are agencies
which either are already working in the interests of Art, or could be
easily induced to do so.

To sum up, at the exhibition of the Bethnal Green Museum the people
walk round the pictures, are pleased to read their stories, and go
away; at the concerts they listen, are satisfied, and go away; at the
readings and recitations they applaud, and go away. They are not, in
fact, stimulated by these exhibitions and performances in the
slightest degree to draw, paint, carve, play an instrument, sing,
recite, or act for themselves. But observe that directly they form
clubs of their own, although they may develop many reprehensible
tendencies, and especially that of gambling, they do at once begin to
act, sing, recite, and dance for themselves. What we want them to do,
then, is to begin for themselves, or to fall in willingly with those
who begin for them, the pursuit of Art in its more difficult and
higher branches. What we desire is that they should realize what we
know, that to teach a lad or a girl one of these Fine Arts is to
confer upon him an inestimable boon; that no life can be wholly
unhappy which is cheered by the power of playing an instrument,
dancing, painting, carving, modelling, singing, making fiction, or
writing poetry, that it is not necessary to do these things so well as
to be able to live by them; but that every man who practises one of
these arts is, during his work, drawn out of himself and away from the
bad conditions of his life. If, I say, the people can be got to
understand something of this, the rest will be easy. A few examples in
their midst would be enough to show them that it wants little to be an
artist, that the practice of Art is a lifelong delight, and that in
the exercise and improvement of the faculties of observation,
comparison, and selection, in the daily consideration of beauty in its
various forms, the years roll by easily and are spent in a continual
dream of happiness. You know that it has been observed especially of
actors, that they never grow old. The thing is true with artists of
every kind--they never grow old. Their hair may become gray and may
fall off, they may be afflicted with the same weaknesses as other men,
but their hearts remain always young to the very end. But this is not
an inducement, I am afraid, that we can put forth in an appeal to the
people to follow Art. I am sure, moreover, that it is the desire of
all to include the encouragement of every kind