on the past, may I not
recall the fervour, the enthusiasm of those first years, the ready
invention, the design, born of the moment and the occasion, for
catalogue, rules and room; and one design that caused so much,
long-forgotten commotion--the design by the President, to be hung over
the out-door entrance to the gallery, of artist and craftsman, hand in
hand! But how recall them to those who knew them not? Impossible! I
mention them only in piety to that holy time, when we circled about the
founts, and played, of that great movement which is now the world's!

As I write these words I am reminded of that definition to which I said
I would return. 'The aim of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society'--I
repeat the definition--'is to help the conscious cultivation of art,
and the attempt to interest the public in it, by calling special
attention to that really most important side of art, the decoration of
utilities, by furnishing them with genuine artistic finish in place of
trade finish.'

Surely this is a strange misapprehension & restriction of the aims of
the Society! Were that the only aim, then the movement was not what I
imagined it to be, and still imagine, nor would it be worthy of your
attention to-day, not to speak of the world's!

In the same preface in which this definition occurs there is a passage
which I passed over at the time, but which at this stage of our history
it is important that I should notice. 'We can,' says the writer,
'expect no general impulse towards the fine arts till civilization has
been transformed into some other condition, the details of which we
cannot see.'

And it was therefore--because we could expect no general impulse
towards the fine arts, until this obstacle was removed, that we were in
the meantime, and this was to be our 'movement,' to help the conscious
cultivation of art, which the writer at the same time says is no art at
all, and the attempt to interest the public in it!

Here I am at issue with the writer, and would submit that this general
impulse must precede and _itself_ bring about the transformation: and
further that this general impulse is precisely and already the impulse
constituting that great movement dubbed 'Arts and Crafts,' and that its
aim is not merely to help the conscious cultivation of art pending the
transformation, but itself to bring the transformation about.

In fact, I submit that in the intention of the founders, or in the
intention of some