180 THE CRAFTSMAN

has, as our great cities have, rivers to cross, the bridge,which is a continuation of the street, becomes a point atwhich artistic embellishment can be of great advantage ;the approaches to the bridge, the towers of the bridge, thevarious sections of the bridge, may be embellished andemphasized with statuary of historic character.Advertisements of commerce,instead of being the abominations which they are now,could, under more intelligent guidance, become accents ofbeauty and of advantage to the city. In 1894 a societyfor this purpose was founded in Belgium by a few artists,The results obtained have been successful beyond themost sanguine expectations of those who started themovement : the glove merchants sign, the sign of the inn-keeper and the hotel-man, the sign of the wine merchant,the cigar dealer, corporation banners, insignia of societies,instead of beinof this society commonplace, under the encouragementL cametheir city. things of beauty and acquisitions toEncouragement was given to designs in em-broidery, sculpture, iron work, the making of banners andposters ; the designinground stations, bii of public utilities, such as under-boards, water fountains, electricstandards, street names, numbers, guide posts, newspaperstands, park seats, etc. Festivals and holidaconsidered : the holiday dressing of Brusse s and Ant-s were alsowerp was seriously studied, and holiday festivals, insteadof being commonplace, as they are with us, became oc-casions of interest and of note. Surroundincame imbued with the same enthusiasm an I? cities be-work spread from town to town.

the goodGalleries of public artof all periods were founded and attention was called to allthat there is artistic in things of historic interest. It wasfound that while utility is economy, artistic utility waseven greater economy;b that the finer designs securedthis society often cost less than the more gaudy, moree aborate efforts which had preceded them,J Brussels, to-day, is markedly benefited by the existence of this society.



33/68


34/68


35/68


36/68


37/68


So much for the street andbridge! Now is it not possible to take the block system,as we have it, and by a few radical changes, not so ex-tensive as they may at first seem, secure an artistic andbeneficial result? Would it not be possible to pierce theblocks from side to side by means of galleries or arcades,thus giving not only light and air, but increased facilitiesof communication ? Our block is a cumbersome one andof unwieldy proportion, some two hundred by eight hun-dred feet. Why would it not be possible to pierce theseblocks by small or subsidiary streets or arcades, increasingthe intercommunication, and, at the same time, offeringspace which could be treated with shrubs and flowers,and would make what is now an uninteresting rectangle,a residential section of interest and beauty ? The sug-gestion of arcades would of course apply to commercialsections, where buildings of a great height are a necessity ;in residential sections, streets would take their place; ineither case, increased facilities for communication, for sani-tation, and for fire service would be obtained, This subdivision of the block would change the proportion of thebuilding lot, and would f ive, instead of the IonE recti-linear space,-which is dif icult to handle, and whitdark rooms, both in the business buildin givesand in the resi-dential, a squarer ground plan, which ends itself muchmore readily to successful design. Thus, instead of hav-ing a unit of from twenty to twenty-five feet in our houses,the unit would be from twenty-seven to thirty feet;the depth proportionately less, but the increased square-ness of the space offered would give possibilities for amuch more successful design. Financially, the value ofreal estate arranged on such a basis would be muchgreater. There would be more corner houses ; there wouldbe greater possibilities for trees, shrubs and flowers, andall these are distinct, financial assets.If we go one step farther andconsider the possibility of property being treated in spaces



