The Craftsman - 1908 - 01 - January PDF

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Further Announcement
of
The STRATHMORE
ARTISTS CONTEST
$1500
IN CASH PRIZES
E would urge those artists who propose to enter this competition to send in their drawings at the earliest possible date in order to facilitate the early announcement of the prize awards. The competition closes on January
3lst,1908.
The $1500 in prizes will be awarded by the Mittineague Paper Company to artists for the best picture, regardless of subject, in wash and water color made upon Strathmore Water Color Paper. They are to be divided as follows:
WATERXOLORS
1st prize-$500 2d prize-$150 3d prize-$100 for the best design for the next best desir(n for the next best design
WASH
DRAWINGS
1st prize--500 for the best design 2d prize--$I 50 for the next best design 3d prize--$I00 for the next best design
A jury composed of some of the best known artists and art editors in the country will pass upon the drawings and award the prizes. A folder containing full information about the conditions governing this contest, together with sample book of our papers, may be obtained from your dealer or by writing to
Prize Contest Dept., Mittineadue Mass., Paper Company
Mittineadue.
U. S. A.
Kindly
mention
The Craftsman ii
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THECRAFTSMAN
VOLUMLII:
XIII
JANUARY,
1908
NUMBER
Caricature The The

Marks
of Madame Stamp
A
Alla Nazimova Lrnion
as H&a .
Gabler: By Marius .
dc Znyns
Frontispiece 375 384 385 395 396 . 397
Guild Dreamer:
and the Poem A Kindly .
Label
BJ~ the Editor . By Edith Gor-,y IIclm . . . I~)# Elstr Bdrkrr

Century.
de Zayas: I//lrJlrd~d Staff:

From
Caricaturist
of the Emotions .
The The The
A Poem
the French
Winnowing Picturequeness
of the Corn
of Joachim
.
du Bellay,
English IT?))Lou Bcrzmtt

a Poet of the Fourteenth
of New
York
Streets
Illustrated in the Paintings Illi~.s/l.~//~~d Industrial
of Birge Harrison.
Training
for Deaf
Mutes
.
I> Furnished Them
By I~wis
to Become
II. Him
Deairatlle,
400
A Practical School w-here an Opportunity Self-Supporting Citizens. //lllvtrtll~d
Behold, This What Nature
Dreamer: A Story Holds for the Artist
. .
. .
. .
By Ewer~~ Pottlc By Gilts IGlgertou
409 420
A Story of the Heritage I Il,f5!r~lld
of Environment.
To
Boycott
The
the
Right
Billboard
of the Citizen
. . .
By Cliutorr Rogers ?1oodvll/T 433

Landscape.
to an Unposted
Chemical
Changes
in Oil Paintings
. .
.
By
BJf Hcitor A-I lliot

Gnrrc 11~1LLtz~JoYt1L
439 444
A Carpenter Who is a Collector IlllL.\tr<ll~~d Among the Craftsmen

The Development .
of Art Objects
Illll.s/rtrt,~d
of Domestic and Practice: . Doing
Architecture .
on the Pacific
Coast.
By Irrzcz Sixson
Number IV.
Hopkim
450 458 473
Design in Theory 1~~llStrUtcd . Interior
A Series of Lessons: . . By a Ballroom
Ermst
d-1. Bc~tihlder
Lesson 11
Illrf.s/ra!cd The Craftsmens

The Annual
Decoration:
Over
into a Nursery:
By Mary . .
Linton . .
Club,
Book-mzltcr . .
New York.
Guild
Arts and Crafts
Illz~strut~~~i . Als ik Kan Notes and Reviews

11y
. . .
Exhibition
. .
at the National
. .
Arts
. .
475 486 490
. .
. .
. 29
WEST 34~~
PUI~LISHED
GUSTAV
STICKLEY,
ST.,NEW
YORK
25
Cents a Copy
By the Year,
.. 111
$3.00
Entered June 6. 1906.at hewYork City.a, wcond-class manc~
F. W.DEVOE & CO.3 RAVQE ARTISTS OIL IllustrationBoards prepared with superior surCOLORS faces to meet the requireIN TUBES
Are in use in all the higher Schools of Art and recommended by the best Artists. See that your color box is filled with Devoe Tubes.
New
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Send for Samples
TOOLSAND MATERIALS FOR
LEATHER WORK
This illustration taken from
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Colors for
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A AD
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Price
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Half Pans, each, Tubes, 5 cents lo cents
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&
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iv
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Are the Finest and Beat Inks and Adheaiva. Ehanciwte ourselffrom the use ot the corrosivea,,d ill-amelling !&da and adopt the Higgins Inks and Adhesives. The7 will be a revelation to you. they an so sweet. dean and well put up. At Dealers Generally
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We carry the most complete stock in our line. Agents for Lefranc & Cie., Paul Foinet Fils, J. Block Fils, Schoenfelds and Cambridge colors and materials. Estimates given on We supply the Individual artists as well as the largest jobbers. Contracts solicited Linen Canvases mounted for Hotel, Church and Wall decorations. especially drawing boards for furnishing schools, etc., with Artists Woodenware, in large quantities. Woodenware Factory, 136-140 Sullivan Street, New York; Canvas Works, Mt. Vernon, New York; Branch Store, 169 West 57th Street, opposite Carnegie Hall, N. Y. City.
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163 COLUMBUS
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Practical instructmns in alqllled deslpn, for .x11Silk and Cotton prmted and woven goods; Book (?overh, \!a11l;t,~us, Table Damask. Rugs. Carpels; patterns for rhlna ~,alnrlng and hand embroidery. etc Send for Catalog. 321 W. 94th St..N Y.
The BENSON APPLIED
WALTER SCOT1 PERRY. Director.
LESSONS ON FORM
Translated By A. BLUNCK by DAVID OCONOR Illustrating the fundamental form of ancient, medireval and modern ornament; leaf, flower and fruit forms; festoons and garlands. Heraldic and symbolical figures, scrolls, etc. All are here given in their purest and simplest form. The designs are in clear black outline on square ruled paper. 124 plates with descriptive text (20 pages) in English, bound in cloth (size 8% x 12 inches).
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Design, IvIodeling, Wood-Carving, Cast and Life Drawing, Water Color, Art Embroidery. Evening Class in Costume Drawing,
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i.
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HESSLING
12th Street.
COMPANY.
New York,
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Oil Colors
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298
BROADWAY
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vi
The Niiti6nd
i&t and Crafts Institute

Street, Washington, D. C.
1832
1907
I700 Nineteenth
Is a training school for art&. crafters and teachers in the IlluStration, Drawing, following branches : Composition. Portrait Painting, Designing, Interior Decoration, Archit&ural Sculpture, Illuminating, Pottery Making, Ceramics, Mechanical Drawing. Leather Craft, Bookbinding, Weaving, Artistic Millinery, Needle Work, Lacemaking. Scientific Tailoring and Garment Designing, Basketry, Cabinet Making, Wood Carving, Metal Work, Jewelry Making, and a Normal Training Course in Sloyd. Students Day and evening classes for men and women. so desiring will be fitted for positions as professional illustrators, desighers. interior decorators, jewelers, designers and culters for ladies tailors, designers and trimmers of millinery, etc. Graduates will be assisted in securing positions. Meritorious walk of students will be placed on market, if desired.
INSTRUCTORS Anna Bogmholm Sloane. Principal Harold L. McDonald MathildeMu&n Cad J. N&an Harry S Michie CharlesW. Rippey Ellsworth H. Clevenger Katherine M. Watson Belle B. vesey Madan Lane Ellen Sundholm Write for booklet Anna M. Lewis Alice L. Quintrcll Hany B. White Clara D. N&h Clara M. Clark
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NEW YORK
OFFICE 298 London,
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and the same shape. size and quality of Tools that we havesold in our store to mechanics since 1848. Absolutely the best. ou$lt yo. NW: Tzols, ;;.g 6 53-36 15:oo u 54-40 20.00 I 85.00 100-96 Further details in Catalogicc No. 2418. WOOD rJ*rtvmts sbmld B(md rarcstalogue NO.8418 fcarrers mob.
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SPRING AND SUMMER HOME FURNISHINOS In the furnished craftsman display rooms can be found Art Stufl% and Materials designed for furnishing summer homes at the seashore, mountain camps or Bungalows. Complete collection of Craftsman Furniture. Wall Paper, Cretonne, Taffeta and Chintz in an extensive Window draperies in variety of designs and colors. Tissue and Madras Cloth, Casement Netting and Muslin. Contracts taken for the entire furnishing of summer homes from architects plans or from designs and drawings by Artists. Hand-made Donegal Rugs in colors to harmonize with furnishings. All sizes. Samples, Sketches and Estimates Submitted.
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If you should conclude to become a purchaser, we shall make plain the real value of whatever may select, and the prices will be the lowest possible-lower than you expect. We also have American Rugs of every description, including yen
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in solid colors, with band borders and woven in one piece, 4 yards wide, and of any length required. Another highly artistic Domestic Ng, the NEGAMO, is shown in all stock sizes and is less expensive We recomIt is also produced in any length, woven to order in 4 yard widths. than the Axminsters.
mend these rugs as particularly desirable and appropriate for Craftsman Houses.
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tion at your leisure :. A collection of our rugs may br seen in Craftsman surroundings at the Craftsman S ho w Rooms, opposite our establishment on 34th Street. Persons having no commercial rating,
If inconvenient to call write us and we will send rugs to your home for seleckindly give references.
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The Craftsman
Ill
MAI)Ah%E ALLA NAZIMOVA AS HEDDA CABLER: FROM A DRAWDE ZAYAS. ING BY MARIUS
GUSTAV VOLUME
STICKLEY. EDITOR AND PUBLISHER JANUARY, 1908 NUMBER 4 XIII
THE GUILD STAMP AND THE UNION LABEL: BY THE EDITOR

