Lecture IL I know no more of the technical side of it than i
Art and the have thought enough to enable me to understand
Beauty of it from the above/said historico/artistic side; but
the Earth* rather because I feel it almost impossible to dis^
sociate one of the ornamental arts from the others,
as things go nowadays* Neither do I think I
should interest you much, still less instruct, you,
if I were to recapitulate the general rules that
ought to guide a designer for the industrial arts;
at the very first foundation of these schools theim
structors in them formulated those rules clearly &
satisfactorily, and I think they have since been ac^
cepted generally, at least in theory* What I do
really feel myself bound to do is to speak to you
of certain things that are never absent from my
thoughts, certain considerations on the condition
and prospects of the arts in general, the neglect of
which conditions would drive us in time into a
strange state of things indeed; a state of things
under which no potter would put any decoration
on his pots, and indeed, if a man of strict logical
mind, would never know of what shape to make
a pot, unless the actual use it was to be put to drove
him in one direction or another* WTiat I have to
say on these matters will not, I fear, be very new
to you, and perhaps it may more or less offend
you; but I will beg you to believe that I feeldeep^
ly the honour you have done me in asking me to
address you* I cannot doubt you have asked me to
do so that you might hear what I may chance to
2
Art and the have thought enough to enable me to understand
Beauty of it from the above/said historico/artistic side; but
the Earth* rather because I feel it almost impossible to dis^
sociate one of the ornamental arts from the others,
as things go nowadays* Neither do I think I
should interest you much, still less instruct, you,
if I were to recapitulate the general rules that
ought to guide a designer for the industrial arts;
at the very first foundation of these schools theim
structors in them formulated those rules clearly &
satisfactorily, and I think they have since been ac^
cepted generally, at least in theory* What I do
really feel myself bound to do is to speak to you
of certain things that are never absent from my
thoughts, certain considerations on the condition
and prospects of the arts in general, the neglect of
which conditions would drive us in time into a
strange state of things indeed; a state of things
under which no potter would put any decoration
on his pots, and indeed, if a man of strict logical
mind, would never know of what shape to make
a pot, unless the actual use it was to be put to drove
him in one direction or another* WTiat I have to
say on these matters will not, I fear, be very new
to you, and perhaps it may more or less offend
you; but I will beg you to believe that I feeldeep^
ly the honour you have done me in asking me to
address you* I cannot doubt you have asked me to
do so that you might hear what I may chance to
2