delight. And that work, which for the world
had lost all association with human initiative & solicitude, was to be
made to resume that intimate relation, and the workman himself to be
recalled into the assembly of those who are consciously striving to the
acknowledged end. The workmen contributing to the creation of a work
were to be thenceforward named its author, and to have their names
inscribed upon the great roll of the world's ever visible record.

Such appeared to be the new movement of which the first exhibition of
the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society was the first overt act.

Besides the enumeration and description of exhibits, the catalogue
contained a preface by the President, Walter Crane; a notice of
lectures to be given in connexion with the exhibition; and a number of
'Notes' upon various arts & crafts written by men who, as stated in the
preface, were associated with the subjects of which they treated, not
in the literary sense only, but as actual designers and workmen.

The object of the lectures was stated to be twofold: (1) To set out the
aims of the Society; and (2) by demonstration & otherwise, to direct
attention to the processes employed in the arts and crafts, and so to
lay a foundation for a just appreciation, both of the processes
themselves, and of their importance as methods of expression in design.

And here I may intercalate an extract from a book which appeared at
that time, as it throws a light upon, indeed constituted, one of the
main impulses to which was due the inception of the lectures. I refer
to 'Scientific Religion, or Higher Possibilities of Life and Practice
through the Operation of Natural Causes,' by Laurence Oliphant; and the
passage to which I ask your attention is the following:

'He can no longer be esteemed an excellent workman who can only work
excellently! for his work, to prove that it is living, must be
generative, and it will not be generative unless the workman has his
mind trained to a clear conception of his own methods and their
connexion with the laws of Nature: and unless he can impart that
understanding by word of mouth: unless, in fine, the sum of his
experience, while he is constantly increasing it, is as constantly
forced by him into mental shape'--or, as I might add, into imaginative
shape and association.

When I read this I seemed to see all crafts and manufactures and
commerce crystal clear and capable of statement, so that, even as they
stood