W&n th,e trade union of today retumzs to the standuro!sof the medkeval guilds, it will provide itself with real leaders, not lzmited x rank or birth or wealth (YT circumstance, but o erring the. way for eae indiuidw;cl to rise to a lace of honor and in Puence by the expression of hia own best and big L st self.--NIcHoLk3 MURRAY BUTLER.
HE year that has just closed has seen many happenings in the political, financial and industrial world which would seem to indicate that we are on the eve of a general readustment of the forces which go to make up our national i ife. As a result of the investigations which have been so unflinchingly pursued, there 1s no question but that at the coming session of Congress there will be placed upon our statute books very important and far-reaching legislation that will have for its object the better control of our banks, our common carriers, our public utilities and the great monopolies we call trusts. The financial crisis and the resulting industrial depression have also brought their lesson, for a change for the better in the conduct of affairs by large industrial concerns seems also to be imminent, and the openly expressed opinion that the curtailin of reduction will result in more efficient work and so in the end %e a 1 enefit to our national industries may be taken as the indication of a widespread belief that our present industrial system falls far short of producing the best results. As readjustment seems to be a part of the order of the coming day. would it not be a good thing for the nation if the spirit of reform and reconstruction could be extended far enough to include the labor organizations ? It is pretty generally admitted that under present conditions these bodies fall as far short of fulfilling the purpose for which they were originally organized as do the great combinations of capital from serving the best interests of our mdustrial life as a whole. For the sake of their own healthy growth and development 375 -
THE
GUILD
STAMP
AND
UNION
LABEL
and for the welfare of their members as individuals, it would seem to be a wise move on the part of the labor unions to fall in with the prevailing spirit of readjustment and to take account of stock with a view to reorganizing on a basis that shall be constructive rather than disintegrating. In times of overflowing prosperity such as we have just experienced, the demand for labor so far exceeds the supply that every man, whether competent or not, is reasonably sure of a job. It is the natural consequence of such prosperity that the unions should have found in it no incentive to cultivate the forces that alone make for permanent growth. Instead, the fact that there was plenty of work and plenty of money led the union leaders to consider that all their thought and energy was well spent when it was directed to the increasing of wages and the shortening of hours, together with the enforcing of rules and restrictions that would tend to give the unions at their own prices a monopoly of all the work to be done. In endeavoring to do all this, they did not stop to consider that by the time everything is adjusted to a scale of increased wages, prices of all commodities have moved up in proportion, so that the average workman is no better off than he was before. In fact, the chances are that he is not so well ofl, for the natural effect of a larger income is a feeling of greater freedom as to expenditure, without regard to the increased cost of all the necessaries of life. To the unions it was a golden opportunity for solid advancement, but judging by present For in return for the increased results, it seems to have been lost. pay and lessened time which they have exacted from employers, the unions have given no more competent work; rather, the standard of efficiency has been lowered to the level of the least competent, thereby taking away from the individual workman all incentive to increase his own efficiency as a means of obtaining steady employment or advancing to a higher grade of work. N THIS country there has always been a disposition on the part of the people to sympathize with the struggles of the laboring man against oppression, and until lately public feeling, as a rule, has been with workmen out on strike for whatever reason, regardless of the inconvenience caused by the tying up of important industries. It was natural that this should be so, if only from the inherent desire for fair play, and in the past there has frequently been good reason for the laboring man to meet force with force. The methods of large manufacturers,-particularlv of combinations of manufacturers,
376
THE
GUILD
STAMP
AND
UNION
LABEL
have often been unscrupulous when it came to dealing with their workmen as individuals. Therefore, the labor union seemed to offer the only defense, and with the first feeling of stren th resulting from combination, it has been only natural for the wor1 ingman, in his struggle to emancipate himself from oppressive conditions, to attem t to defend himself with the same kind of weapons that were The methods of warfare now so po ular used 1 y his opponent. with labor unions have grown up as a natural conse uence o P this tendency on the part of the individual members. Of Sate, however there seems to be a change in our attitude of general tolerance, and now there are strong indications that the main current of public feeling is beginning to go the other way. Under these circumstances it would seem only prudent for thoughtful workingmen to consider whether their unions are on the right track, and whether or not they wish to allow the power of their uruted efforts to wane until it becomes The matter lies in their own a factor not worth reckoning with. hands, for it requires only a determined effort to uphold a higher standard of efficiency and honesty to give them in the end the power, privileges and influence that belonged to the unions of former days, known now as the old trades guilds,-the powerful organizations which were frankly based upon the honesty of individual effort and which gave to their members a training in efficiency that fitted them not only to do work that was unimpeachable, but gave them such experience in the general affairs of life that they were well fitted to take an important part in the ruling of the nation. The guild idea, that is, the spirit of association uniting individuals for common profit as well as preservation, is as old as civilization, and has flourished among peoples differing widely from one another and at periods separated by hundreds and even thousands of years, but unquestionably it reached its highest expression in the trades guilds of mediaeval Europe, those great orgamzations which crushed the power of feudalism, established free communication throughout Europe, made possible a form of government established u on a sound and lasting basis, ruled all the o erations of finance an cr fixed a standard for work, for art and for I;iterature that has made the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries famous for all time. And all the power and influence of the trades guilds resulted from the fact that the success of their united action depended solely upon the honesty of individual effort. A rigid industrial system that was the law and life of the guild governed both the training of each individual workman and the quality of the goods produced, and the effect of this 377
THE
GUILD
STAMP
AND
UNION
LABEL
was to develop such skill in hand and brain that the workman could take honest pride in what he made, and could feel that he as an individual had achieved something that would add to rather than lower the reputation of the guild. In short, instead of being a cog in a vast system of industrial machinery, the workman was accustomed to regard himself as legitimate heir to a part of the business of the nation. HERE is no more interesting tale in all history than the story of the Greater Guilds, which were little republics within themselves, living under the strictest laws and enjoying an influence so extensive that the wonderful commercial prosperity, the artistic and industrial su remacy and the intellectual acumen of the medieval For example, may be regarded as the outcome of the Florentines, guild system. As each guild was an independent, self-ruling institution, its members naturally took a contmuous and eager share in political life and obtained, as a consequence of such varied political and economic training, a grasp of large matters that made them as adroit in diplomacy and parliamentary practice as they were accurate in business methods, so that on the occasion of upheavals in the which frequently took place in the existing form of government, Italian cities, they were able at once to step forward and meet the emergency with well-advised and adequate provisional government until the crisis was passed. It would take a volume to tell of the honors and achievements of the guilds, but only one sentence to show the foundation of them all, which was-efficient workmanshi , thorough honest , the perfection K e reputation rsonal pride in t of t i!ie or anization. of system and These old mere PI ants and craftsmen made a religion of in f ustry, and it was the object of the guild not only to maintain and extend its but to benefit each member in his indipower as an organization, vidual capacity, providing him with work, profit and pleasure, but always with the understanding that his work and his moral character were to be subjected to rigid scrutiny and that any one falling short of the standards of the guild must submit to severe punishment. The great power of the guilds lay as much in their close connection with the conduct and details of every-da life as in their relation to T il ey were no mere formal national or continental enterprises. organizations for purposes which began and ended with commerce To borrow some vivid words of description : Their and industry. members sat together at the feast, stood by one anothers honor in the mart, lived in the same quarter, sha.red the same purchase, ma.rched 378
THE
GUILD
STAMP
AND
UNION
LABEL
side by side in the pageant, acted together in the play and fought together on the part of the city walls committed to their care. The merchant lived m his warehouse, which was also his factory as well as his shop, the apprentice sat at his masters table for seven years, somewhat after the manner of an adopted son, and on attaining the membership of the guild he gained a recognized and honorable position in the land. That this last was so was due to the high standard of the guild. When the guild stamp was put upon any piece of work-it was accepted without question in all markets as a guarantee against any falsiflcation of material or any flaw in workmanship. To quote from the history of the Calimala, or the guild of Florentine cloth dressers: The statutes for the good of the uild, enforced by so many ma istrates, prescribed hard and fast ru P es for the exercise of trade. $ ery severe punishments were inflicted when the merchandise was of inferior quality, defective or counterfeit. Every piece was labeled, and any stain or rent not recorded by this label entailed the punishment Above all, there was great strictness of the merchant concerned. Every guild had a tribunal composed as to accuracy of measure. either solely of its members or jointly with those of another for the settlement of all disputes connected with the trade, and enforced severe penalties on all who referred such disputes to the ordinary The punishments were usually fines, and persons courts of justice. refusing to pay them, after receiving several warnings, were excluded from the guild and practically ruined, for from that moment their merchandise, being unstam ed, was no longer guaranteed by the association, and they themse Pves were unable to continue their work in Florence, and often were debarred elsewhere. HIS was the significance of the guild stamp, which being affixed meant that the oods reached the standard established by the guild, and had t% e whole power of its re utation behind them. In these days we have the union label, and t lre difference between it and the guild stamp symbolizes the whole change in standards. Everybody is familiar with the efforts of the unions to force the use of the label through appeals to the public to patronize union-made goods to the exclusion of all other, and also through threats of boycotts, strikes and every form of warfare known to those who control the campaigns of union labor against the manufacturer or dealer who refuses to recognize the label. 379
THE
GUILD
STAMP
AND
UNION
LABEL
Remembering the significance of the guild stamp, the question naturally arises: What does the union label stand for 3 Is it a shop mark to indicate a standard of excellence of which the manufacturer is proud and which serves to advertise the fact that his goods are of a quality that he is willing to acknowledge and to guarantee, or is it simply an indication that men who have banded themselves together for the purpose of mono olizing the production of that particular article have been success Pul in forcing some manufacturer to come to their terms 3 In the resent day, of course, we have no guild stamp to serve as a genera P standard and guarantee, but when a manufacturer makes honest goods, he generally wants the consumer to know it, and his label or shop mark is as im ortant to him as a means of identification as the guild stamp was to tft e guildsmen of centuries ago. It is also to be noted that shoddy goods are seldom identified in this way, for if the oods do not come up to the standard demanded by the consumer the ! abel would only have the effect of identifying them to the detriment of their sales. But in the case of the union label there can be no possible significance as a mark of excellence in quality. That is a matter entirely beyond the control of the workman or of the union to which he belongs. The label of a manufacturer is, in a sense, a personal guarantee of uality. It means a certain grade of material, a certain style in the ma1 e of the article, and may, in some cases, be worth millions to the man who owns it. It is the direct descendant of the old guild stamp, while the union label has nothing to do with the standard of the goods produced and, save for the fact that it guarantees the exclusion of sweat-sho goods, it carries no meaning to the consumer beyond a reminder t Kat an organization of workmen is using every means to enforce the recognition of the union shop, there being not one iota of difference in quality between goods that bear the umon label and those that do not. The manufacturer having entire authority as to designs, materials, quality of goods and the apportionment of tasks to the workmen in making those goods, it follows that the purpose of the union label is purely coercive, and that its sole value to either workman or consumer lies in the recognition of the union that is implied by its use and the revenue derived by the union from the sale of it to the manufacturer. F THE trade union of today is ever to return to the standards of the mediaeval guilds and to attain to the power which resulted from the strict and honest maintenance of these standards, it must abandon its policy of attempting to secure monopoly prices, of
380
THE
GUILD
STAMP
AND
UNION
LABEL
unfair methods of keeping down membership and of intimidation and violence toward non-union men, and return to the principle that no organization can be organic and constructive in its nature unless it be founded upon the principle of efficiency,-upon honest individual effort, out of which effective united effort naturally grows. To do this would, of course, demand a thorough reorganization of our whole industrial system. The high standards of the old guilds were possible because the guilds themselves were not organizations of workmen arrayed against em loyers, or organizations of employers excluding the workmen, but i! odies which included every member of the trade or craft, from the wealthiest master craftsman or merchant down to the humblest apprentice whose indentures had just been signed. All alike were responsible for the honor of the guild, and the esprit de corps that resulted from the personal contact of the master and workmen and the freedom and encouragement given to all individual effort made vital and natural the growth of the whole organization. Yet, false as are the standards which actuate most of the efforts on the part of modern labor organizations to control the industrial situation, they are by no means all to blame for the meaninglessness of the union label and the fact that it has nothing behind it worth fighting for. If a standard of efficiency in which the unions have a share is to be established in manufactures, it must be one in which the men as individuals are interested, which they take a personal pride in maintaining and for which they receive a just proportion of the The effect upon the men of the present system, by which reward. they are able through certain coercive measures on the part of the union to obtain shorter hours and higher wages in return for careless and incompetent service, cannot be otherwise than harmful. It shelters the lazy and inefficient workman and it denies to the ambitious and skilful man his right to advance to the position which Consequently, the great weakness of the naturally belongs to him. labor union of today is that it tends to drag all its members down to While they belong to the the level of the slowest and the stupidest. union there can be no acknowledgment or higher payment for the production of superior goods for which there is a legitimate demand and which are worth more money than the inferior product of less skilled workmen ; in fact, their work as individuals has nothing to do with the price or standard of the product. The business of each man is to run his machine, get through his days work, draw his pay He can have no possible interest in the and stand by his union. 381
THE
GUILD
STAMP
AND
UNION
LABEL
Wh en matters are shaped so that the individual workthing made man may find some scope for the expression of his own ideas,-for e and experience in op ortunities given to the use of his knowle % the article is produce f and to share with study the need for whit his employer the responsibility of its design and its quality, it will be time to talk of returning to the standards of the old ilds and also the use of the union label on goods made fYy union men. of enforci But the on T y way to gain energy, honesty and intelligence from the workman is to make it worth his while to exercise them. Under the resent system he is little more than a art of the machinery of the Factory he works in. There is absolute Py no reason why he should feel any interest in his work beyond the daily wage he earns for performing the monotonous task set for him. It is a universal law that work is not alone a means to keep body and soul to ether, but also a means of growth through self-expression,-a means I?y which individual capacity and industry gain individual recognition and bring an adequate return, and if the opportunity for growth is denied, the work is hardly worth the doing. If such reorganization were possible, and employers and employees would realize that their best can be done only when they work to ether toward a common end, the labor unions might hope to provi f e themselves with the real leaders spoken of by Dr. Butler, and, founded on the solid basis of efficient work, to grow healthily along the lines of personal development and of sound citizenshi . This is a question that affects not only the workingmen, but the who Pe of our national life, for our workmen are our citizens, and under the present system our workmen are becoming less and less efficient. When a man depends not on his own efforts but on the efforts of some one else, that is, on the power or influence of his union to do for him what he is too indifferent or too inefficient to do for himself, he is sinking in the scale as a man and a worker and is losin all the power of individual achievement which might be his were % e allowed to depend upon himself. S IT stands now, the whole policy of the labor union seems to be tending toward disintegration. The walkin delegate is supreme, and the walking delegate is the natura 7 prey of the Many an honest, capable workman is sent great money powers. unwillingly out on strike, not because there is any real grievance to be fought, but because the vanity and cupidity of the labor leaders have been used to further the ends of some unscrupulous captain of in-
382
THE
GUILD
STAMP
AND
UNION
LABEL
dustry who wishes to overwhelm his corn etitors or to shut down for a time upon his own expenses. Even w %en this is not the case, the rule of passion and prejudice in the persons of glib-tongued demagogues 1s often fes onsible for widespread disaster that comes to working people as t FL e result of their loyalty to the union. As a nation we are now using every possible effort to destroy or reorganize the trusts and start afresh upon a sounder basis. It would be easier and perhaps better in the long run to destroy or reorganize the labor unions, for the trusts, whatever industrial evils have arisen from their unchecked growth, are organized on principles that are essentially constructive. They unquestionably are created to serve reed, but they are also the greatest expressions of inindividual dividual e ff ciency. Whatever the captain of industry may or may not be, there is no question as to the efficiency of his method of doing the work that he has set himself to do, or of his interest in the erformance of it. With the standards which now form the basis oP its action, the labor union can oppose to cool generalship only brute force; to well calculated and sound business principles and methods If efficiency could be made the warrant only prejudice and feeling. of advancement for each individual, and honest conviction the basis of united action, as in the days of the medieval guilds, there is no question but what the organizations of workers could rank among the most important powers in the land. History teaches us no more significant lesson than that the rulers of a nation, when they become weak or unworthy, are always replaced from the ranks of the workers. It is a fundamental law of progress that no development is possible save throu h interest in work, and the problems that come up concerning it, an % that the man who wrestles most vigorously with these problems is the man who is best able to grapple with reat things. If labor would follow the example of capital an 8 combine for greater efficiency, it would be more in accord with the old American s irit that made this country what it is: the spirit of independence, or self-confidence and of ambition to rise in life by force of ability, The labor unions have relaxed the moral intelligence and honesty. fiber of their members even while striving honestly to benefit them. The union man is provided with easy work, good pay and short hours when well, and is sure of some help from his or anization should he fall ill, but as a penalty he is restricted to the 7 eve1 of the weakest member of his union, and can never hope to rise bv excellence of workmanship or the use of his brain to a leading position or to the acquiring of a competence by superior industry or frugality. 383
THE
DREAMER
As the matter stands now, the principles and policies of the unions are directly opposed to intelligence, independence, industry and In place of encoura ing these, ambition on the art of their members. the union as a E ody endeavors to coerce and to overreac % , to ain every advantage and to ive as little as possible, to produce c7 ass instead f etween employer and employee, hatred and antagonism of acknowledging that capital and labor are mutually interdependent, and that a single standard for both would go far to remove the antagonism that now exists between them.
THE DREAMER
ET
be his dream candles, Be silent and revere, Scorn not what he doth rear,
Because thine own abode, A vault is, dark and old, Where thou doth creep mid mould. Who fired the dream-tapers ? Know twas no mortal hand These glorious visions fanned. And those not lit by Truth Old age with withering breath, Hath power to put to death. Let be his dream candles, Be silent and revere Behind them dwells the seer. -EDITH
GERRY
HELM.
3%
MARIUS DE ZAYAS: A KINDLY IST OF THE EMOTIONS
CARICATUR-
AUGHTER is a powerful weapon, offensive and defensive, for a nation or an indrvidual. You have captured an audience if (to use an American slang) the laugh is with you, and you have vanquished an opponent if the laugh is on him, and so the caricature nowadays is mightier than the lawyer, for repartee may fence with recrimination, but for a smile there is no convincingly brilliant reply. The more advanced civilization becomes, the more often will battles be fought and won by laughter, by an appeal through pen and pencil to that finer expression of mental alertness-a sense of The sword and javelin, bullet and smokeless powder, have humor. fitted into the sanguinary needs of our nations development, but these are old-fashioned methods of warfare, tangible, unsubtle; today we are beginning to understand that a laugh is more dangerous than a battle-axe, and that the most potent firing line is from paper. We conduct a combat from our desks and number our victims by their susceptibility to our wit. Bludgeons are now in our museums and rifles have slipped into place as a final sartorial decoraOur enemies tremble no longer because of tion for dress parade. our arsenals, but in the face of their own caricatures. In days of feudal strife, a normal man often entered battle with a dread of losing his life; later, as we progressed into democratic politics, his reputation was usually shorn from him in the fray. but in twentieth century warfare what he fears most, whether in religious, social or political encounter, is the blow to his vanity at the hands of the cartoonist-the power the poet Burns sighed for, of furnishing a man with the mortifying opportunity of seeing himself as his enemies see him. The value of the caricature as a fighting force is at last fully accepted, not only for international warfare, but for interstate combat. The cartoon does not courtesy to great kings nor bow to exalted social conditions; on the contrary, it regards all men and estates as equally eligible for its satirical attention. The really civilized modern nation has come to feel the necessity of developing its own class of cartoonists along with its more or less obsolete army and navy, for every nation must eventually fight with the weapons of every other nation, and at present least of all can any civilized country afford to present opportunities for ridicule without striking back vigorously and swiftly with its own ca.rtoonists. 385
A CARICATURIST
OF
THE
EMOTIONS
ALVIN
L. COBURN-A
STUDY
IN CONCENTRATION.
Not only is the humorist-artist needed to meet the emergencies of international diplomacy, but even at home he is necessary to battle with evil conditions that must spring up in every powerful growing nation; political evils, sanitary evils, sociological evils, can all be fought silently and cheerfully by the well-drawn, finely-sensitized caricature. When the cartoonist is not correcting the nation or battling for it, then it is his high privilege to amuse it. In his hours of ease he may entertain both king and street sweeper, possibly teaching a little even while entertaining. And as he cannot amuse his own land without appealing straight to the kind of humor which is its national characteristic, then how neatly is it possible to judge of a nation by its cartoons. The subject for laughter of a people is unquestionably the index to the mental and moral qualities of that nation, and so if the caricaturist becomes a national biographer, are we not entitled to infer that Le l&e, Simplicissimzu, Punch and Life are frank presentations of the temperament of each country in turn? If this is true, there is food for thought at hand. 386
CARICATURIST
OF
THE
EMOTIONS
TEE YAP HISTORY
FACR ON
BECOMES YAY
SORT
OF
OF INDIVIDUAL
WHICH
RR TRACED EX-CES.
THE
387
A CARICATURIST
OF
THE
EMOTIONS
Up to the present time the caricature has been used in America most vigorously and effectively in the battleground of home politics, of national and state elections and as a weapon with a fine poisoned The cartoon emtip by the opposing forces of capital and labor. ployed for this kind of warfare, conducted through the daily press, is usually of the most primitive kind, stress being laid upon the exaggeration of physical eccentricities, or of obvious moral (or immoral) The bald man, for instance, is drawn with a single flaunting traits. wisp of hair, the owner of a cantilever nose is made to sink into a mere background for the .unfortunate physical an ingrowin profile or peculiarity, showy set of teeth are alP forced into 1 n cruel exaggeration by this most simple type of cartoonist. The artist of a shade more intellectuality presents an exaggeration of obvious characteristics of the man for ridicule-his gestures, his mannerisms, his vanities and poses are held up for the amusement of his opponents.
+aass wn
JOHN A
DREW
AS IDOL.
XATINtt
HILE the more unusual artist, the more intuitive and creative type of the humorist finds food for others reflection in showing forth the hidden qualities of heart and soul, in presenting the various individualities which make up the personal temperament of the man or woman. This third type of the caricaturist is a psychologist, pitiless and amusing, searching and Such a man is as careful convincing. and intuitive an analyst of character as George Meredith, Edith Wharton, May Sinclair or John Sargent. From these people we may not hide the story of our lives; we do not tell it, but our features do. To the finer vision of this type of humorist life has made the face into a sort of map on which can be
A CARICATURIST
OF
THE
EMOTIONS and much that has been and completely revealed;
traced the history of individualiexperiences, hidden to intimate friends is ruthlessly poses are tattered, enthusiasm stripped of sentimentality, disingenuousnesses peer out of startled eyes, selfishnesses flicker through a sweet smile; self-satisfaction touches the Two kindly lines of the mouth. personalities stare at the cartoonist from every face ; the one we know and the one but half known, even to the caricatured. The cartoonist of the soul is not all cynicism and bitterness, not always a preacher and a schoolmaster; often he but permits the caricatured to half laughingly own up to his own shortcomings as very sure of understanding and sympathy, which he in turn would gladly give were circumstances reversed. In the caricatures shown with this article this kindly feeling almost inevitably predominates. Mr. de Zayas has analyzed the emotions of these well- known men and women without bitterness or prejudice. He presents to us the story resented which they individually to him, without persona P feeling, without for a minute permitting his art to dominate the truth, and the result is unerringly exact psychological studies. The sketches have even stood the test of appreciation and enjoyment from the men and women caricatured. Mr. Marius de Zayas is a new recruit to the ranks of the New York caricaturists, yet he has shown a marked susceptibility to the subtle
TAKWHITE CLARENCE ING A SYMBOLIC SUBJECT.
389
A CARICATURIST
OF
THE
EMOTIONS
variation of characteristic that dominate the many races which furnish literary and artistic interest and charm to New York. In the illustrations to this article a half dozen different nation-
THE LAST 62mmaARON.
alities are presented-Russian, Swedish, French, English, the cosmopolitan Mexican and the essentially metropolitan New Yorker, all dissected and depicted with equal sureness and humorous psycholOgY. Mr. de Zayas is himself of Spanish parentage. He was born in Vera Crux, Mexico, in eighteen hundred and eighty. His first art studies were, of course, in Europe, but he is frank to say that in his accomplishment as an artist they have counted for little. His greatest art enthusiasms were found in the old museums in Mexico which are treasure houses of ancient Aztec art. In the strange carvings of these mysterious symbols he felt the greatest appeal to his ima ination. And perha s the sense of mystery always to be found in a is more or less ela E orate sketches may be traced to his early interest in and intimacy with the esoteric artistic expression of these long dead artists. Mr. de Zayas first humorous work appeared in El Diurio, the leading newspaper of the City of Mexico. Less than a year ago he came to New York, where the unusual quality of his work received instant attention.
MR. CHARLES HAAG, SCULPTOR: FROM A DRAWING BY MARIUS DE ZAYAS.
A CARICATURE OF MARIUS DE ZAYAS, BY HIMSELF.
MR. FROM
LRON
DABO,
LANDSCAPE BY MARIUS
PAINTER: DE ZAYAS.
A DRAWING
THE
STAFF
N THESE past few months, in a totally new environment, he has proved with no uncertain expression that he possesses the rare intuition which comprehends without experience modern life in the endless variation afforded by the amal amation of complex civilization-the intuition which is a lamp in t1 e hands of genius. Adventure and experience lead the other workers. But the value of de Zayas work is not wholly in its technical brilliance and swiftness of intimate sympathy, in its pleasure as a work of art; some of its greatness at least springs from; the creative quality, as opposed to the destructive tendency of most caricature The average cartoon, of peace or war, is used, to tear down work. De Zaya.s work faulty structures in politics, society or individuals. is constructive, faults are not the only thing shown under his powerful glass ; one sees all the characteristics that are the details magnifyin The temperament as a whole is generously analyzed, of ersona Tity. fau P ts and poses are not presented as an impertinence, but impartially for ones own contemplation and subsequent elimination. The technique of his work is fresh, forceful and amazingly individual. With the fewest possible strokes of the pen the story is told, fearlessly and convincingly, and always with an impression of a certain fine reserve-that quality of reticence which characterizes the intimacies of well-bred friends.
WAS long ago, with fasting and with prayer, I cut my pilgrim staff from the great tree Of sacrifice, and it has been with me Rugged and bare, In all my wandering. And dry as ancient stone, up the steep stairThe winding rock-stair of necessityThe staff has gone beside me steadily, Ay, urged me on, under the load of care.
9
THE STAFF
But yesterday the beauty of the spring Trembled through all my being, and I leaned Upon my staff-to feel it quiverin ; To see that its whole rigid len ta had greened, Had grown all tender with so f:t buds, that screened And then I heard him sing! The eyes of Love.
-ELSA
BARKER.
395
THE WINNOWING OF THE CORN: FROM THE FRENCH OF JOACHIM DU BELLAY, A POET OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
ALTER PATER says somewhere of the old French poet du Bellay: He has almost been the poet of one poem. It is a song which the winnowers are su posed to sing as they winnow the corn, and invo I: e the winds to lie lightly on the grain. One seems to hear the measured falling of the fans, with a childs pleasure at coming across the incident for the first time in one of those great barns of du Bellays own counanary of France. A sudden light transfigures a try, La Beauce, the trivial thing, a weat r ervane, a windmill, a winnowing flail, the dust in-the barn door; a moment-and the thing has vanished because it was pure effect; but it leaves a relish behind it, a longing that the accident may happen again. To you, winds so fleet, Who with winged feet Run the world around. And with murmur soft Lift the trees aloft Shadowing the ground. I offer you the violets, The lilies and the flowerets And the roses here, The fair crimson roses The early morn discloses, And the daisies dear. Ah, with your sweet air Fan this place so fair, Lin er here, I pray, Where, t 5 roughout the morn I throw my streams of corn In the heat of day. English by LOIS BENNETT.
396
THE PICTURESQUENESS OF NEW STREETS: ILLUSTRATED IN THE INGS OF BIRGE HARRISON
YORK PAINT-
I CAN no longer be denied that New York streets have obtained a vo e for picturesqueness; from being disand dained even Y y the most devoted Americans, bein accused by the, forei ner of every possible metropo Fi itan inelegance, they ghave slowly and definitely achieved a popularity with artist and critic. The insensitive to New Yorks fascinatingly ugly ways feel a sense of bewilderment at this vogue, while those who early received the magnetism of the city, whose charm was the piquancy of much ected beauty, realize that their own ugliness and occasional une point of view, held stubbornf y for years against jeers and smiles, And now that the vogue is established and is finally vindicated. New York has become a belle in her way among cities, there are many who lay claim to the honor of having first discovered the picturesque phases of her devious outlines. Pennell in his masterly etchings of skyline and harbor, of city squares and canyons, with his sensuous presentation of cloud and snowdrift, of mist and rain, has surely worked as a lover might to testify to her beauty in each of her many whimsical moods, the charm solely of the ugly woman of W. H. Ranger, too, came under her spell magnetic temperament. more than a half dozen years ago and painted wrth eerie brush glowing through pouring ram, the metallic gleam of wet lights quiverin % ining trees throwing grotesque shadows, of serpentine pavements, of s trains on high wrought-iron structures tree ing by through dim a beauty of high lights and bPack spaces, and born backgroundsof the elements usually shunned by artist and pedestrian. And Jules Guerin might easily feel that his claim as a rospector was guaranteed in the mystical New York which he has B iscovered and presented with such delicacy and fine reserve, in ay churchHe ards and gentle universities with their remote alluring f?eauty. E as seemed to see our city of crude contrasts and evasive charm in a sort of spiritual vision. The fantastic side of the New York temperament has perhaps been best realized by the painter always of fantastic phases of life, Everett Shinn; to this artist she is a turbulent spirit, active, difficult, with an intangible charm to be felt in spite of waywardness of character. A city of gaily blown about draperies, of vivid spots of color, of elfin moods and sprite-like graces, Halloween lurks in his brush.
397
PICTURESQUE
NEW
YORK
IO those who perhaps have known her best, who have most quietly and devotedly shown friendship and admiration and gathered up her charm from time to time upon canvas for the world slowly to understand and admire, there is none more loyal and appreciative than Mr. Birge Harrison, the landscape painter. He has found her a city of dreams, of poetical spell, of haunting fascination. Her charm was first presented to him quite a good many years ago by the elder George lnness, who it seems might almost be regarded as a Columbus m the discovery of New Yorks picturesqueness. When 1 returned from my studies abroad, said Mr. Harrison, some twenty-five years ago, I asked the advice of George Inness as to a suitable painting ground not too far from New York. Painting ground, said the old man in his nervous, testy way, go right down into the streets of New York and set your easel anywhere. If I were condemned to pass the rest of my life inside the limits~of New York City, I should never be at a loss for magnificent subjects to paint. Why, there is material for an artists lifetime within a quarter of a mile of Madison Square. I followed his advice, Mr. Harrison continued, and from all my excursions out into the world I have returned time and again to the charm of New York streets for my subjects. In spite of the irregularity (because of it, perhaps) New York is certainly one of the most picturesque cities in the world-a temperamental city also, of ever shifting and varying effects, with a mood to suit the brush of every painter who appreciates her. And Mr. Harrison is an artist not without standards of comparison. An adventurer of lands by nature and an artist seekina beauty, he has wandered much over the world, from Australia to &e South Seas, to India, Ceylon, South America, up and down the Mediterranean shore, a dweller in the villages of the Hopi and Navajo Indians, living two seasons in California and then a sojourn in New England; later a home in the Catskills, where he now lives and works. And all this after student days in Paris, where he went with John Sargent. One sees that his periodical return to New York is not through lack of manifold subjects for his easel the world over, nor could it be attributed to a narrowness of understanding, born of provincialism It is rather that Birge Harrison, like his old or limited standards. friend Inness, chances to be one of the men who create rather than imitate, having the temperamental tendency, to which every country must owe its art, of expressing best and most willingly the subjects which are a part of their national and personal environment. It is
398
From n Photogra#h by a??. S. Bmlutt.
CHRISTMAS JUDSON IN
EVE THE
ON
WASHINGTON BY
SQUARE, BIRGE
THE
BACKGROUND:
HARRISON.
From a Pkotograpk
by B. 5.
Bennett.
THE RAINY
FLATIRON NIGHT :
BUILDING
ON
BY BIRCE EIARRISON.
From n Pkotografh
by E. S. Bennett.
FIFTY-NINTH STR%%T, NEW YORK, IN WINTER : BY BIRGE HARRISON.
From (I Phologroph by B. S. Bmnrtt.
FIFTH TER :
AVENUE BY _ .%IRGE
IN
WIN-
HARRISON.
PICTURESQUE
NEW
YORK
not patriotism, this sense of artistic intimacy with ones own land, but that sort of honesty and simplicity, so often a quality of the creative artist, which finds freest and fullest expression in the nearest, best-known surroundings. Mr. Harrisons paintings of New York are of scenes most familiar to those who know the city well and affectionately, to all Fciho are sensitive to her phases of intermittent beauty. In the Washington Square picture you are looking south, with the soft yellow-brown tones of The Judson in the background; it is a winter night scene, w:th the fore round of barren trees and long grotesque shadows of branches sf anting over the shining pavements. The light from The Judson tower glows softly, timidly through the glare of electricity-a kindly learn fraught with reminiscent sentiment to The Flatiron Building many of the older dwe Plers about the Square. is handled with a full understanding of the strange poetical possibility Mr. Harrison has given it a ofi.this three-cornered ugly structure. The outlines of mellow charm in the drip of a soft spring storm. the building and the cars and cabs are softened with the blur of rain, and as you face the picture the faint ineffable stirring of the heart that comes with the early April shower is yours. The painting is simply done ; there are no tricks of technique, no dramatic brushwork or sensual color appeal.! Of these New York pictures there is probably none that will recall to so many the fleeting joy of New York snow scenes as the painting of Fifty-ninth Street at the lower edge of Central Park. How many rootbound citizens refresh their memory of winter by this very scene of the first snowfall, and in Mr. Harrisons picture you feel that he too There is a sense of crackling snow has sought this very pleasure. under the feet, of the flurry of it through the trees and about the housetops ; the city is slowly hidden and the park comes close, offering a delightful pretence of dense forests and dangerous pathways. Another New York winter scene, which is simply called Fifth Avenue, shows a very genuine appreciation of the picturesqueness of irregular skylines and the vista of rare beauty which this avenue presents as it recedes down to Washington Square. The dweller in New York, or the visitor to this great whimsical metropolis, or any lover of the beauty which is elusive and ever varying, owes a lasting debt of gratitude to the great Mr. Inness that he should have directed the mind of so genuine an artist as Birge Harrison to the possibilities of picturesqueness so varied and wonderful and so little understood as the streets of New York.
INDUSTRIAL TRAINING FOR DEAF MUTES: A PRACTICAL SCHOOL WHERE AN OPPORTUNITY IS FURNISHED FOR THEM TO SELF-SUPPORTING BECOME DESIRABLE, CITIZENS: BY LEWIS W. HINE
I MEANS one thing to be convinced that industrial education is the solution for many of the difficult questions that arise under present-day conditions; it is an entirely different matter to try some definite branch of this excellent theory and, under real conditions, out of our social complexity, to prove what It is especially pitiable to find in the may be done. poorer districts of our large cities so many children handicapped not only by poverty but also by the deprivation of those natural rights, the faculties of hearing and speech, without which life seems so bare. But what are you going to do about it ? is asked: Will some form of industrial education make them better citizens and more efficient workers? If so, what form shall it be? An answer to this problem has been found in an institution for the deaf on Lexington Avenue, New York, easily accessible to the great, suffering East Side. The work has been developed unostentatiously, with a large comprehension of the need for some successful solution, and also of the difficulties to be encountered. Its aim is to educate boys and girls who are not able to receive instruction with hearing children, and to give them a foundation of social and intellectual experience that shall serve them both for present and later life, whether it IS to be spent in the home or in the shop. To minister to the special needs of these children, there has grown up in this institution an industrial department. The deaf child needs manual work even more than the hearing child, because the latter, in games and makebelieves, uses his hands in making devices to carry out his ideas, while the deaf child, in forced solitude, is more apt to let creative faculties go to waste. Moreover, the hearing child takes it for granted that he can achieve, while the deaf child needs to have this possibility brought out, and is often *greatly surprised to discover that he can really do something with his hands. Above all, the need for manual expression is greater with the deaf because the outlet of their impulses is confined to fewer channels, making the instruction of the remaining physical senses a far more difficult task and one that requires great and unremitting care.
I
INDUSTRIAL
TRAINING
FOR
DEAF
MUTES
As we visited this institution one day last spring and met the bright alert faces of the children, our first impression was that of ha piness and activity. Some had really learned to talk, others were maP in sounds that showed progress in that direction, and many were,a %le, thou h deaf, to read our lips as we talked to them. We were told that tEree-fourths of them came from the poorer homes on the East Side, and would have to go back there. to live and work when the school life was over. However, the spirit of the Public school is maintained by the presence among the remaining fourth of the well-to-do, and each child finds he has much to get from as well as to give to the rest. Visiting the very youngest class in manual work, we were further impressed with evidences on every hand that the children were making a good start. Even the babies have special tasks, and little children five or six years old are interested in doing things they like to do. At first, they work in a rimitive way, without tools. Before long, a child will feel the nee 2 for a tool. After making a whistle chain of cord by pullin the loo through with his fingers, it is a revelation to him to find ta at a hooP makes the work so much easier and quicker. One child needed a unch to make holes in a portfolio cover, whereupon he found a nalY that served just as well* Another, whose face always seemed to wear a dazed look and who always waited to be told what to do, was found one day over in the He had corner drawing tacks out of a board with a clawhammer, discovered something for himself. It was a great stride and he showed it by the triumphant look with which he displayed his new To aid in this development, materials and tools accomplishment. are kept handy and children are encoura ed to make use of them, so that when an idea is hot it may be moul 8 ed by contact with opportunities suitable to its needs.
RAINING IN accuracy is begun very early, and, as soon as the child is ready to do accurate work, the ability is developed by his own need for careful measurements. A boy whose box cover did not fit wanted to find out why. This was the time; to show him the importance of more careful measurement. Any amount of previous instruction would not have availed so much as this help at the time when he wanted more than anything else to have the box come out right. Habits of economy are also taught. Cheap paper is used at first because the youngsters waste so much of it, but as they progress in
401
INDUSTRIAL
TRAINING
FOR
DEAF
MUTES
carefulness they advance to better and better grades of material, and they feel the importance, too, of being able to work with good things. In many ways, also, they learn the value and use of money. Every child in the institution has a little fund of his or her own, saved up from home gifts, and at Christnas time or when birthday gifts are wanted the children are taken to the shops and helped to spend these pennies wisely. 1Vhcn school material is unnecessarily wasted or lost, it is a lesson that ,s not soon forgotten to measure this waste by contributions to right it from ones own store. When a little older, each child is held responsible for a definite amount of supplies, that these may not be misused. A real joy in orderliness and responsibility is developed, and often when the classes pass from the room pupils ask to be permitted to remain at recess to arrange and clean the cupboards. Time and again during our visit to the school we were impressed with the great variety of the kinds ol work carried on in order to reach effectively the different needs of all the children. One child may not do things with a needle, and yet manipulate clay very effectively; and, while the clay makes no appeal to another child, he will toil hard and succeed with some problem involving a color scheme or design. The cupboards, shelves, desks, windows, in fact, every nook and corner, were full of the practical results gained and evidences of the real growth afforded the children by these manifold appeals in various media, such as raffia, clay, cord, paper, cardboard, pen and ink, and brush work. An instance of the benefit of this varied opportunity will illustrate this point: Henry is mentally dull, and by nature lazy, and the teachers have agreed that there is small probability that he will ever be able to read lips well or to accomplish much mentally. Manual work has brought out the fact that he has remarkable skill in the use of his hands and loves it so much that he can be induced to do mental work, which is very distasteful to him, by the promise that when he has finished he may draw. His father is a carriage maker and the boy is now being prepared to work in his shop as an artistic decorator of carriages. A second instance is an Italian boy with the romantic temperament of his people who was put to work making designs for paper fans. His neighbor, a sturdy little Irishman, was set to fashioning leather bags which awakened his interest. If the tasks had been reversed, both would have been unsuccessful and unhappy. One class had been laboring half an hour over a design for a stained glass window, and yet were not weary; it appeared to ,be
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THE DEAF CHILD NEEDS MANUAL TRAINING EVEN YORE THAN THE HEARING CHILD * * * FOR IN FORCED SOLITUDE HE 1S MORE AFT TO LET CREATIVE FACULTIES GO TO WASTE..
THE GIRLS, IN NEAT APRONS AND CAPS, ARE TAUGHT TO COOK AND SERVE A MEAL THAT IS BOTH NOURISHING AND ECONOMICAL. THE BOYS SUCCEED THEY INDIVIDUALLY BEST MOST IN THE ENJOY. WORK
lNl1USTRIAL
TRAINING
FOR
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MUTES
coming out well, yet you could see by their expressive gestures tl1a.t they were not suited with the shape of the point of the window. One after another would cut a pattern, only to discard it after a little Finally, with a burst of enthusiasm one announced consideration. that his was right, and they all began to copy the design, satisfied it W;H the best they could do. On another day we found a class making very practicalluse of nature studies that had been brought in from the country; some were fashioning plaques from tadpoles in the aquarium, which were to be followed- in time by models of frogs and toads in successive Designs for plates, cups and vases were stages of development . being made from branches of leaves and flowers. Xnd the nature forms near at hand were not neglected. Stuffed birds and pictures recalled the live animals they had seen in the park. The commonplace will only too soon close around the lives of man!- of these children, therefore they are now taught to see natural beauty with an interpreting sight, that it may always have a meaning for them. In another class children were working out designs from the leaves and flowers, others were drawing from the mounted animals. &After a desi n had been secured that met the a proval of both pupil and teat fi er, dra.wings were made and stenci 7s developed from thesethe plan being, as it had been in the preceding class. to help the children associate the formal designs seen everywhere with their origin. Then considerable further training in judgment regarding the lettering and spacing of the sheet was required hefore the article teas done.
ND SURELY all this training will serve as a practical and humane enlargement of horizon which will keep these pupils above the sordidness that so often accompanies poverty. That these influences do have an effect upon their lives wa.s shown on the last day of school, n-hen the class went out for a little treat of ice Much as they enjoyed the daint,ies, they stopped cream and cake. eating from time to time to note the decorations on the table, and with real appreciation called one anothers attention to this or that feature which met their approval. In many ways this work also develops various social traits. One boy carelessly disarranged a corner which had been attractively fitted up with spring flowers, and he was immediately reproved by several of the children. The)- ostracized another boy for two days because he had been CF~SI to a tadpole in the aquarium.
\\hen the branch of industrial training was brought into the school the boys said, scornfully, Shell teach us to sew. No notice was taken of this disapproval, for it was only natural, but later \j\-henthese same boys needed a place for their tools, they were only too glad of the opportunity to make bags, which afforded better care. \\-hen penwipers were needed they were eagerly made, and soon the l)oys were making rugs of their own design on simple looms. Baskets, too, \vere found useful, and great fun to make-and, who would IAieve it ?-in a comparatively short time, in spite of previous scorn, they were reduced to cheerfully sewing cloth to make bean-bags. Ihe vigorous side of boy nature is appcalcd to in the making of IJowie knives, war bracelets and money bags, which involve the manipulation of chamois skin and beads as well. The attainment of the coveted object often means a long training in patient endeavor ; for instance, before the boy can put a bead design upon skin, he must make a drawin.g of the bird, or model for the design from the real object, then this is corrected, and the final drawing applied to the material. -4fter a year or two of the training described, the chitd.goes on to the nest teacher with eyes and hands alert and with a mmd open to suggestion. II, e 1ias been taught to respect not only himself but his work. and encouraged to use common sense on all occasions. The more advanced wood work is uest taken up. We visited a class at work upon a variety of fairly tlificult proMems. One boy proudI)exhibited a wooden model of a battleship ; another was putting furniture into his little house; two were eagerly completing a model On the shelves of the of a countrv church with all its furnishings. shop were &shed picture frames. medlcme chests. bookcases, etc., each object having ;I utilitv of its own and at the same time reqlliring care and skill in the ma&fac%ure. The power of application grows slowly with the deaf, but if cultivatetl it often l)ecomes stronger than in the hearing child. Contact with difficulties is out sollr(*e of help cultivating this power, and at the Sometimes it is necessame time it develops :t pride in achievement. sary for the teacher to work wit11 a child for weeks before it can be <~o&cntiouslv said that the thing done has any good qualities. There is of lcourse the constant danger of utter discouragement, but when the least little thing has been accomplished an important the child realizes that, after all, he amounts transformation begins. to something, and the teacher now has a lever with which to move lris Tvorld. The boy will be patient with the poor results of many
406