38/68

182 THE CRAFTSMANgreater than the city lot, what changes may not be sug-gested i The d rouping of public buildings has already beenconsidered an discussed, and it is not too much to predictthat in the near future, our great cities will, instead oferectin their buildings at random, create one reat centeror bloc , in which all civic activities may L ve place.While it may not be possible to achieve these results atone time, it is possible so to arrange our designs that fromtime to time they may be added to, until the final result isaccomplished. In residential sections, similar results maybe obtained by syndication of design : a number of property owners may a reeplish results which a upon a certain plan and accom-ave heretofore only been possible togovernments. Again, where a community is in favor ofcertain conditions, these may be obtained by restrictivelegislation, The uniform cornice-line of the buildings atthe Worlds Fair was the secret of the reat success ofthat scheme. Had different levels been a $owed, had eacharchitect been permitted to develop his own ideas,the great plan as a whole would have been distinctlymarred, Much of the beau of Paris is due to this wiserestriction. Restrictive legis z tion mi ht be carried fartherin suggesting a limit to projections. 57 ith these two limi-tations-the extreme height of buildings and the extremelimit to which each projecting cornice, moulding,carving, etc., may come-a certain architectural unitywould be obtained. Monotony would be avoided byregulating the height of the cornices in proportion to thewidth of the street; thus, in wide avenues, buildingswould be permitted to a greater hei ht, while in narrowstreets, they would be proportionate y restricted.Much of the difficulty now ex-perienced in narrow street ways could be overcome byadopting the system of an upper street way, as used inChester, England. Here the first floor front is practicallyan open shop in each building, thus forming a series ofopen shops, which are connected and which form an un-



39/68

THE BEAUTIFYING QF OUR CITIES 183

interrupted arcade through the buildings. Imagine thisscheme continued through blocks in the lower section ofour congested cities, and one would see a great advantage,not only to the pedestrian, but also to the shop owner.The restriction placed by theangle of light would suggest the possibility of stepping ourbuildings back from the cornice or street line, permittingthe greatest height in the center of the block. The sug-Bestion of combining buildings in sourth the present bIock,-carries wit uares,-say of one-xties of artistic embellishment.

it greater possibili-If there were but one mainentrance instead of a dozen, as at present, with theirmeaningless ornamentation, one simple, good approachmight be designed. Competition of a lavish character isresponsible for much that is deplorable. Concentrationwould avoid this. There is nothing more distressingthan an avenue of small stores, each endeavoring to out-do the other in violation of all artistic principles, with theexcuse of advancing its business interest. Under themodified block system, artistic embellishment would bemade easier, for not only would greater wealth be con-centrated in smaller areas, but the control would be morecentralized, and by being centralized, would fall into moreintelligent hands. It would then be easier to plead forthe monumental entrance, for the use of sculpture, for ex-terior painting, for tablets recording such historic eventsas have occurred in each locality, for names that recallthe obliterated past of the older city.The city lot, with all that it

implies, relates to the development of fifty years ago. Itcarries too many restrictions on the one hand, with toomuch power antagonistic to ublicI; welfare on the other.The aesthetic conditions in aproved when this is modified. cities will be distinctly im-While certain thought has beengiven to the commercial and residential problems in ourcity, there has been but a tardy recognition of the neces-



40/68


41/68


under competent desiFn

ing for aesthetic embellishments;thus leaving seventy- ive per cent, for playgrounds, n-nasiums, and open air sports. Every opportunit 6 s iFyluldbe seized by city authorities to increase sma p rks.With every radical change, there are opportunitirkz ti;setting aside of certain reservations for the buildings of a semi-public nature, such as t Katres andchurches, outlive their usefulness, the ground upon whichthey stand should be ac %uired by the city and convertedinto small parks, thus re eving the congested localities inwhich they are placed. In this utilitarian age large ex-penditure for artistic quality is considered extravagant,and yet artistic utility is the greatest economy. The sim-pler the building, the greater the ability required to desi nit; yet the greatest architectural ability is reserved for taepalace and not for the factory. Ability seems tobe soughtin an inverse ratio to the number to be housed.A more enlightened understand-ing of municipal aesthetics, both by professional men aswell as laymen, will greatly aid our ultimate progress.Munici R aesthetics treats of our city as it affects themind, t rough sight, sound, and the sense of smell. It isthe science of the beautiful in its nature and art. It isstran e in this country to speak of the nature or of theart Eia city, yet both are essential to the well-being ofany great metropolis. How art has drifted from the real-ization that it is in any way an integral part of our city 1How little is thought of the effect of color, form, light andshade on the mind of the citizen I Art was the picture-writing of the Assyrian, the vase of the Egyptian, thestatue of the Greek, the Colosseum of Rome, the Madonnaof the Christian religion. Art now is the print, the etch-in , the picture in its gilded frame. Art is what can bee& bited in the salon; all else is commerce. The picture-writing, a citys heraldry, is done by some expatriatedforeigner; the citys fountains, its vases, are machine



