led and snubbed,
is incredible to those who have not witnessed and understood it. He (or
she) who reveals the world of art to them opens heaven to them. They
become satellites, disciples, worshippers of the apostle. Now the
apostle may be a voluptuary without much conscience. Nature may have
given him enough virtue to suffice in a reasonable environment. But this
allowance may not be enough to defend him against the temptation and
demoralization of finding himself a little god on the strength of
what ought to be a quite ordinary culture. He may find adorers in
all directions in our uncultivated society among people of stronger
character than himself, not one of whom, if they had been artistically
educated, would have had anything to learn from him or regarded him
as in any way extraordinary apart from his actual achievements as an
artist. Tartuffe is not always a priest. Indeed he is not always a
rascal: he is often a weak man absurdly credited with omniscience and
perfection, and taking unfair advantages only because they are offered
to him and he is too weak to refuse. Give everyone his culture, and no
one will offer him more than his due.

In thus delivering our children from the idolatry of the artist, we
shall not destroy for them the enchantment of art: on the contrary, we
shall teach them to demand art everywhere as a condition attainable
by cultivating the body, mind, and heart. Art, said Morris, is the
expression of pleasure in work. And certainly, when work is made
detestable by slavery, there is no art. It is only when learning is
made a slavery by tyrannical teachers that art becomes loathsome to the
pupil.

"The Machine"

When we set to work at a Constitution to secure freedom for children, we
had better bear in mind that the children may not be at all obliged to
us for our pains. Rousseau said that men are born free; and this saying,
in its proper bearings, was and is a great and true saying; yet let it
not lead us into the error of supposing that all men long for freedom
and embrace it when it is offered to them. On the contrary, it has to
be forced on them; and even then they will give it the slip if it is not
religiously inculcated and strongly safeguarded.

Besides, men are born docile, and must in the nature of things remain so
with regard to everything they do not understand. Now political science
and the art of government are among the things they do not understand,
and indeed are not at