case or two of fossils, but a place where there are gathered

examples of art decoration from various periods and countries.
Such a place is the South Kensington Museum in London, whereon we

build greater hopes for the future than on any other one thing.
There I go every Saturday night, when the museum is open later than

usual, to see the handicraftsman, the wood-worker, the glass-blower
and the worker in metals. And it is here that the man of

refinement and culture comes face to face with the workman who
ministers to his joy. He comes to know more of the nobility of the

workman, and the workman, feeling the appreciation, comes to know
more of the nobility of his work.

You have too many white walls. More colour is wanted. You should
have such men as Whistler among you to teach you the beauty and joy

of colour. Take Mr. Whistler's 'Symphony in White,' which you no
doubt have imagined to be something quite bizarre. It is nothing

of the sort. Think of a cool grey sky flecked here and there with
white clouds, a grey ocean and three wonderfully beautiful figures

robed in white, leaning over the water and dropping white flowers
from their fingers. Here is no extensiveintellectual" target="_blank" title="n.知识分子">intellectualscheme to

trouble you, and no metaphysics of which we have had quite enough
in art. But if the simple and unaided colour strike the right

keynote, the whole conception is made clear. I regard Mr.
Whistler's famous Peacock Room as the finest thing in colour and

art decoration which the world has known since Correggio painted
that wonderful room in Italy where the little children are dancing

on the walls. Mr. Whistler finished another room just before I
came away - a breakfast room in blue and yellow. The ceiling was a

light blue, the cabinet-work and the furniture were of a yellow
wood, the curtains at the windows were white and worked in yellow,

and when the table was set for breakfast with dainty blue china
nothing can be conceived at once so simple and so joyous.

The fault which I have observed in most of your rooms is that there
is apparent no definitescheme of colour. Everything is not

attuned to a key-note as it should be. The apartments are crowded
with pretty things which have no relation to one another. Again,

your artists must decorate what is more simply useful. In your art
schools I found no attempt to decorate such things as the vessels

for water. I know of nothing uglier than the ordinary jug or
pitcher. A museum could be filled with the different kinds of

water vessels which are used in hot countries. Yet we continue to
submit to the depressing jug with the handle all on one side. I do

not see the wisdom of decorating dinner-plates with sunsets and
soup-plates with moonlight scenes. I do not think it adds anything

to the pleasure of the canvas-back duck to take it out of such
glories. Besides, we do not want a soup-plate whose bottom seems

to vanish in the distance. One feels neither safe nor comfortable
under such conditions. In fact, I did not find in the art schools

of the country that the difference was explained between decorative
and imaginative art.

The conditions of art should be simple. A great deal more depends
upon the heart than upon the head. Appreciation of art is not

secured by any elaboratescheme of learning. Art requires a good
healthy atmosphere. The motives for art are still around about us

as they were round about the ancients. And the subjects are also
easily found by the earnestsculptor and the painter. Nothing is

more picturesque and graceful than a man at work. The artist who
goes to the children's playground, watches them at their sport and

sees the boy stoop to tie his shoe, will find the same themes that
engaged the attention of the ancient Greeks, and such observation

and the illustrations which follow will do much to correct that
foolish impression that mental and physical beauty are always

divorced.
To you, more than perhaps to any other country, has Nature been

generous in furnishing material for art workers to work in. You
have marble quarries where the stone is more beautiful in colour

than any the Greeks ever had for their beautiful work, and yet day
after day I am confronted with the great building of some stupid

man who has used the beautiful material as if it were not precious
almost beyond speech. Marble should not be used save by noble

workmen. There is nothing which gave me a greater sense of
barrenness in travelling through the country than the entire

absence of wood carving on your houses. Wood carving is the
simplest of the decorative arts. In Switzerland the little

barefooted boy beautifies the porch of his father's house with
examples of skill in this direction. Why should not American boys

do a great deal more and better than Swiss boys?
There is nothing to my mind more coarse in conception and more

vulgar in execution than modern jewellery. This is something that
can easily be corrected. Something better should be made out of

the beautiful gold which is stored up in your mountain hollows and
strewn along your river beds. When I was at Leadville and

reflected that all the shining silver that I saw coming from the
mines would be made into ugly dollars, it made me sad. It should

be made into something more permanent. The golden gates at
Florence are as beautiful to-day as when Michael Angelo saw them.

We should see more of the workman than we do. We should not be
content to have the salesman stand between us - the salesman who

knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a
great deal too much for it. And watching the workman will teach

that most important lesson - the nobility of all rational
workmanship.

I said in my last lecture that art would create a new brotherhood
among men by furnishing a universal language. I said that under

its beneficent influences war might pass away. Thinking this, what
place can I ascribe to art in our education? If children grow up

among all fair and lovely things, they will grow to love beauty and
detest ugliness before they know the reason why. If you go into a

house where everything is coarse, you find things chipped and
broken and unsightly. Nobody exercises any care. If everything is

dainty and delicate, gentleness and refinement of manner are
unconsciously acquired. When I was in San Francisco I used to

visit the Chinese Quarter frequently. There I used to watch a
great hulking Chinese workman at his task of digging, and used to

see him every day drink his tea from a little cup as delicate in
texture as the petal of a flower, whereas in all the grand hotels

of the land, where thousands of dollars have been lavished on great
gilt mirrors and gaudy columns, I have been given my coffee or my

chocolate in cups an inch and a quarter thick. I think I have
deserved something nicer.

The art systems of the past have been devised by philosophers who
looked upon human beings as obstructions. They have tried to

educate boys' minds before they had any. How much better it would
be in these early years to teach children to use their hands in the

rational service of mankind. I would have a workshop attached to
every school, and one hour a day given up to the teaching of simple

decorative arts. It would be a golden hour to the children. And
you would soon raise up a race of handicraftsmen who would

transform the face of your country. I have seen only one such
school in the United States, and this was in Philadelphia and was

founded by my friend Mr. Leyland. I stopped there yesterday and
have brought some of the work here this afternoon to show you.

Here are two disks of beaten brass: the designs on them are
beautiful, the workmanship is simple, and the entire result is

satisfactory. The work was done by a little boy twelve years old.
This is a wooden bowl decorated by a little girl of thirteen. The

design is lovely and the colouringdelicate and pretty. Here you
see a piece of beautiful wood carvingaccomplished by a little boy

of nine. In such work as this, children learn sincerity in art.
They learn to abhor the liar in art - the man who paints wood to