xttempts for the sake of getting the glory of real achievement and rhere attainmg the beauty he can 110~ see in something well done. is a practical advantage in all this work as well. Many of the pupils ~-ho have started along lines of special truini1~~ are finally placed in gwrl positions calling for peculiar aduptahihty. During another visit at the closing week of the school, the carpenter shop showed the fruits of the terms effort; a class of older boys was completing till,ICS. chairs, 1)ookcuses ant1 1)ureaus for immediate service in various part.< of the institution. ;ISY ltEPhIRS, such as putting in broken windows, laying floors. and repairing chairs and desks, have been very efficiently M Enough technical al)iliJy is gained cxrried Out by this ClilSS. I,\- 3 number of pupils each vear to actually place them m remunera tive positions. This is alsotr,te of g:aduates from the school tailor shops, \vllere they I have been engaged 111 making uniforms, overcoats anti ~~~lnllasiuln suits for the entire institution and have also done the necessary repairing tlirorlgliout the vcar. Ilut, you ask, what about the girls ? \;Vell, that is iI story in itself; too long and too interesting to he told in full here. They receive Heginning in practical manual instruction i~tiiLptet1 to their needs. the Eower classes with the elementary use of the needle they advance Tl!ey make all the to plain sewing and later to practical tlressmakinK. :1prons. shirts. shirt\v-aists and simple dresses for the institution, and \vhen the course is complete, readily lind emplo;vment if they desire to work. the boys receive \Vitliout cjucstion, much of the hitlltlg would be equally educational for the #I%, and we hope it is only a In ({nestion of time when it will be posstl)le for them to share it. ii variety Of practical ways the girls are trained in social efficiency. -At the table the larger girls serve the meal and the boys act as the \vaiters. iIt the close of the lllf?iil the girls clear the tables, \Vash and ]N:t arvay the dishes. ;It the time Of Our Hut the most fttti of ill1 is tlie cooking class. visit there rvere half ;I tlozen *girls. llC?irt and careful in l)oth dress ant1 IXrections on the Hackattitude, engaged in preparing a meal. l)oard Ivere supplemented 1)~ personal oral instruction given by the teacher. For practical reas6ns the cooking of meats, vcgetal)les and the like is emphasized more tltnn that of the fan:y dishes. The results of this trainiltg have been evident, reaching Into the homes that Tn manv instances the girls have gone especially need this help. home at va(x;ltiotl time and have taken hold of the housework with
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MUTES
such a vim that radical changes for the better have been the outcome. Naturally, such improvement is but the logical result of training in habits of cleanliness and industry. Conditions are changed for the better as these pupils go back to their environments, whether into the home, the store or the shop, and who can question the far-reaching influence of wholesome food ? These classes may help to remedy one of the fundamental wrongs of modern industrial life-improper nutrition. It is clear that the aim of this practical industrial training is to enable boys and girls to apply themselves diligently and exert skill and ingenuity in the production of a salable article. Skill in the handling of tools and ability to apply materials to a useful purpose are fostered, and while the children are not taught a trade, they are riven practical ideas, an appreciation of the value of work and a k-nowledge of occupations in which they are likely to find emplovment, helping them to a wiser choice of their life work. =ill this is:accomplished while they are receiving their regular school education. Some one has said with truth that the only unhappy deaf are the unemployed deaf. With but few exceptions, all who wish to find work when the course is finished are helped to good positions. They obtain the same wages as do workers without their handicap, and compete so successfully with those who hear and talk that there are usually on hand at the school a number of applications from employers about the city who seek their services. Many are employed in the institution itself, others are employed in shirtwaist shops, where their efforts are especially appreciated, and some are ready to enter household domestic service. Several have been in the workshops of Tiffany for years, and yet the story of what the deaf mutes have accomplished is not half told. After reading some account of the marvelous training of Helen Keller, have you not felt that she is an exceptional case-that the great cluestion of reaching these unfortunates is broader and more difficult than that of such specia.lized instruction ? It is a problem, the magnitude of which is appalling. III New York City alone there are hundreds of deaf mutes who are not being educated. We cannot measure the bad influence upon society of so many dependent and ignorant individuals. The work of the institution for the Improved Instruction of Deaf Mutes points the way and shows what can be done to make these individuals industrially and socially efficient.
BEHOLD, THIS DREAMER: EMERY POTTLE
STORY:
BY
NDREW FORDS mother had married Svdnev Blush some ten months after the death of her first l&band. It is to be confessed that she had, in a quiet, considerate fashion, disliked Ford and she felt a sense of relief when it suited heaven to take him from her. This dislike extended not only to all Fords worldly possessions but in a measure to the son Andrew she had borne by him. In consequence it was a further relief to her when the scandalized relatives of her late husband offered to take charge of her twelve-year-old son, after which the unencumbered lady went abroad and married, quite for love, an artist, Blush. Then there was born the son, Arthur, whose father, an irresponsible, inept gentleman, died just two months before his child first blinked hazily at the skies of Italy. Mrs. Blush cherished or ne lected the boy Arthur according to the prevailing phase of her grief ; at times passionately firing his heart with her memories of his fathers beautiful, careless joy of life and his undying youth-at times leaving for days the lad to the unhealthy solitude of his precocious dreams. When Arthur was ten, Mrs. Blush, convinced that she was attacked by an incurable malady, wrote to her son Andrew-who was then a matter of twenty-five years old-that her end was near and that she was sending Arthur to him in America by the next steamer, and would he, Andrew, see that a portion of Mr. Fords moneywhich she had resolutely refused to take at his death-might be directed to the education of Arthur. And having thus irretrievably arranged matters from her own standpoint she dispatched Arthur, and in a month, being very weary of hfe, was dead. Andrew Ford, it can be said in all truth, did not welcome his mothers letter with enthusiasm. Indeed, had it not been for one reason, it is likely that he would have hastily shipped young Arthur back to his mother. That he did not do this was owing to the fact that such fortune as his father had left had, in the course of a number of unhappy investments, almost entirely disappeared. Actuated, then, principally b a sense of justice to his mother, Andrew Ford accepted Arthur 6 lush as his char e. Ford was at the time a clerk in a Trust Company, regarded %y his employers as a faithful, intelligent, serious, commonplace youn man. The years went by quickly enoug a -the years of Arthurs imprisonment-for he so regarded it-in a humble preparatory school and his subsequent entry into college life. That he was graduated
from his college was considered by the family, and .\rthurs comrades, For surely the I)op did as some strange pleasantry of Providence. all in his power to defeat that righteous end. It was once &ldrews clre~tni--perliaps his solitary drean-that he himself should *go through college illl(l issue in the course of But that long since lie had quietly time into the practice of law. \Yith the memory of his dream on him he had absolutely given up. determined that ;\rthur 131~~1~~ should accomplish what he himself 10 that end he worked doggedly and unhad failed even to begill. flaggingly. putting aside for -1rtliur where his own need &et1 aloud for satisfaction. But it was with a singularly unsuitable ecluipment for legal purand fame back to his suits that &thur Blush was graduated Blush had previously pllt off *indrew brother in New York. in the latters solid moments of penetration in regard to the subject ,\nd he had done this with ~11~11 successful of the profession of law. elusiveness that Ford had never really grasped the fact that the boy had not the faintest intention of becoming an attorney. Andrew again laboriously pinned .\rthur tlo~1 to tllr mattrr a week after his return to town. Look here, boy, he said, earnestly, wliv ~vouldnt it I)e a good thing for you to get in some lawyers office this summer before goiq into Law School next fall ? His eyes were tle Mhats that ? responded Blush. absently. lightedly on a corner of opalescent sky that gleamed over the chimr~ey pots beyond their window. I know a man who \vill take vou, I think, into his oflice this summer as a favor to inc. pursued Pord. seriously. Andy, have I got to be tied 0 Andy-you kno\v-I-why, I-1 Ilrtllur pleaded, humorously. up all summer in an office ? I guess if I can stand it all mv life yori can put in a summer. And this law business-if youre gbing into it-- Thats just the point, laughed 131~~1~. airily, if Im going into it! But as a matter of fact-why, A\ndy. Id be no more use in a law office, in the law, than--- IIc caught Fords eye and hesitated. i1ncl~, I----- IIis face flushed and his laugh died out. Ford pulled grimly at his pipe. Do you mean, he got out between his teeth, that you dont want to go in the legal profession ? Yes, if you ask, he hurried out, Arthur mustered some spirit. Im not made for it. I--I dont yes, I dont want to be a lawyer. like that sort of thing. 1-L 410
BEHOI,I),
THIS
I)RE,4MEH
The older man eyed the floor sternly. After a miserable silence for Arthur, he spoke. \I-ell, what are you going to do ? He had been seeking hastily for the Arthurs face brig11 tened. clue to justification, and now he had it. Andy, old boy, he began, leaving his chair and putting an arm over Fords shoulders, AndyI couldnt do it on your money. Go to the Law School, I mean. Ive had everything from you-everything. And to take your money for four-or is it three?-years more. Cant you see I--- imperturbably. What are you going to do ? Ford interrupted, Write, said Arthur, boldly. Write what ? Plays. Carefully knocking out the ashes from his pipe Ford rose and felt among the papers for his hat. -4s he went out he muttered, Plays ! \Yant to see your name on an ash barrel. For an hour or two in the July heat Ford tramped the streets thinking things out. (;radually. as night fell, his mind quieted. That Blusl~ blood in him. IS11 t The boys a fool, he reasoned. that11 weaken. ,411 he needs is a taste of good Hes a kid at life. stiff work-a job that11 make him think-and hell be all right. Blaine said they needed another young fellow at our of&e; if I could get Arthur in there-that would fix him-get him into the idea. of work, thats all he needs. By fall hell be ready as a little tin soldiel for the La\v School. Plays! Good Lord! Blainc took kindly enough to Fords suggestion that -4rthur be allowed to fill the vacant clerkship. Bring him down and lets If hes off the same have a look at him, he said, good naturedly. piece as you--- and he finished with a complimentary smile. 0, me ? The boys clever-a little young yet but clever, Blaine. Im an old horse. Andrew spent no time in beating about the bush with ,$rthur. See here, kid, he opened up directly after his talk with Blaine. I ve fixed it up at the ofice that you go in this sumNow theres no doubt that youll mer to fill a vacant place up there. get in-Blaine wants to see you as a matter of form tomorrow. ,ind theres no monkey business about this, either. Youve had your college and all that, and its time now you hustled for some cash. This talk of play-writing is all poppycock. Forget it and buckle down to work. And say, Arthur, when you come down tomorrow to see Blaine, for Gods sake, just to please me, get your hair cut and leave ofi that lady-kind of a bow tie you wear.
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lhe straiuhtiorward quality of Fords declaration, the nasal of his case left monotony of his firm voice, and the reasonableness It was a rare thing with him that Arthur Blush without resistance. he could combat the force of a present fact-pleasant or unpleasant. Well-what do you say ? Ford went on. That-thats all right, Andy; Ive got to earn some ,$oney, of course. Youve been so everlasting kind always thatOh, cut that out, boy! I want to see you a rattling successful man, with money and an honorable name-thats all I ask. Blush smiled, weakly. The next day but one he entered upon the loathed duties connected with his clerkship. There lived alone in the same house in which Ford and Arthur occupied rooms a certain Mrs. Sayre. It is a small matter how Arthur Blush entered into friendship with her. But at the end of the first week, he was saying tenderly: It seems to me I have always known you. That weve been friends eternally. ,4nd Mrs. Sa rewho had come to an age where she dared not trust time to war % out its patient results-replied softly: My dear boy. That summer in town was more than bearably hot. The cloud of it by day and the fiery pillar of it by night were terrible. The little balcony that hung uncertain1 outside Mrs. Sayres window held two not uncomfortably. And ii ere our two-so suited to the balcony -Arthur and JIrs. Sayre-were generally to be found of an eveningthe b?y confessing to Xtrs. Sayre the sickness of his soul at the bondage his brother had sold him into. Oh, its intolerable-hateful! he cried out. What am I in a Trust Company ? Be free, advised Mrs. Sayre, dramatically. Free yourself. Be a King in Babylon-not a Christian slave. Bnd evening after evening, alone, Andrew Ford sat up in the shabby unlovely little fifth floor back in his ragged pajamas, gasping in the night heat. He filled and refilled his pipe ; read Lecky or some other solid writer; occasionally paused in the midst of a chapter and wondered. He was not precisely lonely-or perhaps it was loneliness. Sometimes he worried over Arthur and at other times his dreams of what Arthur was to be made everything again right. For Blaine, it must be confessed, had of late spoken twice to him of Arthurs lack of interest, his lack of application to his work.. Ford, in advising Arthur to get into it, to buck u,p, and the like, had received little or no encouragement. Arthur s aggrieved air had rather silenced him. You got me into it was the boys unfailing retort.
BEHOLD,
THIS
DREAMER
AS the sum~ller dragged OII Arthur seemed less and less dependent IIe was quite as decent, as good natured, but there upon his brother. was a strange infusion of pity in his manner. Ford somehow laid it all to that woman on the next floor. IIe grew perturbed and anxious. To him an unattached woman, vaguely married, was unquestionably a horrid pitfall, a snare, a creature of depravity. Early in the days of Arthurs first meetings with her the bov had often Shes perfectly spoken enthusiasticallg of Urs. Sayre to Andrew. wonderful, he once declared. \$rho ? asked Ford, impassively. Mrs. Sayre-youve seen her-she lives below us. Ive met her, shes bully, and she wants me to bring you down some night. That thing with the spotty, dyed hair ? Andrew grunted, conNot for me. tern tuously. 1 rthur flushed angrily, feelin g more sensitively than ever before the difference between Andrew and himself. In August the heat seemed to culminate in a sickening haze that The days were dead, lifeless thmgs. Even hung about the city. Fords impassivity of mind gave way under the strain. ,4rthurs He spent but little time in the nerves were frayed and screaming. Occasionally Ford would awaken, late in the night, from room. a wearying, restless sleep to see Arthur writing at something over in The older man would swear and toss about on a screened corner. his,Jcot for the rest of the night. Blaines final curt comment on Blushs work in the Trust ComSaid Blame: pany was the last straw that Fords back could bear. If Hes been more trouble than hes worth. The boys no good. he hadnt been your brother, Ford, wed have fired him a month ago. If he doesnt do someHes got another week here to make good in. thing-why out. Im sorry, but thats all. And Ford plodded home that particular evening in slow, seethi anger. Arthur was not in. He did not come in until one oclocYi that night. Ford was waiting. If you dont do someBlaine says youve got one more week. thin in that time-out you go, began Ford, abruptly. ifilush sat silent. Well, what have you got to say ? muttered Srthur, sullenly. Nothing, Doesnt it mean anything to you to lose your job ? Nothing! Ford could scarcelp repress his wrath. X0.
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Well, by God, its what 1 might have expected-might havc~ No, it doesnt mean anything to you. It-- expected. Arthurs lifeless face quivered sharply as the nerves of his body began to cry out. Mean, mean ? he retorted, his voice working up into a shrill boyish key. Mean ! What should it mean to me to leave something I loathe and hate and despise! Despise! Im sick of it. I want I want my own kind. 1Vhat should you know of my to be free. kind ? You can plod and grovel and kow-tow and add and subtract all your life. You never had any dreams. You never saw a beautiHis throat tightened and his words were ful thing in your life. scarcely more than sobs. And you-you want to tie me down to this that youre in. O-I wont ever go to that office, that hole, again! You little coward, cried Ford. IIavcnt you any respect for yourself-even if you have none for me ? Thats just what 1 have. Thats why Im leaving Yes, I have. that place. Me-in a Trust Conipariy. You in a sewing society, Ford retorted. JLind----you dont get anything more out of me. I dont want ever to see you I dont n-ant anything out of you. Im going-now. again. Blush was declaiming wildly. He rushed to a desk and snatched a bundle of papers, caught up his hat and started toward the door. Come back here, you fool, called Ford, in a passion. Im going n-here people lead real lives, where theres love ant1 kindness and freedom, Blush desperately threw back. So you choose-- But Blush was gone. His footsteps clattered for an instant and then the house was still. Fool-idiot, Ford kept jerking out of his stiff, hard lips. Its the artist in him. Gradually the apathy of the thick breathless night settled upon him. He ceased to mutter and shake his fists. With lon sighing breaths of exhaustion and disgust his body- began to res ax. He slipped loosely down in his chair; the pipe in his strong, ill-kept hands went out; for hours he stared and stared. Toward morning Ford fell into a troubled sleep. IIe wakened. and refreshed with his bathing and coffee, took a more intimate,, a Its the heat and the fret thats the matter nearer view of things. with us all-the kid and me, he considered. Hell be back at the :1nd tonight well go to some roof-garden and office all right today.
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Maybe Arthur ought to go into the get our nerves rested up a little. country for a Sunday. The day was a grim restless But Arthur was not at the office. stretch of hours for Andrew Ford; and he was conscious, too, of a IIe remembered hearing somewhere scared feeling in his heart. that Sydney Blush had in his youth tried to kill himself., His nervousness culminated in accusations against Mrs. Sayre. Late that afternoon JIrs. Sayre was startled by a sharp knock on She did not move from her chair as she called languidly, her door. Come. Ford stood, rather at a loss, in the doorway for a moment. They She had a sense of a heavily-built man faced each other curiously. with a frame too angular and aimless to suggest anything but muscular force; his face, under a thatch of reddish hair, was large and freckled, made up of lean hollows and high bony promontories. Mrs. Sayres eyes rested in satisfaction on the mans splendidlymodeled forehead---a broad, white sweep of integrity which his unflinchin , honest eyes did not belie. a thin, pale woman who For % is part Ford saw, contemptuously, sat in a green wicker chair, deep and sagging from much use. With fingers indescribably deft, even as she spoke the tentative words of welcome, Mrs. Sayre pulled lightlv at some curling strings of tobacco, took up a fragile paper, and with a bewildering movement of the The diversion of the moment unacright hand rolled a cigarette. It left him not quite so countably affected Fords state of mind. sure of his ground. You are Mrs. Savre, he started in clumsily. 1-1~ come here-you may think Its queer of me, but thats neither here nor there-to speak about my brother. He eyed her defensively. Yes ? she interrogated, curiously. About my brother--llrtllur Blush. Ford gained in sturdiness. I want to know where he is. Where is Mrs. Sayre gave him a quick search with her eyes. he? But why do you come to me? Has he gone ? Please sit down. The man before her hesitated, then impatiently seated himself I havent come here to answer evasive as far from her as possible. questions, he proceeded somewhat brutally. Why do I come to you ? Because you are the one who is, I believe, responsible for all this. You are not quite clear, she responded, evenly.
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Arthur has gone-hasnt been at the Ford was very stern. Where is he ? I want to know. Hes at rooms since yesterday. your room most of the time. Where is he now ? There was that in the man-his crude narrowness of honesty, Mrs. Sayre hastily termed it to herself-which forbade anger. Stirred to an abruptness the equal of his own, she replied, I dont know where your brother is. Ive scarcely seen him for a month. Ford sat forward hostilely in his chair. Youre not telling me the truth, he said, slowly. Her eyes, for an instant, lit angrily. But the next moment she had controlled herself. She spoke with unusual gentleness. I am telling you the truth, believe me. You have said something that I am not lying. Why most men do not say to women unadvisedly. should I lie to you ? Ford was nonplussed. I-I-I dont know why. But youre in lea ue with him against me. Its you who- 46 ait, she interrupted, Do you believe me imperatively. or not ? He hesitated uncomfortably; the sweat stood in beads on his forehead. His eyes strained to read her face-they seemed to find some assurance. Yes, he answered, ungraciously, if you say so. Tell me what hap ened. Her voice compelled an answer. Last night Ford made his rep P y as cold and stiff as he could. when he came in I told him that the head of his department in the Company would dismiss him if he didnt brace up-1 suppose hes told you all about his affairs-and that hed got to do it. And he flew into a passion-said hed never go there again and-and-well, he left the house. I thou ht youd know about it. So I came here. If you dont he ma dg e a movement to rise. So hes free at last, the boys free, Mrs. Sayre smiled, absently. Ford turned on her, fiercely. Free! Free for what ? I can see it all-youve egged him on-told him hes tied up to a grindstone. 0, I know-free for what ? Free to live the beautiful life the gods gave him; to seek beautiful things, live beautiful hours, write beautiful things, to- Starve beautifully in a garret, finished Ford bitterly. What matter? she asked, lazily. He stared at her. What matter? is a part of his novitiate ? Its his life, isnt it ? What if starvin Hes born,Ifor_wonderful things. 0, I be f ieve in him.
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THIS
DREAMER
0, he roaned, good God, and this is what youve been filling No wonder hes made a fool of himself. oor ki f with. You! I Lb at do you know of me, she flashed out at him. I know our kind-hard, narrow, unlovel , know what you mean. She broke off sudden f y cramping. I know too well w ii at - What does it matter to you what and in an altered voice continued: he does-whether he goes or stays? Thats my affair, Ford retorted angrily. And mine-now. Be frank. What does it matter? Hes my brother. Your half-brother. I wanted to see him Ive looked after him always. Well, then. -in a place where I cant get. I wanted to see him a successful lawyer, a judge, a big man. Hes got stuff in him. I know. And you, youve spoiled it. All your kind is blind. Youre cruel. You 0, youre blind. dont mean to be, but you are. Youve tried to crush him into a place You could not see that he You didnt know his heart. he loathed. Hes wonderful. Hes got stuff was not made for your law. ive me-youll in him as you call it, but its of a sort-a sort-for ~s~;i~w- she, faced him, pityingly- or realize. k ou-youhave And I-I havent lost hnn, she But he 11 be great yet. finished, triumphantly. Andrew Ford started to his feet, passionately. What is it, what is there between you ? Youve not lost him? Tell it. You shall. ou are ignorant!-What you dont know.-Poor man-what 0, I have a mind You ask a great deal, lightly. is there isetween us? What if I should tell It may profit you another time. to tell you. Yes, Ford stifled a groan of an er. you that I love Arthur? that I really love him. You cant understand. But I if o love him. Hes a nice boy. Not a love to harm him-Ive never harmed him. possibleHes had with me just a friendship that he may-its forget. Thats all. Its a bad sort of friendship for a boy, Ford said, slowly. Ive loved him because-well, becauseilhes She did not heed. I thought once I had a love like his-a thi a dream of mine. I wouldnt hurt a hair of his head. B%e$ s irit and beauty. think dreadful things of me. t i at. Im a queer creature to -ou-you B ut be sure of this-hes got no more I dont want to ar ue that. of harm from me t a an he has from you. that
417
BEHOLD,
THIS
DREAMER
I cant think youre right. I cant insensibly Ford softened. believe that you were right for him. You meant to be-1 dont But I was brought up in a different mean anythi!lg thats not good. way, with different-Arthur has been my boy-- Mrs. Sayre smiled on him with a tenderness he could not but feel. And you loved him, didnt you ? lhe question embarrassed him by its candor of words, but he nodded. You love him. You believe your ideals for him are best. You want him-youve said so-to be what-Why did you ever care fo1 him in the beginning ? Unespectedly for Ford he lost control of himself. The shut-in heart suddenly came into the open. I loved him, I dont know why, he cried, savagely. I love him now. And I dont want to. I never nanted to, I think. But 1 do. Ive worked for him, slaved for him; for years Ive been building up in my heart what he was to My Lord, I gave up marriage, pleasure, everything, to make be. him in the end what I had no chance to be. I didnt see it all at first when he came as a kid. But little by little I began to dream of him, And for him. He was myself. 1 wanted to see him a big man. now its all gone. 1ouve spoiled it for me. Spoiled him for me. Youve taken him from me. My boy, he was-not yours. \%y couldnt you leave him alone ? My way was as good as yours. There were tears in Mrs. Sayres eyes. She could not look at Ford, red of face, his mouth twisted with pain, his forehead wet. 0, Im sorry, so sorry, she whispered. But cant you see0, youll never see! lTou cant see! she sighed. Youll never forgive me for what you think Ive done. And I cant believe your may is right. Its hopeless. But its worse for you -so much worse 1111 :L fool, he saitl. shortly. I i;drd rose shamcfacedlv. didnt intend to treat you tothis sort of thing. He stood awkwardly. wondering how to get away. Hes gone, I-ou say ? Mrs. Sayre asked, rather flatly. Yes. IIell turn up, write or something, she helped, confidently. IIe loves vou in his mav. When he comes back be-be gentle with him. (ii& him his hea&. Your dream is over. He wont be what you want IJut-0, hell be something splendid.-Well work together; 111 help him to see you more clearly, and you-dont tell him Im bad
418
BEIIOLD,
THIS
DItEAMEIt
for him, Im not. Be fair to me, to yourself, to him. I cant be mistaken in thinking hes a great soul, a--- Mrs. Yayre rose ; her cheeks flushed and her haggard eyes brightUnconsciously the infection of her confidence communicated CIlCd. lhe late sun streamed in at the windows itself to Andrew Ford. and hung, a lovely subdued shaft, in the du+y greens of the room. The ebbing roar of the city day reached their ears in gentler keys. Mrs. Sayres shabbiness seemed, on the instant, to grow into a freshened, appeal& r grace, and Ford, unkempt as he \vas after his da>of heat and labor, took on a finer dignity. Standing thus under the luminous mfluence of Arthur Blush, it was not astonishing, to Mrs. Sayre. at least, that a messenger should Mrs. Sayre opened it eagerly. jwst then bring a letter from the boy. ;ls she read the serene light died out of her eyes; she shrank from Withollt a n-ord she passed the sheet Ford nervously, half afraid. to him. She had always feared the realities of living. ~Yhen he had finished, he laid the letter do\\-ngrimly and took up llis hat. \ycll 5. he asked, tersely. 0 ! she cried, plaintively, O! Ford laughed. unplcasantl~~ she asserted, weakly. 1 -I never 0. I didnt know of this, I tell you 1 didnt know, I didnt. She guessed. I didnt know. \vas on the verge of tears. IIe gave her an odd, contemplative glance. What does it matter anywa;v I he said at last. He wont he added a little maliciously. come back to vou, now, I was mistaken. IIes not \\eve both lost him. IIes crazi-. worth-what ;ve dreamed he was worth. Very likelv. Ford went out. Airs. Sayre iwesently picked up 14rtllurs note and re-read it.
I)l-AR hIl:SD OF 1lY IlFXRT:
,hl ;I wonderful thing has hapIm free, free, fret! This morning I was married to Lymlette Le Beau. You pmed. Shes remember I. met her at vollr rooms a month ago today! 7 now. Isn t it a beautiful, singing in the chorus of Lhc Ruby her-sends her love. And were wonderful world ! Sloe-bless happy, happy. free-h.nppy! riRT[IUR.
419
WHAT NATURE HOLDS FOR THE ARTIST: A STORY OF THE HERITAGE OF ENVIRONMENT: BY GILES EDGERTON
I&U bLlJ 1 L1C pbLUIG Ib aa a uc;311cu ptue I I-es,-
dence, which began in the December number of THE CRAFTSMAN, is not yet finished; for the charm of that most lovely hillside curving up from the Hackensack valley to the woods of the Palisades is a double onethere are two houses and two gardens resting on the meadow slope, and two families have built the nleasant houses and planned the chkerful gardens. And no tale of these fair deserted meadows would be complete without setting forth both of the homes of the brothers, Charles and Frederick Lamb, whose dwellings stand just ofi the roadway in friendly intimacy, wholly different, but equally artistic and attractive, symbols in a way of the life of the brothers who dwell there, who played joyously together as boys and have worked courageously and successfully together as men. THE CRAFTSMAN does not often stop to philosophize about the sentimental side of life and its sliding scale of values; but it seems worthy of mention just here that the lack of true joy in the middleed days of most American men a.nd women is therr independence of a a ties that bind them to the soil. They grow up in one location, work in another, perchance acquire riches, and then settle down in a hitherto untried locality, planning to end their days in a place that has no memories for them or tradrtions or stimulus for brain or heart. The man who goes back to the old homestead to live or, barring this inestimable privilege, returns to establish a home for his children on the soil he trod as a boy has claimed his birthright-the heritage of natures goodness, which helped him to grow and develop and which will hold out welcoming arms to enfold his own boys and girls. With the cares, complications and triumphs of a busmess or professional life a man needs some bondage to earth, and it is better for him if he can step back with pride into the old pathways where he can of a twilight, in the haunts of his boyhood, tell the little people about him of his early hopes and joys with their realization or fa.ilure. And so one dwells with pleasure upon the fact that two brothers, who are also ideal friends, found no spot in life so desirable for home building as the hillside upon which they had played as youngsters, where the very trees were their friends, and the changing beauty of season a tender memory. Can one picture a grea.ter source of 420
THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE FREDERICK S. LAMB HOUSE, SHOWING THE WINDOWS WITH THEIR VINE-DRAPED LATTICRS.
FXIENDSHIP DOW IN THE TITUSVILLE,
(DAVID
AND
JONATHAN)
: WINCHAPEL, S. LAMB.
EMERSON MEMORIAL DESIGNED BY P. PA.
RELIGION, ONE OF A SERIES OF WINDOWS IN THE JONES MEMORIAL LIBRARY, LYNCHBURG, VA. DESIGNED BY FREDERICK S. LAlfB.
SAGE MEMORIAL CHAPEL: THE ESTIRE DECORATIVE SCHEME, PERSONIFYING THE WORK OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY, DESIGNED BY CHARLES R. LAMB: THE FINEST EXAMPLE OF MOSA1.C WORK IN AMERICA.
CHURCH OF ST. EDWARD THE MARTYR, NEW YORK : DECORATION OF CHOIR, SANCTUARY AND REREDOS DESIGNED BY CHARLES R. LAMB.
ENTRANCE COLA THE FACES
TO THE
HOUSE, OVER
WITH THE
PERSTEPS.
PROJECTING SHADY THE
KITCHEN WOODS.
PORCH
WHICH
THE
FIELDS AND A
HAVE PART
GONE OF THE
FAR
RACK
INTO CHARM
PRIMITIVE HER THE OF
BEAUTY GARDEN PASTVRE
WILDNESS:
SIRS.
LAMR
MAKES
SIMPLE
LOTS.
LIVING ROOM IN THE HOME OF MR. F. S. LAMB, SHOWING FIREPLACE AND OLD DUTCH AND COLONIAL FURNITURE,
WHAT
NATURE
HOLDS
FOR
THE
ARTIST
exultation than climbing a tree higher than father did when he was bout as old as me. 1 doubt if there is a greater. And isnt it truly worth while skating on the pond where father got his first ducking? And hunting the April woods for wild flowers, finding them in the self-same spot where they grew when we were boys is surely to add a shade more wonder to springtime. When a~forest edge has become our woods, childhood has gained fairy stories never written. In this prosaic century of American history it is almost of itself a fairy story that together two men should live their boyish days, achieve commercial success in artistic enterprise and establish side by side on their old playground homes where their own children may grow up Neither does it often hapstrong, beautiful and lovers of outdoors. pen that two men both of one family find an outlet for temperaments equally artistic through one business channel-and that a heritage. The Lamb Brothers, as these men are affectionately known in New York, have had much to do with the development of a distinctly new phase of public decorative art in America. Working as craftsmen they have adapted the old arts of stained glass and mosaic work to new and practical conditions. And as these artists have grown in understanding of life, in appreciation of what makes for true beauty and happiness, they have developed in their work and established higher standards for all their They have progressed from isolated design commercial enterprises. and execution to creating schemes of decoration, not merely for a wall or a room but for churches, libraries and universities; planning decorative schemes that should include elaborate stained glass or mosaic designs as well as carefully related color schemes and even furniture. Although both brothers are interested in, and in touch with, the decorative work as a whole, in the detail there is a separation, each creating along lines which would most completely express individuality of artistic temperament-work which is varied but supplemental. It is impossible in the limited space of this article to give any adequate presentation of the wide-reaching beauty and importance In our illustrations we have given of what these men accomplish. examples of the interesting variation of their individual effort. The two pictures of stained glass windows (the work in which Mr. F. S. Lamb specializes) show very clearly the character of the work which There is a human qua1 ty in the has been developed in his hands. art of this artist even where the utmost conventionality of form has to be respected, there is a story with picturesque surroundings429
WHAT
NATURE
HOLDS
FOR
THE
ARTIST
the human appeal which just now America seems so much to crave Mr. Lambs most important recent designs have been even in her art. made for the old Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, where there are eight windows significantly modern in treatment and subject, goreous in color and beautifully harmonized with the architecture and ecorative scheme of the church. The subjects treated are: Hampgd den and Pym Appealing for the Bill of Rights before Charles I, Milton Writing the Plea for the Liberty of the Press, John Robinsons Prayer on the Speedwell-Departure of the Pilgrims from Delfhaven, The Signing of the Compact on Board the Mayflower, The Landing of the Pilgrims, Founding of Harvard College, George Eliot Preaching to the Indians, and Cromwell Announcing to George Fox Personal Liberty of Worship. The two reproductions of Mr. Charles R. Lambs work show more completely and expressively than any description this artists achievements along the line of interior decoration on a colossal scale. Artist-architect is the name given to Mr. Lamb because of his talent for developing beauty through elaborate schemes of decoration. At Cornell College the rich mosaic work (which is Mr. Charles Lambs The illustrations here shown specialty) was entirely designed by him. of Mr. Lambs work give a very comprehensive idea of his unusual uality as an artist-decorator as well as a worker in mosaics; he sees B t in s in the whole with rare jud.gment and art feeling. H t would be interestin speculation as to how much or how little of all the beauty of color an fi proportion which these men have achieved for the decorative art of their country could be traced to their harmonious relation from childhood with all the varying beauty of outdoors, to the fine inspiration which nature bestows upon those who seek her companionship, appreciate her moods and respect her reserves. ROM the Lamb Studio with its picturesque background of a deserted old city church out to the pasture lot where the summer houses rest is an easy suburban trip. If you go late in the fall as we did, thinking to see only the hills and woods and tenantless houses, you may meet with the same happy surprise that was ours, of outstretched hands as you cross the grass skirting the woods, and of welcoming words to bid you rest a while. We stay until the last minute, Mrs. F. S. Lamb explained to us. After And there is so much beauty to leave even in winter time. you have looked about a little you will understand; it will be hard to go back, and the smell and color will haunt you for days.
430
WHAT
NATURE
HOLDS
FOR
THE
ARTIST
To assume the air of an authoritative biographer, the house was born in the spring of eighteen hundred and ninety-four. It is wholly American in construction and decoration. It was designed and built under the supervision of Mr. and Mrs. Lamb, and belongs, with its marked simplicity and individuality, to a type of American home which is essentially the creation of the cultivated artistic or professional class of this country-people who demand congenial surroundings, and who possess the practical culture to create them. Homes of this description become an expression of the personality of the owners, for they have been constructed inside and out to furnish comfort and pleasure to people of specialized tastes and standards. To build in this definitely personal way is not a question of much Nothing of any significance where real beauty is conmoney. The Fred Lamb house was cerned is a question of actual riches. Mrs. Lamb exneither expensive to build nor costly to decorate. plained that in actual figures there was less money put into the building and grounds than into almost any single ugly suburban house which abound along the Jersey railway. Yet the house viewed from any angle, on the autumn day of our visit, left one without desire for The foundation showing through the the smallest change of detail. masses of autumn flowers was seen to be rough field boulders, transferred from an old pasture wall to a new usefulness. And in the winter when the vine leaves are blown down the valley the same rough boulders also are seen jutting up the height of one story into the side walls, forming a sort of primitive pilaster in a half-timbered frame. The upper story is half-timber and cement construction, the cement being a delightful neutral tone harmonizes perfectly with the field stone and the bluish-green creosote stains of the timber. When you realize that the materials of the exterior of the house were gathered almost without exception from the pasture lot, it is easy to understand the impression of exquisite harmony between house and hillside. This pervading sense of intim,zcy simply means that the house is just the pasture lot in new combmation. It is important to consider, since the question of expenditure has come up, how the greatest interest and beauty in this dwelling was achieved in connection with wise economy: timber from the nearby woods, boulders from the meadow wall and sand from the fields combined to decrease expenses while they vastly increased that fine harmony between house and land which incongruous, unrelated materials can never bring about. For beauty in the whole, which is usually the result of carefully related detail, is often born of that wise economy 131
WHAT
NATURE
HOLDS
FOR
THE
ARTIST
And so in this house wherever you are most which compels thought. impressed with beauty, investigation brings out the fact that it has been the outgrowth of thought and care rather than expense. This is equally true of the vine-covered pergola which projects over the porch steps, of the pleasant seclusion of the shady kitchen porch, of the beautiful curve where the foundation of the house melts into the slope of the hill and of the repeated flowering terraces that dip fragrantly from house to meadow below, and carry the eye in pleasant stages to the vegetable plots down by the cedar lane. I do not recall ever having seen vines and plants gathered together in greater or more luxuriant beauty of space and color. The approach to the house is at the south side, and from shingled roof to hedge of bloom at the foundation the wall is enfolded with vines. There are no shutters to mar the wall surface, but over every window a shallow lattice projects like a lifted eyelid with lashes of trailing This lattice arrangement is a practical scheme of Mrs. Lambs. vines. It prevents any glare of southern light and brings the sun into the room in subdued splashes that move across beam and wall as the leaves quiver in the wind outside. The vines are of the kind that you find trailing over the stone walls or twining up the stately heights of the black cedar or enveloping hedges of sumac along the path through the woods. And the flowers over the terraces (which are all planted and cared for by Mrs. Lamb herself) recall pleasant names from old-fashioned gardens-larkspur, foxglove, marigold, iris, nasturtium, salvia, zinnia, golden glow, phlox, lilies from white to crimson, peonies and sweet-scented pinks, each in its season. The fields that surround the terraces are no longer shorn and tidy; they have forgotten that cowbells once tinkled across their solitude and that grain ripened in the sunlight. They are far gone into primitive wildness and beauty, becoming again but the fringe of the woods. Indoors, there is beauty and peace and comfort. A pleasant toned wood, fumed chestnut, is used in the heavily beamed ceiling and is combined with brick and cement in the huge old fireplace. The walls are painted a neutral tone, and the furniture is mainly Dutch and Colonia-rare old pieces of picturesque and warlike histories, which contribute a simple beauty to a friendly interior. Like the dwellers in the house of Mr. Charles Lamb, the creators Of Mr. I?. S. Lamb in this conof this charming home are artists. Mrs. Lambs artistic sense is exnection we have already spoken. pressed in her very subtle understandin, w of real beauty in relation to all of life ; you reaiize this in her home, in her garden, in her hospitality. 432
TO BOYCOTT THE BILLBOARD: THE RIGHT OF THE CITIZEN TO AN UNPOSTED LANDSCAPE: BY CLINTON ROGERS WOODRUFF
H, YOURE from Pittsburgh. I stopped in Pittsburgh once for a few hours when 1 had to wait for a train. Its such a funny ugly city, all covered with the queerest wooden fences with great big advertisements printed on them. Thats all I remember about Pittsburgh-its billboards and its hills. This, Carolyn Prescott tells us, is a sample of conversation handed out to Pittsburghers, who live in the home of the celebrated Carnegie Art Institute. This same authority declares that there are billboards, billboards everywhere. Billboards on top Billboards creeping over the high hills, winding of tall buildings. their sinuous length like so many bizarre serpents. Billboards stuck up in front of houses and gardens. Billboards at the entrances of the parks. Billboards even defacing the cemeteries. We are so nauseated with the billboards that by the time we have reached our destination we have become so disgusted with what we have seen and read (for we cant help reading them) that tie wouldnt patronize those firms who advertise on billboards if we had to do without the articles. I wonder how many Carnegie Art Institutes it will take to offset such a condition of affairs! The one Pittsburgh possesses, with all its millions of endowment and beautiful collections, is not able to prevent the erection of a billboard, one hundred and forty feet long and twenty feet high, directly opposite to the Institute itself. Nor has its presence prevented the desecration of its own beautiful pictures. La Fouches canvas entitled The Bath, which received first prize from the International Art Exhibition at the Institute last spring, has been utilized as a subject to inspire enthusiasm in modern plumbing! This particular instance seems to be too much even for longsuffering, or shall I say indifferent, Pittsburgh, and ways and means are now being discussed for the curtailment of the evil. It may or I am not going to discuss that question, may not be an art center. but if it is, then it is the art of the few, not that of the people. How can we make our cities in themselves works of art, if we permit the profanation of the sky-line and the elimination of dignity through the unrestrained and unregulated use of the billboard? Cities spend tens and hundreds of thousands for beautiful public buildings, for parks and parkways and playgrounds, and then allow
433
TO
BOYCOTT
THE
BILLBOARD
the billposter to use them as a background for his flaming adverIs it right, is it fair, to those who get all their conceptions tisements. of beauty and art through public means, to have the ,poster laced on a parity with such undertakin s ? And yet, what other cone f usion can the untutored mind reach t B an that both are equally artistic, both are equally desirable, or why should they be permitted to continue in this juxtaposition? Have we any right to talk of .taking expensive measures to make our cities beautiful as long as we allow the unrestrained poster in our streets and suburbs ?
HIS evil blight attacks the country as well,as the city. It leaves no part untouched. Nothing is sacred. If the sky-line of the The billboards city is disfigured, so is that of the countryside. flaunt their loud color, their ugly vu1 arity, their frequently sugin the face of gestive or indecent pictures and stupi 8 caricatures every pa.sserby on city street and country lane, and beside the railroad which skirts the substantial farm or lovely country seat. The billposter, to quote an indignant Cincinnati observer who has been aroused by the vigorous campaign inaugurated there by the wide-awake Business Mens Club, has disfigured and concealed the natural and the artificial beauty of the landscape-and there is no other landscape comparable with that which the billboarder is striving to hide from Cincinnati with large degree of success. He has affixed his disfigurements on trees, fences, gateways and walls so as to affect the amenities of public parks, promenades, streets and of churches and of avenues. He has sought the ne.ighborhood schoolhouses. He has scores of miles of disfigurements and blotches in Cincinnati and he goes Scot-free of taxation on his exceedingly remunerative investment in billboards. In Great Britain, where the campaign against objectionable advertisements has been carried on for fifteen years, success is about to crown the patient efforts of a group of public-spirited men of which In the discussion Mr. Richardson Evans has long been the leader. of the bill now pending in the House of Commons, the Earl of Balcarres declared, while the measure was on passage through the House of Lords: What we claim is that the landscape does not belong to the man who chooses to pa a few shillings for it per annum, but The same principle applies to is an asset of the people at 9arge. open spaces and places. The sky sign is a most objectionable form of advertising. There is the flash sky sign which dominates the A well-known hotel has a big illuminwhole of the Embankment.
434
TO
BOYCOTT
THE
BILLBOARD
ated sign which flashes down the Mall into the very windows of the sovereign in his palace. Such advertisements are merely seizing the opportunities of the taxpayers expenditure on space and utilizing it. This English measure has three objects in view: First, the regulation and control of hoardings and similar structures used for the purpose of advertising, when they exceed twelve feet in height. Second, the regulating, restricting, or preventing of the exhibition of advertisements in such manner or by such means as to affect injuriously the amenities of a public park or pleasure promenade, or to disfigure the affixing the natural beauty of the landscape. Third, preventin or otherwise exhibiting of advertisements upon any wal f , tree, fence, gate or elsewhere on private pro erty without the consent of either the owner or occupier, previous Py given in writing. This is cerIt is a tainly not a very drastic law, but it establishes a recedent. It is an offip cial effort to curb recognition of the need of legislation. It is an important and effective opening wedge. the evil. It is indeed time that there was inaugurated a general anti-billboard crusade throughout the country, and the American Civic Association is to be encouraged and supported in its efforts to coiirdinate the numerous local campaigns, and in its active campaign of education and legislative work. As a step toward arousing a widespread interest in this campaign, and as a natural corollary of its campaigns for the preservation of Niagara and for a more beautiful America, the Association has secured the consent of the commissioners of the State Reservation at Niagara to distribute at the Falls a circular asking the traveling public to indicate in writing signs as a disfigurement its opinion of the advertising to the scenery. F THERE is no other way to reach these offenders, let every one who sees the boards or hears about them, register a vow never to patronize the advertiser who uses such means to ive publicity This is the remedy which the North End 1 mprovement to his wares. If an offending adverSociety of Tacoma is using with telling effect. tiser fails to respond to the courteous suggestions of an abatement of the nuisance, then the members solemnly pledge themselves to refrain from purchasing the articles so advertised. Such a remedy is most effective, as the dealer is not anxious to have his goods boycotted at the very time he is spending his good money to give them publicity.
435
TO
BOYCOTT
THE
BILLBOARD
I never patronize a firm that advertises on billboards or on declares one Tacoma city official. I see theater drop curtains, the ads., you cant blind yourself to them, but you can refuse to patronize the firms. As a matter of fact, I put down in my mental note book every name I see on such an ad., and I refuse to buy a thing of that firm. I consider it an outrage to mar the scenery of our city with billboards, and I consider it an insult to theater patrons to compel them to look upon a great poster of business ads. after they have paid good money to get in the house. You may think I am humoring my prejudices too much, but I have stayed away from many a good show in the best theaters in Tacoma for no other reason than that I would not have those advertisements flung in my face. No one was more pleased than I to learn that the Tacoma theater people had at last discarded their advertisement curtain. May the tribe of such determined men increase, and the billboard offences will decrease in proportion-nay, faster, because the modern When he realizes that his advertiser seeks to please, not alienate. course is unpopular, he will be the first to change his tactics, and when people fail to follow the brazen suggestions of the billboards, the latter will disappear. I must confess to a liking for the boycott remedy. It has a very practical advantage-there are no provoking or perplexing delays, It is neat, clean, no court proceedings, no injunctions, no appeals. Not that I unmistakable to the one who knows best, and effective. underestimate the value of the prohibitive ordinance and act of assembly, or the great influence of the taxing power-because I believe in using every legitimate weapon in attacking an enemy; but the boycott is always at hand, and can be applied without delay and without any thou ht as to its legality. All that is necessary is will not to make up your min f that this one thing I will not do-1 deal with anyone or use any article that resorts to objectionable advertising. The methods of the minister militant of Blandford, Massachusetts (the Reverend S. G. Wood) also appeal powerfully to me. Armed with an axe and aided by his son, a college graduate, while the fight of Blandford against the invasion of billposters was at its height, he set out each morning with a team, scouring the town for advertising signs and tearing down all he could find, whether upon the highways or upon private property. When the advertising agents discovered what was hap ening to the signs they had so industriously put up, they sought Mr. fv ood and expostulated with him, but all to
436
TO
BOYCOTT
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BILLBOARD
no purpose, as he calmly pointed out that what he had done was within the law. Many measures were employed to defeat him in his attempt to keep the town beautiful; some were successful for a time, but in the end it was the minister who came off with flying colors. To outwit him in his crusade, permission was sought frdm owners of private property to put up signs, and wherever it was obtained the signs This was supposed to put an end to the went up in large numbers. ministers destructive methods, but knowing the property owners better than the advertisers did, he prevailed upon them to allow the signs to be removed, and as he did the work of taking them down himself, they disappeared quickly. Then Mr. Woods foes built high in the trees along the country roads little wooden signs which announced the value of a certain No sooner did the minister learn of this than, hitching up his yeast. True, he was fifty-two and a little too team, he took to the warpath. old to be climbing trees, but then he had his son, who was an athlete, so that what the father failed to do the son found but childs play. Now it is said that every time his horse sees an advertising sign he stops and refuses to go again until it has been torn down.
R. WOOD tells of his meeting with an agent who had been most persistent in using fences and trees as a medium for telling of the wonderful value of a certain yeast: Just as I was going out before breakfast one morning, he said, a man with a bag swung over his shoulder entered and placed a package within my front doorway. It did not occur to me that it was my friend, the enemy, but there on the floor lay a yeast cake. This is a perfectly legitimate way of advertising and I find no objection to it, but unhappy visions of placarded roadsides came to me, and I determined to make my business of the morning to lay for this man. Several trips to store and hotel, a breakfast interrupted in the middle, and a final settling down in a chair on the hotel piazza in waiting attitude, Immediately upon the agents brought at last the desired interview. emerging from the house I accosted him and proceeded to present my case, which I announced as a request that would doubtless be unconvincing to him, but which I was there to present; namely, that he would henceforth refrain from using our town highways as a vehicle for his advertising ; it was obnoxious to citizens of good taste ; we had cleared the roads once by an organized campaign, and we desired that the cleaning be permanent.
437
TO
BOYCOTT
THE
BILLBOARD
He suggested that I had better write to the company. I assured him that I would certainly do so, but meantime I wanted him to stop. He answered that he would not do it. He did not seem to comprehend, so I added that it would do no good for him to continue; he was wasting his time and the companys time. I had already destroyed hundreds of his ads. He did not ask me who I was and I did not tell him. Do you mean to say that you are going right to Westfield this morning putting up those things in the face of all I have said to you ? I asked. Yes, he said. Then I shall follow At this you and take them down as fast as you can put them up. we parted, I in coolness, he in anger, with the remark that this was a pretty kind of a place, or something of the sort, and as a parting fling I gave him the posting one of 111s labels on the store front nearby. solace of a blessin on that, as it was the one legitimate place in town where it belonge 3 . St. Paul has taken a forward step, albeit a somewhat short one. By a vote of six to one the local assembly passed, at the request of the Park Board, an ordinance prohibiting the erection of any bill or signboards within one hundred and fifty feet of any park or parkway. One member of the Assembly brought up the time-honored argument that in many places a billboard served to obscure unsightly places, overlooking the fact that the way to get rid of such sights was to clean them up and put them in decent order! No doubt billboards do cover a multitude of sins of omission and commission, but it can scarcely be considered sound morals to advocate increasing the supply of sin-covering rather than the elimination of the sins. Fortunately, this assemblyman was in a lonely minority of one, and affirmative action wa.s taken at once, as it was pointed out that the ordinance did not interfere with any boards already erected, and that any delay in its passage would have the effect of causing the billposters to put up all the boards they could before the measure should become a law. This St. Paul effort, therefore, has two important lessons. It points the way to an effective measure of revention a.nd it teaches the wisdom of taking time by the foreloc K . Too often legislative action comes after the evil has been done, and then the offenders are given a chance to plead vested rights, although I do not believe such a plea, even now quite effective, will long avail. Public sentiment is fortunately forming along sound lines, and to the end that no nuisance can be allowed to become a vested right.
CHEMICAL CHANGES HECTOR ALLIOT

