empted to create by being taught to
imitate. Except that they are charming, revivals of morris-dancing and
folk-singing are little better than Arts and Crafts in the open. The
dust of the museum is upon them. They may turn boys and girls into
nimble virtuosi; they will not make them artists. Because no two ages
express their sense of form in precisely the same way all attempts to
recreate the forms of another age must sacrifice emotional expression to
imitative address. Old-world merry-making can no more satisfy sharp
spiritual hunger than careful craftsmanship or half hours with our "Art
Treasures." Passionate creation and ecstatic contemplation, these alone
will satisfy men in search of a religion.

I believe it is possible, though extremely difficult, to give people
both--if they really want them. Only, I am sure that, for most, creation
must precede contemplation. In Monsieur Poiret's _Ecole Martine_[28]
scores of young French girls, picked up from the gutter or thereabouts,
are at this moment creating forms of surprising charm and originality.
That they find delight in their work is not disputed. They copy no
master, they follow no tradition; what they owe to the past--and it is
much--they have borrowed quite unconsciously with the quality of their
bodies and their minds from the history and traditional culture of their
race. Their art differs from savage art as a French _midinette_ differs
from a squaw, but it is as original and vital as the work of savages. It
is not great art, it is not profoundly significant, it is often frankly
third-rate, but it is genuine; and therefore I rate the artisans of the
_Ecole Martine_ with the best contemporary painters, not as artists, but
as manifestations of the movement.

I am no devout lover of rag-time and turkey-trotting, but they too are
manifestations. In those queer exasperated rhythms I find greater
promise of a popular art than in revivals of folk-song and
morris-dancing. At least they bear some relationship to the emotions of
those who sing and dance them. In so far as they are significant they
are good, but they are of no great significance. It is not in the souls
of bunny-huggers that the new ferment is potent; they will not dance and
sing the world out of its lethargy; not to them will the future owe that
debt which I trust it will be quick to forget. There is nothing very
wonderful or very novel about rag-time or tango, but to overlook any
live form of expression