42/68

186 THE CRAFTSMAN

made, their defects condoned by high sounding names.The citys statues, whether soldiers monuments orcitizen memorials, are equalIy acceptable, whether theyare the work of an eminent sculptor or that of some name-less monumental compan .exist no more ! Our pub c buildings greet us not withThe citys paintings, alas,record of their history, but with bIank walls of untintedhue. In searching the past, in re-viewing the oldest cities, with a desire of aining

fknowl-

edge to guide us to a more profitable stu y of municipalaesthetics, we find ourselves face to face with a new prob-lem. All former standards of appreciation are swept away.The Duomo of Florence comes to us not so much as themasterpiece of Brunelleschi, but as a building that wasstarted by noble citizens with the noble words: Weorder ArnoIfo, head master of our Commune, to make adesign for the renovation of Santa Reparata, in a style ofmagnificence which neither the industry nor the power ofman can surpass ; that it may harmonize with the opinionof many wise persons in this City and State, who thinkthat this Commune should not engage in any enterprise,unless its intention be to make the result correspond withthat noblest sort of heart which is composed of the unitedwill of many citizens. The ViIla Medici is not the oldpalace of the Medici, but the modern school of Rome forFrance. Westminster Abbey is not a finer specimen ofarchitecture than a dozen buildings of the same period,and yet its national functions, its coronations, have madeit the greatest church of England and known throughoutthe world. The Opera House of Paris is ofinterest to us not because it represents the finest effort ofGarnier, not because it is practicalIy the first successfulbuilding to give exterior expression of interior form, butbecause it is a most perfect example of the true placing of



43/68


a monumental building at the terminus of a prearrangedvista, The Boulevard St. Germain appeals to us not somuch as a successful boulevard, but as a record of thesuccess of the masterly replanning of Paris by Haussmann.The Musee Plantin is to be considered not for its beautyalone, but from the interesting fact that the Governmentsaw fit to purchase it for the people, so that it might for-ever stand with its books and missals as a record of theinvention of printing and its consequences.The Louvre, the Gardens of theTuileries, hold our attention, not from their historic recol-lections, not as monuments of architecture, or as the recordof its varyin styles, but because the palace and the gardenof the Kin gi!& ve become the museum and the play roundof the peop e, St. Cloud, St, Germain, Bois Meu f on arenotable, not for their intrinsic beauty,-for that existedwhen they were detested and execrated by the mob,-butfrom the fact that today they contribute under intelligentrestriction to the health and happiness of all in the muni-cipality. Only the mosf perfect beautycan be obtained by combined effort for common apprecia-tion. The cathedrals, those monu-ments of the middle ages, were the outcome of the gild,They are the precious inheritance which the combinedeffort of that period left to us, Then, the gild was in-spired with a higher motive than inspires us today.Then, the craftsman must have produced a masterpiecethat he might become the master workman, Then,quality of work was the standard of admission, and thisproduced higher ideals and a higher intelligence. Then,the workman needed the gild, now the gild needs theworkman. Th en, art did not have to be pleaded for,forevery craftsman was an artist. Then, architecture wasfrozen music. Then, the cathedral was the great stoneBible for those who could not read save through pictures.



44/68

188 THE CRAFTSMAN

Then, the town hall was a great stone symbol of common-wealth and unity, studded thick with carved and paintedlessons ; speaking to the citizen with its statues and muraltablets. Then, even the humblest citizen might aspire tobe recorded upon its walls for a heroic deed or a generousact. Then, art sprang from the merchant, the magistrate,the artisan ; then art wasby the people. of the people, for the people, They builded better than theyknew is said of the ancients. Perhaps we of today shalllearn the lesson which antique monuments, proper1r un-derstood, bring to us, and with the great commercial orceswhich surround and dominate us, create a city which forall future ages shall be the City Beautiful,

If you accept art, it must bepart of your daily lives and the daily life of every man.It will be with us wherever we go, in the ancient city fullof traditions of past time, in the newly cleared farm inAmerica or the colonies, where no man has dwelt fortraditions to gather round him; in the quiet country sideas in the busy town, no place shall be without it. Youwill have it with you in your sorrow as in your joy, inyour work-a-day hours as in your leisure. It shall be norespecter of persons, but be shared by gentle and simple,learned and unlearned, and be as a language that all canunderstand.