T
IN OIL PAINTINGS:
BY
IS a curious fact that while many of the canvases painted in the early part of the sixteenth century still retain the full brilliancy of their original colors, practically unaffected by three hundred years of exposure to the light and various atmospheric conditions, many hJJ comparatively modern works of art executed within I the last hundred years have lost much of the beauty of coloring that constituted their chief charm. This seeming anomaly has for years been a matter of deep concern to directors of art museums as well as private collectors, and the reasons for such deterioration and a means of arresting the evil have engaged the attention of many scientists and experts as well as artists. The first and main cause of paintings becoming impaired is the presence of linseed oil. This substance enters into every ste of the modern artists work. It is the vehicle for his pigments, an l is very often the chief ingredient of his varnishes and driers. It is generally believed that the reason Ghirlandajos paintings, more than any other works of the Renaissance, have retained their original beauty is because his early experience as a goldsmith put him in possession of some special chemical knowledge that was useful to him in the compoundmg of his colors with the oil. This is a very natural conclusion when it is borne in mind how jealously trade secrets were guarded in the families of Italian craftsmen of the Middle Ages. The same remarkable enduring quality is noticeable in the work of In their case it is conceded to be due to their habit the Van Eycks. of mixing the oil with water and exposing it for months to the sunlight, a practice that was still in favor a few generations ago, but has since become obsolete. For over a hundred years the manufacturers of linseed oil have ossible to simplify the preparation of the oil for used every means the market, to ma Ke it as quickly as they could with a minimum Instead of leaving it three or four years to gradually of handling. cast off the undesirable elements it contains, they bring it rapidly to the boiling point, maintaining the ebullition for two hours, remove the accumulated scum from the surface, and by degrees add about three per cent. of so-called driers. Modern chemical knowledge has enabled us to ascertain definitely that the introduction of these driers is the fundamental cause These foreign of all deterioration of paintings affected by linseed oil. additions are for the most part litharge or minium; either of these
439
CHEMICAL
CHANGES
IN
OIL
PAINTINGS
substances must, in spite of all possible care and thought bestowed upon the canvases, slowly but surely affect the brilliancy of the colors This conused and eventually impair the pigments themselves. stitutes a natural chemical action impossible to retard. After the introduction of the driers the boiling of the oil is continued for two hours, when the stuff is poured into settling tanks, colored with umber, and permitted to remain undisturbed for a few weeks in order that the heavy sediment may settle to the bottom, This oil is after which it is decanted and is ready for the market. not only the basis in which the colors are ground but it constitutes the chief ingredient of practically all the varnishes used by artists today. Turpentine enters largely into the preparation of the popular dammar varnish, and a greater tenacity is obtained by the use of oil of spike. Unfortunately linseed oil has quite generally replaced the costly oil of spike and for the more expensive dammar rosin is substituted. Fatty varnishes, which have been more generally used than dammar, have as a basis linseed oil, very rarely walnut or poppy oil, which would be preferable. These fatty varnishes are slow to dry, but if permitted to do so naturally form a transparent film of great toughness, resisting well the action of light and atmospheric changes; but it has long been the practice to hasten their drying by boiling them with red oxide of lead. Lead in any form is the deadly enemy of oil painting, whether in the colors themselves or in the varnishes, as it forms with certain pigments having a sulphurous base a destroying black chemical combination impossible to arrest or overcome. The early Flemish painters discovered this fact and to this knowledge is due the excellent state of preservation of many of their masterpieces, as neither their colors nor their varnishes were contaminated by this lead oxide. It is a matter of much conjecture whether these early painters really possessed a knowledge of this chemical change or whether it was simply accident that protected them from this evil. Most of them however compounded their own colors and varnishes, and doubtless many of them were fairly versed in chemistry. Velasquez fried the oil he used in a pan with garlic, afterward exposing it to the light for a long time and using it without any admixture. The superb condition of most of 111s canvases may no doubt be attributed to his careful preparation of paints a.nd varnishes, and his dependence upon the slow but effective natural methods instead of forcing rapid drying by the addition of the artificial siccatifs of this more feverish age.
440
CHEMICAL
CHANGES
IN
OIL
PAINTINGS
Whether it be chance or the intervention of science, it is a fact that many of the masterpieces of the Renaissance have for hundreds of years retained their pristine beauty of color, while the canvases of and an increasing number of comparatively Reynolds, Troyon, are already beginning to lose that superb color modern painters, which once was so worthy of admiration. This is almost, if not entirely, due to the presence of lead oxides in the oil, varnish or pigments. LL varnishes upon exposure to the air, and especially the atmosphere of artificially heated and lighted rooms, have a However fresh and brilliant the tendency to become dark. colors underneath may remain, they are gradually obscured by the The only satisfactory method increasing opaqueness of the varnish. ublic devised to obviate this is the one employed by the leading museums for the protection of their antique paintings-that of pPacing the picture between two sheets of glass, prevented by small blocks of wood from touching the canvas, the edges of the glasses being hermetically sealed, thereby protecting the varnish from the action of the air. Another frequent cause of colors changing is the chemical combination formed by certain pigments when placed in juxtaposition. To overcome this some artists, both ancient and modern, with a knowledge of chemistry, have painted in a peculiar fashion by placing At close independent spots of clear color side by side like a mosaic. range the effect of this method is not at all pleasing, although viewed at a distance the tones often blend with great softness and charm. White lead is one of the most harmful agents, all the more danIn comgerous since it is so generally used as a primmg for canvas. bination with colors of a sulphurous origin, such as the vermilions and the cadmiums so universal17 adopted by artists of the present time, the consequences cannot fall to be disastrous. In all paintings where these colors are applied over a lead-primed canvas the result will unavoidably be the same, the tints will become darkened, gradually deteriorate, and no amount of care can avert it, for man is powerless to control that great force of nature-chemical affinity. Through double decomposition, the lead acted upon by the atmosphere and light in time forms with the colors of sulphurous base a black sulphide of lead. Then too the imperfect ventilation of galleries and crowded rooms together with artificial light tend to blacken all pigments with a lead
441
CHEMICAL
CHANGES
IN
OIL
PAINTINGS
basis through the natural combination of the sulphuretted hydrqgen of the vitiated air with the colors having a metallic origin. Smce many of the siccatifs contain litharge, which is also a lead oxide, and many painters have glazed their pictures with these drying mediums, it but naturally follows that a black veil will eventually obscure the paintings however brilliant they originally may have been. The remedy for this must be found in the use of siccatifs with a manganese basis, these being comparatively free from all the faults of those containing litharge or other products of a lead basis. As a substitute for the pernicious white lead two others have been suggested and successfully experimented with, the chief objection to them being the inconvenience of application, as they must be laid on the canvas a number of times to secure the same surface heretofore so easily achieved with the white lead. One of these is zinc white, which even though it be chemically affected by light and other agents would still remain white, since zinc sulphide is a white product ; the other is the unalterable sulphate of barium. A combination of the two however that seemed to offer great possibilities has proved useless, for it unfortunately turns black upon exposure to the air. R. OSWALD, the great chemist-artist, has recently been sucunder the cessful in compounding a white lead substitute D This is a white substance that for an name of lithopone. <indefinite len th of time remains unchanged by contact with metallic Dr. Oswald has dempigments an i unaffected by outside agents. sonstrated that should a painting in which lithopone coated the foundation canvas become faded in appearance, by the simple application of oxygenated water to the surface of the picture, all the original freshness of coloring would be restored without in the least affect&g the painting. While this substance may solve the problem of white lead evils, It in no way saves a canvas from another, equally commonThis generally comes from the the cracking of the painted surface. uneven expansion of the supporting canvas and the painted surface A picture becomes under the influence of dampness, heat, and cold. cracked in exact ratio to the thickness of the paint on the surface. The thinner the paint is laid on the canvas the longer it remains in perfect condition, since a thin coatipg has greater elasticity and adapts itself to the swelling or shrinking of the canvas underneath, whereas thick layers of paint being more rigid must of necessity eventually break away, or become cracked. In the paintings of Van Epck, Ghirlandajo, Raphael, and Rubens 442
CHEMICAL
CHANGES
IN
OIL
PAINTINGS
the paint is often so thinly applied as to plainly reveal the meshes of the canvas underneath ; because of this they have successfully withstood the ravages of time and hundreds of successive atmospheric .chan es. 7% e safest, most desirable, foundation for, all oil paintings would be a perfectly rigid one, from the point of view of their preservation. Canvas, however, holds forth so many artistic possibilities of texture and softness as to make it quite probable that it will remain ever the favorite painting surface of the majority of artists. Hard wood panels have proved quite successful in resisting all The marked objection to their use is the limited size injurious action. in which they are obtainable, and their expense. In panels of small dimensions, they offer practically the most enduring qualities of anything that has been used for the purpose. Many artists, too, have employed sheets of copper or tinned iron ;-Van Beers painting upon pieces of extraordinary size; but it is as yet impossible to attest to their durability. There are many examples from the early masters, however, of paintings on copper and tinned iron that have retained their original This is especially true of some freshness to a wonderful degree. of the works of Guido Rem, his famous Magdalen being today perfectly preserved, which would indicate that metal sheets are an admirable foundation. It is fair to presume, then, that a picture painted upon any surface from which all lead oxides have been eliminated, dried in the sunlight, and varnished with a product of manganese base would practically be assured of perfect preservation against all influences of time and weather for centuries to come. The artist painting thinly upon copper, or preferably on high-grade tinned iron, primed with zinc white, and avoiding the use of pigments and mediums known to be susceptible to the dangers herein mentioned, would be able to produce a work of art capable of resisting all known deteriorating agents for an unlimited space of time.
443
A CARPENTER WHO IS A COLLECTOR OF ART OBJECTS: BY GRACE WHITWORTH

