Morris, William: An address delivered by William Morris at the distribution of prizes to students of the Birmingham Municipal School of Art on Feb. 21, 1894 (London, 1898)

they will get from them when their eyes are open*
And,once again,as in the case ofthe fields & woods
and hillsides,when they are in the full enjoyment
of this pleasure, surely they will not forgo it for
fear of that artificial poverty, which is an affair as
purely conventional as the beauty of our ancient
buildings is real & substantial* Yet you must not
suppose that I am an advocate ofthe tumble/down
picturesque* Keep your village houses weather-
tightjtrim^anduseful; and where you must, build
others beside them: but why, when you build
these, should you make them specimens of the
worst buildings in the worst suburbs of a modern
town? Even in the passingday,if you build them
solidly and unpretentiously, using good materials
natural to their own country-side, 8C if you do not
stint the tenant of due elbow-room 8c garden, it is
little likelythat you will have done any offence to
the beauty of the country-sideor the older houses
in it* Indeed, I have a hope that it will be from
such necessary, unpretentious buildings that the
new and genuine architecture will spring, rather
than from our experiments in conscious style more
or less ambitious, or those for which the immortal
Dickens has given us the never-to-be-forgotten
adjective 1 Architectooralooral/
N ow this matter of the proper understanding of
Architecture is atthe present moment of such over-
whelming importance in the consideration of the
future of the Arts that I must say a few more words
c 13

Birming-
ham School
of Art, 1894*