Wil lam M orris in Lecture : A rt and t he Beaut y of t he Earth.



45/68

ART IN INDUSTRIES AND THE OUT-LOOK FOR THE ART STUDENT Q DBY CARYL COLEMAN 0 Q 1~ Q @T HE subject, Art in Industries and the Outlook forthe Art Student is in truth two subjects, not one ;although there is no doubt a correlation between them.Correctly to understand the present status of Art in In-dustries and its possible future advancement, it will benecessar to consider its standing in the past, and thereasons or its resence then ; for there have been periodsin the worlds story when many of the objects producedwere constantly and distinctively marked by one or moreartistic attributes. At these times, evenobjects of a purelyutilitarian character bore the impress of beauty, andshadowed forth the individuality of the maker and hislove for the outcome of his handiwork: the child of hisheart and brain. In this very statement I havegiven the reasons why the objects of industry at theseparticular periods were more or less manifestations of art ;for it is obvious they were the result of handicraft, whichgives free play to the fancy and invention of the craftsman,offering him a field in which he can give expression to hisapprehension of beauty; the merit of the expression ofcourse depending upon his art knowledge : his natural appreciation of form, color, and composition, in union withskill of hand. The craftsmen and the artists belongingto these epochs differed in no way from their fellow crafts-men and artists of today, except in their method of train-ing: not having to compete with cheap mechanical processes, to face an excessive and wasteful consumptionartificially stimulated by commercial greed, and a childishdemand for novelty, engendered by suddenly acquiredwealth, time saving instruments, and a superficial knowl-edge of the canons of good taste.The more these artistic indus-trial periods are studied, the more they teach the value ofhandicraft, and force the student to a single conclusion,when he compares period with period; namely: that art



46/68

190 THE CRAFTSMANin industry is markedly present wherever and wheneverits products are the children of handicraft. Hence, he can-not expect art in industries when there is an absence ofhandicraft. AU this makes it evident that art in industriesis the result of craftsmen and artists attempting to give ex-pression to the art-sense within them, to their love ofbeauty, yes, and more than that, to their love of truth;for, believe me, this question is largely an ethical one be-longing to the department of politicaleconomy. The morecorn licated the industrial organization, and the more each

Kmor an is employed, not on his own property workingfor himself, but on anothers property, for a master, or onjoint property for a body of which he is but one smallconstituent, the less motive there is for careful work, thegreater likelihood of negligence ; hence, a deadening of hisartistic faculties, and a decaFy of his sense of beauty.urther to prove the truth ofthis reasoning, let us take the history of some one indus-try: an industry in which art is an important factor, thatof textile fabrics for example.Textiles made on hand-loomscall for great skill and care on the part of the craftsman.The work develops his inoffers him a field in whit enuity,a stimulates his pride,he can exhibit his art senseand creative faculty ; and when he finishes his task, hefeels that it is a part of himself, and if it proves to be athing of beauty, he cannot help feeling that he has notworked in vain, that it is not only a joy to himself, butthat it will also be to others. Because of the truth of allthis, artists and collectors are always seeking hand-madefabrics, just as they seek the paintings of master artists.At the same time, they pass by almost with contempt theproducts of machinery.value than the same rug from a carpet actory.An oriental ruf is of QT;;Because it is the handiwork of a man, a master-weaver,who has given it an individuality, has impressed upon it