VERY busy man in New York who earns his daily bread as a carpenter is Mr. Edward Roberts ; but unlike most busy men who are carpenters, he is not contented with merely earni his daily bread. He &ds that .his interest in life3 emands a great many other ood things besides. In his apartment on the third f oor of an old house in a once aristocratic partion of New York he has managed to add. to the simple suggestion of bread as a daily portion,, paintings of unusual value, hundreds of choice .books and rare ceramics. His furniture is equally valuable and beautiful, made by himself from good bits of wood that have cost but a few cents, or a dollar or so. In fact, all this interesting and unusual collection which go& to make up the environment of a carpenters daily life, Mr. Roberts has achieved for himself by the use of his carpenters tools, either by additional work for which he was paid or. b the exchange of labor for some particular book or picture which Hedesired to own. It is rather a romantic story--the way in which he has found most of his choice pictures and bdoks. It has not been by chance, but by keepin an alert mind and a keen interest alwtiys ,mth him. The walls of t% e two larger rooms of his or less, and usual1 more, impo+ant to sixteen htindre CT and eighty-one, by unknown Dutchman. I ,fotind it, in an old jtink shop in Center Street. It was grimy and cobwebby, and was given to me glad1 for -a few dollars. A canvas of the sixteenth century is the wor% of Palma. 11 Giovine. It came to the United Stat& with a collection which had -been purchased on the other side. Notlong a o Mr. Roberts found it in a ne lected corner of an old shop.. He dif some additional carpenter tvori? of a Sunday and an evening, secured seven dollars and a half and .bought the icture. An interesti Belgian fruit painting is signed Pieter Jacob 23 seventeen hundred and seventy-four. This R oremans and is date was secu!ed by a fa,ir exchange of, carpenter work. A still later acquisition from a Third Avenue shop is a Magdalen by I. B. W. Maes. Mr. Roberts also ossesses a clever little sketch by J. Wells Champney ; price, one do1 Par and a half. A fruit study of real interest is signed Daub&y, a cattle painting is by W. Hepburn, a landscape by F. E. Church, and several engravings by Henry Wolf. 444
CARPENTER
AND
ART
COLLECTOR
An interesting example of how he turns his brain as well as his One labor to account is given in the story of a mosaic lamp globe. day, when business took him to a marble establishment where these globes are made, he noticed that the firm was usin eight or nine men After a little thought a e suggested to the to move one heavy statue. with one-half the manager a device that would move the statuar labor. The plan worked, and when asked wiI at recompense he desired, he said, One of your inlaid globes. There are many pieces of interesting furniture in this apartment. The table in the center of the parlor is of alligator mahogany-the wood having been bought in the rou h for three dollars. A large chair at the right of the table was ma J?e from a worn-out office sofa. The sofa was purchased for seven dollars and the chair is valued at sixty. The bookcases, the china cabinets, the wardrobes, are of mahogFine mirrors hang on nearly every any-all made by their owner. wall and form the doors of the large wardrobes. An unattractive fireplace has been in eniously hidden from view by building in front of it two mahogany c f osets. Piece by piece, the wood and the mirrors have been obtained from old houses that are ever being torn down Beautiful woods have in this way been secured for in New York. urchased for two dollars an elevator very little. Mr. Roberts once It was that had been taken-from an oP d building and stored away. finished with fine rosewood and mahogany, from which he has made many a handsome bit of furniture. N THE dining room are five large cabinets filled with a valuable collection of china and glassware, and dozens of odd vases and There is a Chinese vase of the seventeenth century which jars. was thought to be an imitation when purchased several years ago, but recently ex erts have declared it genuine and worth several Another old vase is Japanese, made in sixteen hundreds of do&s. hundred and twenty; it was broken when its present owner found it He secured it for seven dollars, and in an antique furmture shop. took it to a friend who mended it in exchan e for a paintin . Today, a collector lacking a vase of that articu f ar period wou7 d have to pay at least a thousand dollars to E ecome the possessor of the one owned by Mr. Roberts. Contrasted with this ancient Japanese vase is a modern Japanese Another very beautiful vase rose jar that is worth no mean figure. is Mmton, of exquisite yellow with royal blue border. This was
447
CARPENTER
AND
ART
COLLECTOR
Among hundreds of pieces picked up at a pawn shop for very little. of porcelain there are twenty-two Crown Derby plates-a collection, These doubtless, that no other working man in the world possesses. were secured from a collector of books and various works of art in exchange for carved mahogany bookcases and cabinets, which were made evenings and Sundays. Art in payment for his handiwork delights Mr. Roberts more than money gain. lhe most surprising collection of all in this wonderful home is the library, which contains a thousand volumes, including many first editions, in complete sets, of a number of world-famed authors. It took two years to become the possessor of twenty-six volumes of Robert Louis Stevensons books-for they were secured one at a time. Two beautiful vellum-bound volumes of The Life of Marie Antoinette, by Maxine de la Rocheterie, are from an edition that was limited to one hundred and sixty copies at twenty-five dollars each. They were not, however, beyond Mr. Roberts means; the bookseller needed to have some shelving done and twenty hours work on two Sundays was offered in exchange for the books. There is a fine cop of The Scarlet Letter from a special edition of two hundre B copies ; a first edition of Mark Twains Tramps Abroad, which was picked up for twenty-five cents and then rebound; a handsome thirty-six-dollar volume of Bulwers works, printed on Japan paper, bound in morocco, and illustrated with etchings in color by W. II. W. Bicknell; a volume of Shakespeares comedies illustrated by Edwin A. Abbey; a first edition of Al,bert Smiths Christopher Tadpole, illustrated by Leech ; a copy of the Koran (eighteen hundred and twent -five) in two volumes, and a 35 History of the Roman Republic, y Adam Ferguson, published in eighteen hundred and twenty-five and containing a fine engraving of Ferguson made by Mr. Page from a paintin 5 by Sir Joshua ReyA very large volume of Tennysons Idylls of the King I~OldS. is illustrated with thirty-one photogravures from excellent original The book was published in eighteen designs by Alfred Kappes. hundred and eighty-eight and was originally sold by subscription Not long ago Mr. Roberts secured for one hundred dollars a copy. his copy for two dollars. There are many other volumes varying in subject and authorship: ublished in seventeen hundred A volume of John Gays poems and sixty-seven; an entire set of 8 harles Reades works ; Roman Nights, or the Tomb of the Scipios, by Alessandro Verri, published in eighteen hundred and twenty-six; a set of Washington Irvings 44
CARPENTER
AND
ART
COLLECTOR
books handsomely bound ; Three Rolling Stones in Japan, by Gilbert Watson; Napoleon, the Last Phase, by Lord Rosebery; the 4(History of War with Russia, by Henry Tyrrell, illustrated with a series of steel engravings and many fine maps; The Marchioness of Brinvilliers, by Albert Smith ; Memoirs of George Elers, edited from original manuscript by Lord Monson and G. L. Grower. The bookcases containing this interesting library have been especially designed by their owner. They are of mahogany and so made that not a half inch of any book is hidden from view. Each wide case has but one door and the shelves are of glass. They were thus arranged that there might be no lines of wood within the frame Nothing is seen but books. of the door. But these books have not Mr. been collected merely to be exhibited to their best advantage. Roberts has read them many times, and delights to talk of their contents. He has been collecting them one or two at a time for years. I have always been interested in books, he said. When asked his favorite authors, he replied: Dickens, Walter Scott, Thackeray, Reade, -Dumas-oh, all of the best English and French writers. I have&read, too, much of Confucius and like the Polish, Austrian and Russian writers. I am very fond of poetry and at one time I think I knew five hundred poems by heart. I have always made an Reading has aleffort to read part of an hour at least, every day. ways been a pleasure to me, and after a hard days work it rests me. And this from a man who has had but two years of schooling in his life and who has earned his ,own living at the bench since the age of ten! Mrs. Roberts is of Scotch origin; a school teacher in Canada before her marriage, she has since applied her thought to the science of housekeeping. She has succeeded in mastering the problem, for her understanding of it has preserved in the best possible way the treasures which her husband has worked so hard to obtain. Mr. Roberts appreciation of her is often expressed in these words: I could not have accomplished what I have had I not had such a Although she attends to all of the housework, her appearance wife. from early morning is always pleasant to behold. In addition to her household cares, she makes all her own clothing. The son-a bright, manly boy of nineteenis to enter Columbia While preparing for college he has also been IJniversity next fall. studying music ; even this advantage has not been beyond the family The beauty of this home is not confined to its combination income. of art, music and literature. Its greater interest is in the perfect bond which exists between father, mother and son. 4-u
THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE ON THE PACIFIC COAST: BY UNA NIXSON HOPKINS
E domestic architecture of the Pa&c coast has developed rapidly and intelligently a-long creative lines; and is now notable for .its vigor and beauty and the strong Contrast it presents in comparison with the architecture of other parts of the country. There is a spontaneity and originality about it that has grown out of the immediate needs of the people ,-who have gathered from the four corners of the globe,-hence it has no circuinscribed creed. ;Climati@ly: and geographi&lly, tionditions on, the Pacific, coast are exceptionally favorable for the. development of a distinctly local style in. the building art. Because of its climatic conditions the possibilities for, attractive outdoor, effects, such aspergolas, courtyards; terraces and gardens, wMch should always be included in the general architectural scheme,. are almost unlimited; Fur-. ther, there are mountains,- valleys and the sea within short compass, creating a separate and ,distinct environment in each instance. The result. is that every house to .be .built has its particular problem,. based on a logical .foundation of suitability, utility and attractiveness; and in the majority of instances each problem has been worked out according to its individual requirements.
Architects who are also artists, attracted in the beginning by the wealth of new buildings that have gone up with Aladdin-like swiftness in the past few .years, have found increasing inspiration in the natural conditmns. Then, too, the home that meets the needs of summer will just as surely fulfil dl the requirements of winter in .this climate, so there is none of that worlcing at cross purposes which necessariIy defeats, in so many instances, the designing of an entirely satisfactory home from the vievvpofnt of beauty as well as.utility and comfort. Architectural features that are not even to, be hinted at in parts of the country where the shrubbery and trees drop their leaves and the, entire Iandscape grows hoary in winter, and also w>here storms and very cold weather are to be taken into consideration, are the most salient points in the presentday architecture of the Pacific coast. The problem of heating, for instance, may be treated lightly, and the building of foundations and laying of pipes need give no great concern as far as the elements of freezing and thawing are concerned. Nature has not only furnished on the Pacific coast the ideal conditions for the making of homes, but the ma-
450
THE TILE
ADOBE ROOFS
OF AND
SOUTHERN TO SPAIN LJJW-LYING WITH
CALIFORNIA, WITH ITS VERANDAS. A PATIO
HARKING
BACK
CALIFORNIA EFFECT AT
BUNGALOW THE FRONT.
.IYi..--
--
._-_
-.
THE THE
OLD
%lIISSIONS
AKE AND
RESP0hSIRJ.E LUSURIOlJS. IN THE
FOR
SO-CALLED DJGNIFIED OF ART
.%lISSION
ARCHITECTURE,
OFTEN AN
ECHO
NOUVEAU PACIFIC
ARCHITECTURE
OF THE
COAST.
A SHINGLE HOUSE SHOWING BEAUTIFUL PROPORTIONS, AND UNUSUAL FORMAL GARDEN. A SHINGLE HOUSE OF THE LAND. BUILT TO THE CURVE
ARCHITECTURE
ON
THE
PACIFIC
COAST
terial for building them as well. The vast forest regions of the northwest supply woods in great variety as well as immense quantity, and the southwest boasts stone quarries a,nd arroyo beds where the useful cobblestone is found in abundance. The architect of the whole region has quantities of material with which to work. There is as yet sufficient space in the West, so that respectable areas are allotted for the erection of homes,-in fact there is a tendency to extend rather than to contract the borders of lawns and gardens, and also there is a growing veneration for the life of trees. There are apparently no drawbacks to the creation of distinct and original types of domestic architecture. Not only are the typical Western dwellings at present conspicuous for boldness in their general characteristics ; they also abound in subtle and exquisite detail. It would not be quite true to state that there are no traditions in building here. The Spanish adobe of Southern California, picturesque and romantic, harking back to Spain with its patios, tile roofs and low-lying verandas, has in a few instances been revived with gratifying results. It finds a congenial setting now as in the days of the old Spanish regime, inviting indolence and repose as of yore. Perhaps it will again assert itself as a distminct type in the land of its forbearsQ&en sabe! The old missions are responsible for the so-called mission architecture, which is dignified and luxurious only when simple and unornamented. In spite of this fact, adaptation from the missions is almost the only form of western architecture that has been degraded by over-ornamentation. In the hands of a class of architects and builders who are in nowise artists, and who prefer the pretentious a,nd flamboyant to the simple and quiet, the mission
architecture has in some instances become bizarre and even vulgar. Fortunately, degraded examples are the exception rather than the rule, and even these are more frequently met with in public buildings than in dwellings. The third type of Pacific coast architecture is confined almost wholly to dwellings. It is entirely independent a$nd a long way removed from the two already mentioned, and shows markedly the influence of the CRAFTSMAN movement. These houses for the most part are of excellent proportions, with sloping roof lines, broad verandas and overhanging eaves. In fact, wherever there is an excuse for casting architectural shadows, it is laid hold upon. Rough timbers are used whenever possible and the detail is largely rustic, with the construction exposed in many instances. The exterior finish is sometimes of shingles, frequently of split shakes, or, again, siding in various widths. A house of beautiful proportions, shown in one of the illustrations, is built of shingles laid close upon one another, and has a wide. inclosed veranda on the east, protected by brick piers with horizontal strips of wood running between to form a frame for the Cherokee rose vines. On each pier, with the exception of the one at the entrance, which holds a large Japanese electric lantern, is a huge brown bowl stained like the house, holding formed trees of Monterey cypress. The pergola porch on the south depends for its decoration on tubs of bay trees, and at either side of the front door are seats protected by a wood canopy. The garden is in the rear and the only trees, even in the foreground, are the fragrant acacias, their feathery bloom giving a suggestion of light The Cherokee flowers are yellow, white with yellow centers, completing 455
ARCHITECTURE
ON
THE
PACIFIC
COAST
the color scheme that has been as carefully thought out as the proportions. There is not a discordant note in the building or in its immediate environment of shrubs and vines, even the awnings are brown and deep ecru,making the erzse&le entirely harmonious. A great many bungalows are included in this rustic free-hand architecture which demands such perfect draughltsmanship, for in this form of house there is no ornament to cover up defects and its very simplicity demands great care in line and proportion. The bungalows, more especially, have naught to do with established rules of house building. They are for the most part utterly unlike the conventional cottage. The details of a bungalow belong to itself alone, and the space is disposed of in a manner unlike anything gone before. The bungalow pictured is an illustration of this point. It has only six rooms, but possesses a charm which would be impossible to a pretentious and conventional house. In front you enter a sort of patio which is a compromise ,between a veranda and a court, being rather too small for the latter and filling the requirements of the former as well as taking its place. This small patio is paved with cement and is flush with the ground and outlined by cobblestones that appear to have strayed from the chimney. The whole is bordered by luxuriant ferns. And the chimney of unusual and original design hints at the fireplace within, which is also of cobblestone. In fact, the entire construction has departed from the usual hackneyed path which the average small house follows ass far as possible. The old way of conforming the irregularities of the ground to the building by grading and scraping until an even surface was obtained has been 456
almost entirely abandoned in this new architecture, and in its stead the houses have been designed to conform to the land as nature made it. This has taxed the ingenuity of the architects, but the result has justified the effort made, for nowhere in the world are to be seen better illustrations of adaptability to situation than on the Pacific coast. This last problem necessarily has been worked out by a rule which could take for its text no one style of architecture, but there is a very strong suggestion of the Swiss chilet in many of the houses perched in strange and unexpected places. When it comes to the detail of these dwellings, whether large or small, the Japanese spirit is more or less apparent,a phase of western architecture which has been much commented upon. Occasionally a fine replica of an Italian villa or a good example of Elizabethan half-timbered architecture may be seen, especially in Southern California, and there is now and then an echo of the Art Nouveau movement of western Germany, but, generally spea,king, the prevailing types are the An occasional three just described. attempt at a renewal of the Colonial in the West does not count, as this style is not in any way compatible with the conditions or traditions of the country. It is no more suitable here than a thatched bungalow would be in the compa,ny of elaborate conventional stone houses in the fashionable quarter of New York. The restraint and general economy that prevails in exterior designing is likewise apparent in the interior. The interiors are as unlike those of the conventional houses of ten or fifteen years ago as can be imagined. There is no fussiness or pretense, but a spirit of genuine response to need pervades them. The out-of-doors is included in the interior so far as possible-that is,
ARCHITECTURE
ON
THE
PACIFIC
COAST
there are a great many doors and windows, and frequently whole rooms of glass, which are used for lounging rooms and sunbaths in winter, and, when all of the screened windows are open, for extra porches in summer. There is usually a very large living room with a great deal of wood showing in the treatment of walls and ceiling and a fireplace of hospitable proportions; a sunny, cheerful dining room, which frequently opens with glass doors into a courtyard; a den or reading room,-which a#ttains to the dignity of a library in the larger airy sleeping houses; rooms and closets, pantries, kitchen, etc., most conveniently arranged. Many of these houses show upper verandas that are open on one or two sides. These, being easily curtained, serve as outdoor sleeping rooms, opening off from the bedroom proper. The old-time reception or drawing room with its gold and brocade has been consistently omitted, even in the large and expensive homes. Illustrations are to be seen in the newer houses of the successful treatment of woods either chemically or In the house pictured as with stains. showing German influence, the timbers have been given a chemical bath that makes them look as old as the hills in the background. The California red-
wood is so susceptible to stains that probably more widely varying effects result from it under different treatments than can be obtained from anv other wood. By one process it can The even be made to look like copper. northern pines take browns, grays and greens admirably, and both pine and redwood submit readily to the charring processes which the Japanese know how to manipulate so well. The same restraint and good taste which characterize the design and building for the houses are also evident in the furnishing. These may be generalized as utilitarian. Heavy, well-designed rugs on hardwood floors; substantial, simple furniture against plain neutral-tinted walls ; curtains of coarse cotton, linen or silk stuff hanging in straight lines that are free from fussy draping a.nd the frippery that accompanies it; port&es and sofa pillows undecorated, save for some conventional design,-as a whole, economical, livable and beautiful. Taken all in all, the domestic architecture of the Pacific coast, in its different phases, has grown close to the ideal, since it has succeeded in eliminating nearly all qualities that do not make for health, happiness and beautv, and in doing so has come to be a living art.
457
DESIGN IN THEORY AND PRACTICE: A SERIES OF LESSONS: BY ERNEST A. BATCHELDER: NUMBER IV

