d that the only institutions in
any country which endure are those which take a firm hold of the
popular mind and are supported by the people themselves. In order to
make the College of Art permanent, it must belong absolutely to the
people. This can only be effected by the gradual retirement of the
wealthy class, who will start it, from the management, and the
substitution of actual working men in their place--working men, I
mean, who have themselves been through some course of study in the
College, and have, perhaps, become teachers. And as working men will
certainly do nothing without pay--in London, whatever may be the case
elsewhere, their strongest feeling is that their only possessions are
their time and their hands--we shall have to provide that the teachers
of the schools, the directors of the college, and the clerks in the
secretariat, shall never be paid at a higher rate than the current
rate of wage for manual work. The people themselves will in the end
supply council, executive officers, and teaching staff. The time is
ripe; we are ready to begin the work; I do not fear for a moment that
the working man will not, if we begin with prudence, presently
respond, and, through him, the boys and girls.

We must, however, have a museum, although on this subject I cannot
dwell. I should like to take the Bethnal Green institution entirely
out of South Kensington hands; they have had it for fourteen years,
and you have heard what they have made of it. I think they should hand
it over, if not to our new College of Art, then to a local committee,
who would at least try to show what an educational museum should be.
Our educational museum will be a branch of the College of Art; it will
be in all respects the exact opposite of the Bethnal Green Museum; it
will have everything which is there wanting; it will have a library
and reading-room; it will have lecturers and teachers, it will have
class-rooms; the exhibits will be changed continually; there will be
an organ and concerts; there will be a theatre, there will be in it
every appliance which will teach our pupils the exquisite joy, the
true and real delight, of expressing noble thought in beautiful and
precious work.

THE AMUSEMENTS OF THE PEOPLE

'And do your workmen,' asked a London visitor of a Lancashire
mill-owner--'do your workmen really live in those hovels?'

'Certainly not,' replied the master. 'They only sleep there. They live
in my mill.'