47/68

ART IN INDUSTRIES 191an artistic quality, and, in addition, it is an honest piece ofwork, made from honest materials,the factory ru On the other hand,its mechanic $ is at best an imitation, a copy, painful inperfection, too often made from dishonestmaterials, the mere product of an inanimate contrivancerun by a human automaton.Prior to 1750 all textile fabricswere the joint product of men and women : husbands,wives, daughters and sons. It was Iar a home in-dustry; it had over and around it the aB elyection and bless-ing of family life. The first blow at the life of thiscottage industry was given bKay, which were followed by t K the inventions of Johneof the spinning-jenn introduction, in 1767,Arkwri r of Hargreave, and shortly after byhts water- rames ; all of which at once and for-pitver too out of the hands of women the distaff; thus re-ducing the word spinster to a legal term, and Webster toan obselete word, suppressing the principal manufactur-ing function of one-half the human race.In 1785, Cartwrights powerloom, and, in 1792, Whitnetwo inventions which strut r: s cotton-gin were produced :almost as great a blow atthe domestic industry of men as the spinning-machineshad at that of women; changing the whole textile fabricindustry from hand-work into machine-work, breakinup the home, creating the tenement house and its atten 8 -ant evils, and making the craftsman a factory hand, thefeeder of a machine. From this time on, textile fabricswere without artistic value, u liness superseded beauty,the commonplace reigned in p ace of art. So they haveremained very largely to our own day, although bravemen have from time to time, attempted to bring to lifehand-weaving-men like the late William Morris-butwith only moderate success ; for the great public was notready to return to the products of handicraft; it had beentoo long debauched by the reat enemy of art, commer-cialism, to take kindly to w L t it was pleased to term the



48/68

193 THE CRAFTSMAN

vagary of a few artists ; according to the accepted opinion,it was a retrograde movement, not to be tolerated.All this sounds extremly pessi-mistic, but, believe me, there is a way out of this darkness,and you, drawing-teachers, are the torch-bearers to leadthe way. You are the ones to distribute the leaven, toplant the seed of the tree of beauty among the masses, torevive that which is dead, to call into life an appreciationof the artistic, to spread a correct knowledge of form, colorand corn

1psition among the people at large, so that at last

they wi demand art in industries. It is a noble work torestore handicraft to its rightfulit, there is a nobler work, viz : sition, but coupled witht K saving of man from theheartless factor system, with its strain and over-pressure,which makes tKe operative an old man at forty, Art inindustries 1 There is no such thing among us, exceptwhere the industry is carried on by handicraft. There isno such thing among us, in spite of the flaming advertise-ments of the tradesmen: art wall-paper, art furniture, artthis and art that, until every true lover of art becomes sickof the word, and avoids it as a thing of evil,The future of Art in In-dustries is largely in your hands, for it is within youroffice to create, not artists, for they are born, but to raiseup an appreciative public, from the youth entrusted to yourcare, by implanting in their minds a knowledge of form,of color, of composition, of the motives of design, and thehistory of ornament ; by stimulating their curiosity to knowthe reason why one picture is better than another, whyone style of ornament in a particular case is better thananother; by revealing to them their own talent, if theyhave any, or if they have not, by making them moremodest in their judgment in matters of art.This brings me to the seconddivision of my subject: The Outlook for the ArtStudent. And here occurs the correlation to which I re-ferred in my opening remarks.



49/68


50/68

194 THE CRAFTSMAN

torical ornament, their so-called original compositions forbook covers, wall papers, textiles, colored glass windows,furniture, jewelry, leather-work, wood-carving, or burnt-wood. Sometimes, their skill of hand was excellent, moreoften fadty ; and as for their compositions, usually theywere very bad, absolutely without merit, and in manycases, -more particularly in ornament,-they were noth-ing more or less than imperfectly remembered pages fromOwen Jones or Racinet. When there was an idea ofvalue, it was usually unpractical, owininsufficient acquaintance with the possi 6

to the studentsilities of the mate-rial in which it was to be rendered, or from lack of knowl-edge of the technical demands of the art or craft for whichit was designed. Without irreverence, it may besaid of the art student,chosen. many are called and fewSurely something is wrongin our methods of instruction that we have such unsatis-factory results. Is it not possible that the reason for thismiscarriage lies in the attempt to cover too much ground intoo short a time ? Would it not be better to insist upongood drau htsmanship, and when that is acquired, and onlythen, to al ow the student to study exhaustively one subject, and not the whole field of design; guiding him inthe course for which he shows a special aptitude.It is hardly necessary for me toOne word and I shall have finished.ZZZrZ you, teachers, It is ad-

It is a noble work that you havein hand : the diffusion of that particular knowledge whichis indispensable to an intelligent appreciation of the arts :a most valuable element in the general education of man,making for his greater culture; for man without artisticculture, no matter how superior he may be in other re-spects, lacks an instrument which is indispensable to hiscomplete enjoyment and his use of life.