Nothing made by mans hand can be indifferent; it must be either beautiful and elevating, or ugly and degrading.William Morris.
HE logical development of a piece of crafts work was outlined in the November CRAFTSMAN. We have also defined through several abstract problems certain elementary principles governing line, form, and tone composition. Up to the present point of our work these principles may be summarized by the following propositions: First:-The adjustment of the proportions of the whole and the space and mass relations of the parts is of the first importance. Second :-The space must receive the same thoughtful consideration that is given to the mass. Third :-The dominant interest may be concentrated at will on any portion of the design; and to this dominant interest other interests should be subordinate. Fourth:-There must be a coijperation of all the lines and forms employed to secure a unity of effect. Fifth:-Variety with unity should be sought. Sixth:-Lines parallel with the enclosing form strengthen or support it; but there should always be some contrasting opposition of lines. The full value of these propositions, defined through abstract problems, is not realized until they are brought into immediate rela,tion to the questions of use, environment, tools, materials and processes of constructive work. It is the writers belief that we may best study the principles of line, form and tone composition apart from the many complications that beset the de45
signer in a constructive problem. But as it is the designers aim to give beauty to adequate service it is necessary to point out again and again the part which these principles play in actual practice. On the basis of his structural elements the designer endeavors to impart to his product a consistent expression of some sentiment, feeling or emotion in terms of line, form, and tone. The question of utility, of adequate service, always arises as the first point for discussion in determining the general form and essential elements of a constructive problem. Any effort to achieve beauty by ignoring in the slightest degree the demands of adequate service in the object as a whole or in any of its parts to the last detail must be condemned as a misdirected effort. If you are not clear as to what constitutes beauty, are not sure of your own judgment in such be satisfied to bring your matters, fund of common sense to bear upon the one question of adequate service; beauty will take care of itself. We may at least commend the work of the man who invents or makes a useful implement or utensil; but the man who impairs the usefulness of an article by trying to make it beautiful has wasted time and effort. In the work of the master craftsman the demands of utility were faced squarely. In adapting the outward forms from any so-called style or period of work we too often overlook the functional demands which once made those forms significant, but which have long ceased to have any relation to our problems. The details of the Gothic Style veneered upon a steel frame construction with cast cement is about equivalent to placing a wooden horse on wheels in front of
DESIGN
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an automobile to give it the carriage Every student of design should style. read Gothic Architecture, by Charles It will be a refreshing conH. Moore. trast to the superficial way in which the various styles are treated in our book on Historic Ornament. The historic development of any constructive problem will serve to illustrate the utilitarian basis of design Let us choose the lighting problem as typica 1 (Plate 12). The idea ma; be stated in a single word, light. There was a time when men used fatty oils for purposes of The condilighting. tions of the problem demanded a receptacle for the oil,.an opening for the wick, a base sufficiently large to give stability, with a handle for convenience in carrying (i). Sometimes the vessel was suspended from chains (vi), in which case a means for attaching the c h a i n s would naturally take the place of a handle. In the ruder types the vessel was merely a shallow dish with open top (ix) ; in examples of more careful workmanship (vii) a light of finer quality was gained by decreasing the size of the opening to compress the wick. We may well suspect that there was a dripping of oil from those lights. If so, the fact should have been accepted as one of the
primary conditions of the problem. At an! rate it may be noted in viii and x that provision has been made to catch the drip. It is seen then that in meeting theproblem of lighting with oils several different types of lamps were devised, varying somewha,t ,in appearance yet each alike in meeting with modifications the conditions necessary for adequate service. Then candles were invented and the
PLATE TWELVE.
461
I)ESIGN
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NJMBER
POUR
forms designed for oil lamps became obsolete. Candles presented new elements from which the designers took their clues (ii). A socket for holding the candle in an upright position must be provided with a pan to catch the drip from the tallow and a stable base as before. Conveniences were added, such as handles (xi), means for raising and lowering (xii-xiii), hooks for hanging (xiii). Sconces were fashioned 462
for the walls, and brackets were made which permitted one to swing the light horizontally (xvi). Lanterns of horn, glass or metal were devised to protect the candle from the wind. Uut the point is this,-that in whatever f 0 r m the candle appeared, u t i 1 i t y defined structuralelements quite unlike those of the oil lamps that preceded. Later came gas, an illuminant conveyed through hollow tubes, a new method w h i c h o v e r t LI r n e d the forms in common use (iii). Then another kind of illuminating oil was discovered, more inflammable than the first, which presented structural elements somewhat akin to those of the earlier probPLATE THIRTEEN. lem (iv). A tight vessel was necessary, arm a more ingenious burner assured a steadier and more serviceable light. And now we have electricity, unlike any of the preceding methods of lighting, in which a glass bulb attached to a wire suggests suspension as the most sensible treatment of the problem (v). Now it would seem that common sense alone would lead a designer to recognize in each method of lighting
DESIGN
JN THEORY
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: NUMBER
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the demands for a distinctive treatment -that olive oil lamps are unsuitable for candles; that candlesticks are not appropriate for gas, and that a pendent electric bulb differs in all essentials from the others. \Vith the utilitarian basis as a starting point we would inevitably establish different structural elements for refinement and enrichment. Yet a visit to any store where lighting fixtures are sold furnishes evidence of the inability of modern commercial designers to grasp even the simplest elementary condition of constructive design. With what patience can one discuss such things -as are 1 shown in the upper portion of Plate 13? These are not imaginative sketcheswould that they were. They are literal notes from the elegant stock in trade of a Figs. single store. i-ii were excusable in the early days of kerosene and electricity. From a study of the history of design the following maxim may be stated:-The invention of new materials and methods has at various times rendered obsolete the forms in common use; but whenever materials or new methods have been introduced the dcsigners have for a time been strongly influenced by the forms with which they are familiar. The possibilities of the new and materials
methods are not realized at first. This lYLL.5 illustrated in the December CRAFTSMAN, I;ig.xiv,-the development of form and design in Indian basketry and pottery. In the early days of the electric light it was a natural solution of the problem to attach the bulbs to the gas burners in common use. Rut suclh a treatment is no longer excusable. Still less excusable is the treatment of the gas burner in iii or the candlestick in iv ; and what must be the mental state of any man \vho will screw a handled candlestick to the top of a newel post with a Welsbath burner for a light! Consider,
PLATE FIFTEEN.
DESIGX
IN THEORY
AND
PRACIICE:
NUMBER
FOUR
PLATE
SIXTEEN.
again, the mental processes involved in the designing of vi-vii,-in which the designers have ignored every logical solution of the problem to go blindl: groping back into the past in search of forms which have no possible functional relation to the methods of Iighting which they are trying to solve. In viii and ix the designers turned to nature for assistance; but as they took nothing to nature they received noth42
whether applied a church. Let LIP note its application to a more complicated problem,-a jewelry casket. Its construction involves the use of wood, leather and metal. In Figs. 16-17 the general form and proportions are assumed and the essential structural elements indicated. The function of each part is emphasized, body, cover, feet, hinges, handles and clasp;
ing in return. A seashell may be beautiful in itself; but what excuse of consistency can one find for dangling it at the top of a tube with leaves suggesting floral or vegetable growth! Would it not be more log$cal to apl>roach the problem, whatever it may be, in the way that is indicated in the lower section of Plate 13? In x the essential elements, a candlestick for example, are determined by the question of utility ; the general form and proportions have been established. In xi the big proportions are broken into related space divisions and structural elethe rncnts refined #by the introduction In xii a of curves. slight enrichment is shown with a concentration of interest at the place where it would seem to be most effective. The process is the same to a candlestick or t0
DESIGN
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the relative proportions of these parts of wood, leather and metal to the proportions of the whole is decided upon. In an acceptance of these elements we have the clues for a consistent design. In Plate xiv, the first example, a very simple refinement of the structural elements is shown. Dominant interest is given to the metal work ; to this all else is subordinate. The metal handles, hinges and clasp furnish the clue for the space divisions of the body and Each functional element is cover. strengthened and emphasized by the parallel lines tooled on the surface of the leather; the angles are strength-
FIGURE
SEVENTEEN.
J PICVRK SIXTEEN.
and file we might cut out holes to define a pattern or frame work (Fig. 19). The lines of this pattern would be bound together so that there would be no loose ends or sharp points. Our interest might be primarily in the lines of the pattern, though it would be necessary to keep in mind that the hdes must have variety in shapes and measures and must not be left to group themselves awkwardly. To the mediaeval craftsman metallic features of any kind were accepted as structural necessities in his design. He
ened and a note of variety given to the tooling by a slight opposition of lines. In the second example of Plate xiv a.n enrichment of a more complex character is suggested ; but the development from the whole to the parts (Fig. 18) is the same as in the simpler example. Whatever the character of the enrichment it must be organically related to the structural elements, of whi.ch it is merely a part. Now, in order to justify the interest which is directed to .the metal work, it should, of course, <be given thoughtful attention. With punch drill, saw
FIGURE
EIGHTEEN.
465
P s==a 0 $&
FIGURE NlNETEEh.
seized upon them joyfully, gloried in them, wrought them with all the loving
-4bout them he care uf an artist. built his panels, to them he made the lines of his carving conform. But now we of a more enlightened age call them hardware. The door fixtures, handles, lockplates which were the joy of the old craftsmen, which men once deemed worthy of their best thought and effort, are now a cheap and brassy mockery. The blight of modern commercialism ha.s descended upon them. They are ugly and unlovely because to make them beautiful would demand deep and earnest thought; and the only evidence of thought to be found in our hardware is of a mechanical origin; for the rest we seek diligently to cheapen the material, cheapen the -pro_ * cess ot manulacture, cheapen and degrade the workman,-and from this array of cheapness beauty flees as from a plague. Beauty has demanded ever
PILURE TWESTY.
DESIGN
IN
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FIGURE TWENTY-ONE.
that men shall question, HOW thoroughlv and with what thought and feeling may tiis piece of work be fashioned? not How cheaply may the job be finished and how much of sham and pretense may enter into its execution? There are bits of metal work on the doors of houses in some of the old German towns with an honest beauty sufficient to stampede all of our pretentious modern hardware back to the melting pots. Those things possess a human interest because they were fashioned to meet the demands of adequate service; but more than this, because those who made and used them were impelled to arise through and beyond the demands of immediate necessity to the expression .of some sentiment or feeling in all that became a part of daily life and work. Study the hinge as developed by Gothic craftsmen (Fig. 20). With a broad, firm hold it clings to the casing for support, and reaches out across the door to grasp it in a strong, secure clutch. It must be actually strong; but it must also convince us of its strength. This is always an important consideration in design. A functional element must be adequate for the service it is expected to perform; but that it is adequate must be made apparent to the eye. We must feel its strength. The leg of a table might be so strengthened that it could be made comparatively small in #diameter; but the result would be unsatisfactory because it would not
assure us that it possessed the strength necessary to support a burden. The hinge clutches the door by mea,ns of screws or bolts. Thus, while the hinge itself is functional, it in turn must conform in line and form to the elements which secure it to the ,door. In other words, the only structural reason for designing the hinge is to give position to a certain number of screws or bolts. Note in Fig. x9-A. that the curve on the casing is so fashioned that the screws will not all enter the same grain of the wood. This would tend to split
FIGURE TWENTY-TWO.
467
DESIGN
IN IIlEORY
AAD
lightly- over the squared paper a motif similar in character to that of last month; repeat the motif at regular intervals on the vertical and horizontal lines, alternating the repeats, or not, as you may choose. Then see if you can bind your repeats together into unity and retain withal an interesting spotting of space and mass. If the results possess any beauty it will be because you understand the significance of the elementary propositions outlined at the beginning of this article. The beauty will be that of orderly construction. As regards the space and mass,there is an interesting chapter in The Seven Lamps of Architecture in which Mr. Ruskin recounts the development of Gothic tracery. This tracery had, first of all, a structural origin, as did every feature of Gothic architecture. .\s the windows increased in size, it became necessary to subdivide them into By interweaving the smaller areas. lines of the tracery openings were formed for bhe glass. The early builders were most interested in the shapes and measures of these openings. Then they began to be interested in the lines that defined the openings, giving to the lines of the tracery a refinement of In the glorious days of their own. Gothic architecture both openings and lines (space and mass) were given thoughtful attention. Then the later designers forgot the openings and concentrated all of their attention upon the enrichment of the lines of the tracery, giving us the flamboyant type, of consummate execution in details, but lacking the reserve and restraint of the earlier work. In Fig. 22 is a sketch of a piece of Flemish woodcarving of the fifHere, then, is just the teenth century. right balance of interest between space and mass.
the casing and destroy the value of the hinge. A piece of work is not finished until the last scrap of detail has been accounted for. If a washer appears in the design it should be given a distinctive beauty of its own. Even the head of a bolt may be given interest by the judicious use of a file (c). Keys, knockers, handles,-to hide them from sight or to ignore the claims which they have, or to slhirk the possibilities which they offer is a confession of our inability to design on the basis of adequate service. Problem :-Let us carry our geometric construction into a problem which will be a more severe test of our appreciation of the spotting of space and mass and the necessity for cotiperation through all the details of a design to secure unity. We have seen that there is no merit in the mere repetition of a unit; to impart constructive beauty to the design there must be some joint action or movement to bind the parts together. This we may now define as rhythm. Rhythm is that relation of parts which enables the eye to find a way through all the details of a design. The greater the number of connections that the eye can find in a design, the more apparent will be the unity. Turn to Fig. 21. In the first half the regular repetition of a triangle is associated with straight lines. As these lines are all parallel and vertical there is a feeling of concerted movement among the units. But in the second half, by a slight change, a greater number of connections to secure unity has been established. That is the substance of the present problem. The designs in Plates 15, 16, 17 and 18 are not made to meet the requirements of printing or weaving. Forget everything that you may have read on the subject of drop patterns. and Sketchother technical questions. 468
I--From n Phntografih by C. C. Denton.

