DOI Heft:
No. 239 (February 1913)
DOI Artikel:The Arts and Crafts Society's exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery, [2]
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21160#0052
The Arts and Crafts Society s Exhibition.
schools, and it deserves encouragement and ex-
tension rather than suppression.
W. T. Whitley.
The proposed abolition of the National Com-
petition was strongly condemned by Mr. Frank
Brown, President of the Silk Association, in ad-
dressing the students of the Macclesfield School of
Art on the occasion of the annual distribution of
prizes in December. Mr. Brown, whose address
is fully reported in the " Macclesfield Courier" of
December 21, referred at length to the objections
which had been urged against the continuance 01
the Competition, and contended that if they did in
fact exist they were utterly insufficient to justify its
destruction. " They are " he continued, " as dust
in the scales to balance the great good the Com-
petition has done, not only in the direction of the
great stimulus to the students, which I have already
mentioned, but to the schools themselves ; for I
can imagine no better incentive to greater effort on
their part than to have the opportunity once a year
of seeing their work placed side by side and graded
to a common standard, set by a competent and
unbiassed authority. Quite apart from the students
and the schools, there is the interest of the com-
munity to consider, and it is, in my opinion,
essential to the usefulness and efficiency of the
schools that their work, classified in its varied
degrees of merit, should every year be placed on
view for public inspection and criticism. Remove
that safeguard, and there is the risk, and indeed,
when we consider the importance of art training,
the grave risk not only of a relaxing of effort on
the part of the schools, but of their drifting down
to a grade of work inferior, unwholesome, and
vicious in character. Against that tendency, for
we must acknowledge that it is an ever-present
danger, the National Competition has stood as a
great bulwark and by its influence and attitude,
always gentle, and never dictatorial, it has set the
compass of industrial art training in this country in
such a way that, in a land which only a few years
ago was almost barren of that art, we now have so
much that is good and promising that—much as
we may yet have to learn—we are not only no
longer ashamed to meet the world in competition,
but I believe that with the exception of France,
ILLUMINATED
3°
MANUSCRIPT
BY JESSIE BAYES
schools, and it deserves encouragement and ex-
tension rather than suppression.
W. T. Whitley.
The proposed abolition of the National Com-
petition was strongly condemned by Mr. Frank
Brown, President of the Silk Association, in ad-
dressing the students of the Macclesfield School of
Art on the occasion of the annual distribution of
prizes in December. Mr. Brown, whose address
is fully reported in the " Macclesfield Courier" of
December 21, referred at length to the objections
which had been urged against the continuance 01
the Competition, and contended that if they did in
fact exist they were utterly insufficient to justify its
destruction. " They are " he continued, " as dust
in the scales to balance the great good the Com-
petition has done, not only in the direction of the
great stimulus to the students, which I have already
mentioned, but to the schools themselves ; for I
can imagine no better incentive to greater effort on
their part than to have the opportunity once a year
of seeing their work placed side by side and graded
to a common standard, set by a competent and
unbiassed authority. Quite apart from the students
and the schools, there is the interest of the com-
munity to consider, and it is, in my opinion,
essential to the usefulness and efficiency of the
schools that their work, classified in its varied
degrees of merit, should every year be placed on
view for public inspection and criticism. Remove
that safeguard, and there is the risk, and indeed,
when we consider the importance of art training,
the grave risk not only of a relaxing of effort on
the part of the schools, but of their drifting down
to a grade of work inferior, unwholesome, and
vicious in character. Against that tendency, for
we must acknowledge that it is an ever-present
danger, the National Competition has stood as a
great bulwark and by its influence and attitude,
always gentle, and never dictatorial, it has set the
compass of industrial art training in this country in
such a way that, in a land which only a few years
ago was almost barren of that art, we now have so
much that is good and promising that—much as
we may yet have to learn—we are not only no
longer ashamed to meet the world in competition,
but I believe that with the exception of France,
ILLUMINATED
3°
MANUSCRIPT
BY JESSIE BAYES