51/68

THE ART SCHOOLI ITS RELATIONTO THE ARTS AND CRAFTS m BYWALTER S. PERRY m m m D &T HE introduction of drawing into the public schoolswas a purely utilitarian movement; since it wasurged that this subject should be taught in order to produce native designers. The work first prescribed wasentirely conventional : borrowed from the English School,and consisting largely of the arrangement of flowers andleaves about a center, to illustrate the principle of radia-tion, or of the same elements in a border design to illus-trate repetition.When this kind of work hadproven to be of little value, it was advocated that thechildren be taught to make working drawings, The pleamet with decided op osition; the objectors holding thatthis plan would invo ve the teaching of orthographic pro-jection, a subject much too difficult for children. And evenwhen it was shown that orthographic projection mightgive way to a common sense method,-locating the topview above the front view, the right view at the right of

the front view, etc.,-the point at issue was not decidedfor many years. Over and over, the argumentwas used that this new common sense method shouldnot be taught in the public schools, because it was nottaught in the technical schools, and was not used inthe shops. But the new system finally prevailed, and,when a few years ago, over ei ht hundred letters of in-?huiry were sent out, it was foun that three-fourths of alle important technical schools, draughting rooms, and in-structors of instrumental drawing had accepted the newmethod. The study of working draw-ings was followed by that of the appearance of objects.Again, a long time was re uired to insure recognition ofthe fact that children cou d learn to draw the appearante of objects, It was difficult to introduce this workinto the highest grades of the grammar schools, but now



52/68

196 THE CRAFTSMAN

it is taught in the primary schools, Naturally, at first, theaim in all this work was mechanical accuracy, which re-acted in a desire for more freedom. Freedom aboundeduntil it became license; and, in some of the exhibitions, itwas difficult to decide which work was done by the pri-mary children and which by the students of the highergrades. Later, children were taught to draw the manyobjects and nature-forms about them, and the drawing ofthe figure was introduced, together with the study ofwater color; until now, so many things are included thatthe real value of the whole subject is in danger of beinglost, through a misconception of the fundamental principlesof art education. The subject of manual trainingis now generally recognized. There is scarcely a city inthe United States that has not its manual training school.Its value is acknowledged, not only in manual traininghigh schools, but in the higher grades of grammar schools,and enormous sums of money are being spent on build-ings, equipment, and instruction. But when the matterwas first agitated before the National Educational Asso-ciation, it was difficult to secure an audience for a discus-sion of the subject. At that time, Dr. C. M. Woodwardaddressed only twelve, individuals. The next year, atanother meeting of the same association, Dr. Woodwardintroduced a speaker who said: There is little use iniving this address, as there are so few interested,b Dr.oodward replied : G-o on! When I read a paper onthe same subject, last year, there were but twelve present,and you have an audience of sixteen ! Many superintendents opthe idea of introducing manual training into public SCKsedools,and ridiculed it by saying: Conceive of the absurdityof a teacher standing before a class and crying : ChiI-dren, take your saws I One ! Two! Three ! Saw INow, children, take your hammers ! One! Two !Three I Hammer 1