THE THE bECORATlONS OF THE PLEASURE AS AND WELL PROFIT AS NISHINGS ROOM WERE OF
---I
THE MADE FURFOR ALL CHILDREN.
DOING OVER A BALLROOM INTO A NURSERY: LESSON II: BY MARY LINTON BOOKWALTER
N interesting experiment which may possibly prove helpful in the way of suggestion was that of converting a ballroom into a nursery and kindergarten. A wise mother who wished her children to have a room in which they could be given all the freedom possible for their studies and games decided that a room for dancing was not needed in her home nearly so much as a playroom for her own children which could be used also as a kindergarten for them and some of their friends, and the work of tra,nsforming the room so that it would really fill its new sphere of usefulness fell to the writer. The especial interest in the subject lay in the importance of making the room as attractive as possible to the children. Naturally, its proportions were hardly desirable for the ideal childs room, but the floor spacethirty by thirty-five feet-gave ample room for romps and games, and fortunately the irregular outline of the room, which had three groups of dormer windows, two on one side and the third in front, furnished plenty of opportunity for the little people to separate into groups when the interests of all were not the same, and also helped to establish that feelmg of ownership which is so essential to the comfort of grown people and children alike. As it was arranged, each child or group of children could keep house in some chosen nook which gave a delightful sense of privacy a,nd separation from the rest of the room. This feeling of possessing something of its very own is one of the greatest joys which comes into the life of a child. Also, the feeling of responsibility that naturally accompanies a sense of ownership tends to bring about a
right use of the possession, whether it be a toy, a room or any other treasured thing, which prepares the child for the responsibilities of future citizenship. The confinement of a city house is at its best hard for a group of hearty growing boys and girls. With the restrictions of city living they have not the opportunities to do the original thinking and playing that is a part of the life of children fortunate enough to live in the country or in smaller places. Country children have the attic or the barn to play in, where they are free from all interference a,nd where their belongings interfere with no one else. When they outgrow these, there is the yard in which to build a house for themselves, if their fancy runs that way and if they have the ingenuity to carry out their plans. In planning this room, which was to bring the city child an environment from which it would be possible for him to gain his experience in something the same way as would come from doing things for himself, the decorator had in mind a playhouse built by a group of children who were not entirely satisfied with the adaptation of their own belongings to the rooms of their elders. They decided to build a house for themselves, and, after much consultation and experimenting and close watching of the workmen who were building a new house in the neighborhood, they put together a tiny house in the back yard. Every step they had noted in the development of the large house was followed, and at the end of the summer the small builders had a roof over their heads. And they did not rest with building the house. Walls without paper were not to be thought of, and they cut and pasted to their hearts content until the 473
MAKING
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A NURSERY
inside of the playhouse was finished according to their own original ideas of decoration. They made window curtains from the ends of lace curtains used in their own home, and furnished the little house to the best of their ability. The parents, being very wise, encouraged all the work of the childish builders, knowing that to give a child an opportunity to express himself in his own belongings not only gratifies an immediate desire to do things, but makes it possible for each child sharing in such work to learn lessons wh,ich will be invaluable in future life. Such an experience was, of course, impossible to the city children for whom the kindergarten and playroom was to be made, but their mother felt that if the environment of the children was the best of its kind, childlike in thought and artistic in expression, such surroundings might shape their methods of thinking and playing so that the results might be much the same in the end as if the children had had the happiness of building up their own surroundings. Knowing the importance of putting into the room just the quality that would appeal to and stimulate a childs interest, the subject presented an opportunity for the exercise of much thought and care, as well as taste. In the first place, the ceiling was too high for that sense of home comfort and coziness which should be the essential element in the decoration of a childs room. It was not desirable to lower it, and for that reason all the horizontal lines were accentuated to give the illusion of greater length and breadth and less height. The chimney breast was too narrow for the room, so, to give a further feeling of breadth, cupboards were placed on either side of the mantel. These cupboards were intended to hold toys when not in use, and the spacing of 474
the shelves was planned so that the shortest member of the family could have his share in arranging his possesA blackboard in size corresions. sponding to the corner cupboards filled the opposite corner, and the window seats were low and broad enough to sit tailor fashion. Every desire of the childish heart was met in the equipment of the room, from the sand box where the little ones could dig all day to the blackboard for exercises, the tales as pictured on the walls, the bird in the window, the fish in the globe, aad the doll-house to be arranged as they thought best. The sand box was generous in size, six by nine feet, and was the joy of the smaller children. The narrow ends were fifteen inches high and on either side of the long dimension was a step five inches high and seven broad. The sand filled in under the steps and did not spill over the top easily. It had to be a game of splash each other if the sa,nd came out. The color scheme of the room was kept in a warm, cheerful key. the ceiling being done in soft tan and the lower walls in a brownish red. The brighter notes came in the frieze and The curtains were most popcurtains. ular with the children, and were enjoyed as pictures and not as hangings. In fact, there seemed to be an alarming possibility lest they be worn out from much handling. But nothing in this room was too good to be used. The decorations on the walls were either good prints or original drawings with various childish tales as motives. All work on the wall, cupboard door panels, curtains or wherever ornament was used, was done with good strong outlines, the color laid in flat, giving a quaint touch of primitiveness that is lost in realistic drawing. The cost of a playroom would, of course, depend wholly upon its size and the materials used in execution.
THE ANNUAL ARTS AND CRAFTS EXHIBITION AT THE NATIONAL ARTS CLUB, NEW YORK
HE Arts and Crafts Exhibition, held recently in New York by the National Arts Club in collaboration with the National Society of Craftsmen, afforded perhaps the best opportunity ever given in this country to see representative examples of the work that is being done here by people who are devoting their time to one form or another of the applied arts, and to compare these with examples and representations of similar work that is now being done abroad and also with some of the beautiful old things wrought by mediaeval craftsmen. The fact that this opportunity for comparison was such a prominent feature of the exhibition was perhaps the best reason for its significance to craft worker and layman alike. As an educational display it was well worth a good deal of time spent in close study and comparison of the work shown, whether native or foreign, new or old. The display of American work was not large, but it was well selected and cc,mprehensive, including woodcarving, metal work, textiles, block printing, stenciling, lace making, leather work, bookbinding, pottery, ceramics, jewelry and basketry, as well as many
original designs, monotypes, wood cuts, book plates, etc. These were so placed and grouped as to show to the best advantage, and also to furnish to the student and the observer ample opportunity for comparison. The foreign work, which, with the exception of the display of Norwegian and Swedish tapestries and some embroideries done by the Peasants Art Society at Haslemere, England, was represented chiefly by photographs, was also grouped with care to afford the best opportunity for study and comparison. Except in the case of the retrospective exhibit of photographs of English, German and French arts and crafts work, loaned by Mr. Charles Holme, editor of The Studio in London, the larger part of these photographs of foreign work were contributed by Mr. J. William Fosdick, vice-president of the society,who gave much attention to French and English handicrafts during a recent stay abroad, and who collected photographs of representative work with the purpose of giving American craftsmen the opportunity of seeing exactly the ideas and methods that are receiving most favor in other countries. The loan exhibits, which added so much to the significance of the exhibi475
ANNUAL
EXHIBITION
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tion as a whole, included many articles Especially of great beauty and value. was this true in the case of the rare old jewelry from the collection of Mr. H. C. Lawrence, which included some exquisite examples of Italian, Bavarian, Swiss, Spanish and East Indian craftsmanship. The textiles and embroideries loaned by Mrs. Wendell T. Bush were also most interesting, and included old Italian, Spanish and German work. Another exhibit rich in suggestion was a group of antique leathers loaned by the Misses Ripley, in which were exemplified the five historic styles from which all modern work in leather has evolved: carved, repouss6, corgold-tooling and parchment dovan, illumination. The jewelry displayed by our own workers was very interesting, chiefly on account of the color-sense shown in the combination of metals with the semi-precious stones or with one another. In the finish of the metals, also, excellent color effects were obtained, especially in the case of copper, but as a whole the designs were lacking in originality; the influence of LArt Noweau was seen everywhere in this department, but the spirit that results from direct creative thought was wanting. As attempts to evolve unusual and interesting designs for the use and combination of metals and stones the examples shown were promising and in some cases fairly successful, but as a whole the exhibit of jewelry was not so satisfa8ctory as some of the others. The woodcarving, of which a number of examples are shown in the first illustration, was interesting, but in most cases not very expressive of our growing feeling in the matter of decorative effects. In the case of the desk and chair designed and carved by Mr. Karl von Rydingsvard the Norse inBoth fluence is strongly evident. 476
pieces are of oak and are excellent in design and workmanship. The lid of the desk lifts straight up, resting against the wall, a much more craftsmanlike disposition of it than the disappearance common to the machine-made roll-top desk. The ornamentation of the posts in front is exceedingly good, as is also their shape and height in relation to the rest of the construction. The oak chest standing at the edge of the platform is the work of Mrs. AnIt is beautifully gela R. \-edder. carved, although the design is merely a replica of the familiar Gothic forms. The other pieces shown are more or less interesting, but in the case of most of them there is the feeling that the article was created to hold the carving, rather than that the carving grew out of a natural desire to ornament the article in the most fitting way. In the case of the carved oak panel illustrated the impression is entirely different, giving at once the appearance of individuality and of a feeling for the kind of ornamentation that belongs inevitably to the material of which the article is made. This panel is the work of Mrs. H. Butterworth, an artist who studied sculpture under Saint-Gaudens. In the work she is doing now in wood Mrs. Butterworths whole idea is to make the decoration grow out of the construction of the piece, and relate to the use for which it is made. The influence of Saint-Gaudens is clearly displayed in the low relief shown on the panel, which is intended for the back of a mantel. The modeling is very broad and simple and the impressionistic suggestion of a deep forest is delightful. This sort of work is specially suited to the sturdy texture of the oak, and gives a suggestion for ornamenting large plain surfaces of the wood that seems to be capable of great development as a distinctively American form of decoration.
TABLE
SCARF,
EMBROIDERED
BY
MRS.
SALLY
F.
STEVENS. CRLPE DE CHINE CILLED CURTAIN SIGN WORK BY PATTERN OF SCARF, ORNAXENTED BY MISS MARY WITH B STEN-
LAMBERT. LILY DE-
RUSSIAN IN L. E.
CRASH, EMBROIDERY HENCKE
FOND AND
EXECUTED MRS.
STENCIL
DESK ENAMEL
SET
OF
COPPER, DESIGN, FROM
ORNAMENTED ACCENT THE OF ROKESLBY FROM
WITH SHOP. HANDI-
NASTURTIUM
BRILLIANT
WORK : TEA
LANDSCAPE CRAFT
SET AND
VASES
SHOPS
AT
MARBLEHEAD.
FIBBS-CFWOODWITaPANeLSOF-AND TRAEISLUCKVT GAGS: RY MISS MINNA D. EEHR.
FIRE SEl OF BEATEN