53/68

THE ART SCHOOL 197

Gradually,. as the subject re-ceived recognition, it was believed that manual trainingmeant mere doing or working in the concrete, regard-less of accuracy or of appreciation of good form and pro-proportion. At the great exhibitions, held in Madison,Wisconsin, 1884, and in Chicago, 1887, there were dis-played great numbers of things made by children illustrat-ing manual training, as then taught in public schools, AI1this work illustrated child-activity, but there was verylittle quality in it. Then, the educators began to ask :If we are to have manual training, what plan can be in-troduced into the grades below the high school, so that thework may be done better and with fewer tools ? Thisproblem was answered by the introduction of the SloydSystem ; but even this can no Ionf er hold the place as-signed to it, for it lacks indivi uality. Set exercisesworked out by every child in the school, a few for onegrade and a few more for another, are not what is nowdemanded, There must be something else engrafted onit, and that something is art, and in place of Sloyd mustcome the Arts and Crafts that can be carried out in thinwood, weaving, basketry, wood carving, bent iron, ham-mered metal, etc. As to the teaching of art inAmerican art schools, just criticism can be made on themethods of the past, as well as on those prevailing at thepresent time in some of our institutions. Students wereformally taught to draw from casts, week after week, andyear after year. Do I overstate the matter? Not longago, I asked the manager of a well-known art school thequestion : What do your students do the first year ? They draw from elementary casts only, was the reply. And the second year ? I inquired, They draw fromthe antique, was the answer. What do they have thethird year? They go into the life classes and drawfrom life for two years, was the response, I hold that itis not honest to take time and tuition from a student, and



54/68

196 THE CRAFTSMAN

give him nothing in return but cast drawing and lifedrawing. That is not art education. There is much elseto be recognized in the development of art appreciationand expression, Then too, there is a fatigue-point whichis reached by students in three or four hours. Studentscannot go on with one kind of work, hour after hour, dayafter day, with profit to themselves, They should begiven in the afternoon, work supplementary to that whichis pursued durinof work they w E the morning session, and in the varietyfind stimulus, as weII as creative devel-opment. I do not mean that the work should be super-ficial, but that one subject should be complementary toanother. There should be taught in every art school fromthe first week of the session,-no matter how elementarythe work,-the subects of design and composition. Com-position should go ha nd in hand with other work. Theold idea that we must teach the student to draw before hecan originate, means to teach him to draw and never toori inate.En The student reaches that point of perfection intee ique which enables him to express technique but notoriginaIity, A student should early be led to believe thathe can originate, and he wiII create.position introduced into the The subject of com-fundamentaI to aI.I other kin d eneral art course should bes of work. The princicomposition that should be taught are fundamen taf 2,:art: to architecture, to sculpture, to painting and to aIIdivisions of applied art. Students in the art schools ofpast years were obliged to adhere to the old formula of cast drawing, antique, and life, through a series ofyears; making painstaking copies of casts and then draw-ing Iaboriously from the human figure, without any meansof developing the creative faculty, or of expressing indi-viduality. The art school to-day must recognize thepractical, as weII as the technical side of art education ;aiming to provide as an outIet for the man forms of artthat engross the attention of students, Eor in the direc-



55/68

THE ART SCHOOL 199

tion of the Arts and Crafts.ing marked ability and o

While a few students, hav-study, may continue in tKportunity for making art a lifee life and illustration classes,the great majority of art students of average talent andlimited means of support must seek employment earlyin their career. Provision must be made for this class ofstudents. It is not enough that students shall knowhow to produce creative designs on paper. They shouldalso be able to apply them to the objects for which theyare made. The knowledge that comes through practicalapplication is of the utmost importance for the vitaliza-tion of the desitive impulse. $ and in acting as a stimulus to the crea-so many of the t is a lack of this knowledge that makesdesigns made by students in the schoolsof this country and abroad unpractical, and oftentimesvalueless, whether they are regarded from the aesthetic orthe economic point of view. As soon as a student istaught the nature and function of the material or objectto be decorated or wrought, he will learn to beautify itin a manner that shall be simple, dignified and individual.In other words, students should be taught fitness andadaptation to purpose.ing personali Things should possess an interest-eRillwearw . and be so adapted to purpose that theyAs has been shown, in the earlydays of the manual traininchildren in the public schoo s were allowed to do almostmovement in this country,any and every form of handwork, re ardless of the toolsused and of the uality of results. ?go bring about morest Kstematic and sR illed work, and to meet the demand fore introduction of the subject of manual training in thepublic schools at a minimum expense and with the use offew tools, the

Documents

The Craftsman - 1902 - 07 - July