Y. FL NciRToN. OAK BY PAhMRS. CA%KRD ORATION:
IRON ARD. CXIFPES: BY MISS

tXIITABL% F#R CHI116NXV DX.i-
H.
RUTTRRWORTH.
ANNUAL
EXHIBITION
OF
ARTS
AND
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Another delightfully decorative effect attained by very simple means was seen in the wooden screen designed and executed by M,iss Minna D. Behr. It is of the simplest possible construction, just a wooden framework with one plain wood panel in each of the three leaves, but right across the top are three smaller panels, each showing a part of the continuous design that suggests an impressionistic landscape of trees, a river and low-lying hills against a flaming sunset sky. The decoration is cut out of a thin sheet of dull copper, which shows in dark lines and masses against a deep yellow opalescent glass that looks like a sky filled with sunset clouds. The screen is meant to stand beside a fireplace, and the glow of the fire behind it gives the light needed to bring out the color of the picture. In the same illustration is shown some beautiful metal work designed and executed by Miss M. H. Norton. The copper fender is especially graceful in form, being beaten out of one piece of metal that is curled at the ends like a scroll. The top also curls over in a graceful sweep, and the front is beaten out into a convex shape above the strong straight line of the base, which is ornamented with large nails. The andirons in iron and copper and the long fire fork are also Miss Nortons work, and show a masterly handling of the metal as well as a fine understanding of design. A more distinctly decorative effect in metal work is shown in the desk set It inexhibited by Mr. Roheimer. cludes a desk pad, letter rack, pen tray and inkwell, all done in copper with a design of nasturtiums worked out in repousse and red enamel. It is a gorgeous thing in color and the decoration is very good. Most of the other metal work exhibited is over-ornamented and the decoration in the majority of cases
has not much meaning. In fact, as in the case of the woodcarving, it usually suggests that ornamentation was the chief thing in the mind of the designer and that the article was made to accommodate the ornament. The display of textiles, which included weaving, printing from wood blocks, embroidering and stenciling, was one of the most uniformly good in the exhibition. The crash port&e illustra8ted here was designed and executed by Mrs. Lora E. Hencke, and was notable in design, color and workmanship. The material chosen was hand-woven Russian crash, which has the natural gray color of the flax and comes in narrow strips. These strips were joined together by hinges of linen floss, the wider ones in dull blue and the smaller ones in the natural color. The stenciled design was of pond lilies with trailing stems, the blossoms in dull blue and the leaves and stems in green. We also illustrate an embroidered linen scarf, the work of Mrs. Sally F. Stevens, which shows a charming design in embroidery upon a square of applique, the colors being rose, violet and blue-green upon a scarf of ivory colored hand-woven linen. In all, perhaps the most interesting of the decorative work was seen in the stenciling and block printing. The designs as a whole were exceedingly good, and the coloring was another evidence of the keen and subtle color sense that seems to belong to our workers as a result of their natural environment in this country. The pongee scarf shown here was stenciled in rich autumn tones and was designed and executed by Miss Mary B. Lambert. The Cleveland Society for Promoting the Interests of the Blind sent a large and most attractive exhibit of weaving, embroidery and tapestry, all the work of blind craftsmen. Sampler designs in cross-stitch predominated 431
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and the standard of the work was high. The Deerfield workers also displayed a number of quaint squares based on sampler designs, and Berea College sent an exhibit of the southern weaving that attracted much favorable attention. Miss Katherine Lord had a fine display of laces made by the workers at Greenwich House, and there were good examples of point, honiton and duchesse laces from individual exhibitors. The exhibit of pottery as a whole was very good, some of the most interesting coming from the Handicraft Shops at Marblehead, Massachusetts, where invalids are taught to find relief from overwrought nerves in learning how to make things with their hands. Mr. A. E. Baggs, who has charge of the pottery at Marblehead, designed all of the work in this exhibit and executed a good dea,l of it. Perhaps the best example of all was the small tea set illusIt includes four pieces, trated here. pitcher, caddy, teapot and sugar bowl, and the design is strongly suggestive of the influence of some of the best old Japanese pottery. The color is an indefinite light brownish tint, with suggestions 07 gold, red and green vaguely hinted at here and there under the dull surface tone. The band of decora,tion is in soft dark brown and gives the merest suggestion of an impressionistic little landscape. The handle of the teapot is of woven grass still slightly green, and all the pieces are wonderfully good both in shape and texture. Of the three vases we have chosen for illustration, the two tall ones were executed by A. I. Hennessey, and the round va,se with the design of geese was done by A. E. Aldrich, both of the Marblehead Handicraft Shops. The exhi,bits of Newcomb College and the Grueby were good examples of the familiar Newcomb and Grueby pot482
tery. Mr. Charles Leon Volkmar, of Metuchen, New Jersey, a pioneer in pottery work in this country, exhibited some quaint, plain pieces which showed excellent workmanship and were very interesting in color and design. Mrs. Alsop-Robineau, of Syracuse, New York, displayed some small pieces in exquisite opaline colors, and some of the crystal work for which she is SO well known. She had also an interesting collection of sixteen experimental pieces in flamme red on copper. The display of china, while showing some good ideas of color and decoration, was not remarkable in any way, nor was the exhibit of our work in silver. The bookbindings sho,wn were well designed and executed, but very conventional and in some cases rather The basketry was over-ornamented. well done, being an almost exact replica in weaving and design of the Indian ba,skets from which most of those shown were copied. We have been able to give but the briefest glimpses in the descriptions of the pieces shown, and much that was of equal interest has necessarily been excluded by lack of space. Description, however, is of very little use, for nothing but a thorough study of the objects themselves would be of real value to the interested student of handicrafts. The chief impression left by the exhibition as a whole was that of much good work done with interest and pleasure, but with little idea of giving it such intrinsic value as would entitle it to a place among our marketable products. It is urged on behalf of handicrafts that the work done in this way by individual craftsmen is valuable as an expression of personal thought or fancy, and also as a means to improve the quality of commercial production by giving the manufacturers suggestions for better designs and colors. This undoubtedly is true, but
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it seems hardly a sufficient sphere of usefulness for handicrafts. The value of creative work is too great and too far-reaching to render advisable its use merely as a means for more or less impractical expression of personal fancy, or even as indirect inspiration for the improvement of commercial products. At present it lacks the vital element necessary to make it a great national movement that in the end should beInstead, it long to all the people. seems to be little more than the plaything of studio workers and patrons of art who are enthusiastic over handmade articles of original design, merely because they are hand-made and an individual expression of some ones fancy. Considered from the dilettante point of view, the handicrafts, as carried on in this country, furnish a delightful avocation to people with some artistic ability, but have so little general or market value that the majority of the workers find it practica,lly impossible to make a living by handicrafts alone, and are forced to rely upon teaching for their main source of income. The fact that this is so naturally keeps the movement from establishing itself on a sound basis of practical usefulness that would make for permanent growth. Each worker desires to discover new things, to exto be original at all press himself, costs-or else he is content with copying the work of mediaval or foreign craftsmen. The result is the loss of any well-defined standard that might serve as a basis for growth. There is nothing more va,luable to all round development than a thorough training in handicrafts which educates hand and brain alike, and so makes for symmetrical development and stimulates the creative power of each worker. To all who appreciate the significance of this, the only question is that of the possibility of putting
handicrafts on a practical working basis, so that articles both beautiful and useful may be made to supply a genuine and constant demand, making the production of them a sufficient means of livelihood for the worker because they command good market prices. It would seem that the best way to solve this problem would be a concerted effort to establish some means whereby thorough training based on fundamental principles of design and construction might be given to all teachers and students of handicrafts. Attempts to do this are being made in England, as was shown by Mr. Fosdick in the interesting lecture upon English craft societies given one evening at the exhibit rooms. He called attention to the different organizations in England, reviewing ,fully the good work done by the original Arts and Crafts Extension Society of which Mr. Walter Crane is the president. This was founded by William Morris and his friends, and named by Mr. CobdenSanderson, and its object has always been to fight for recognition of the individual producer. The enthusiasm of William Morris and his great personal magnetism gave the movement an impetus in England which is felt even now in the fact that a number of such societies exist, and that energetic efforts are being made to do the very thing of which we have been speaking. In the Design and Crafts course carried on by Mr. Weatherby a,t South Kensington, handicrafts are taken with the regular work and every pupil is expected to perfect in at least one craft. It is a long step in the right direction, especially in the training of teachers, and should be full of suggestion to us here. One organization with standards that were universally recognized as the best in this country would soon do away with the chaotic and 483
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uneven character of both work and teaching. The other important point, that of bringing a sound knowledge of, and interest in, handicrafts to all the people, is covered by such organizations as the London County Council Schools for Arts and Crafts, and the Home Arts Industries, which has for its field the United Kingdom and was organized to give to the peasants a knowledge of artistic crafts and by this means to encourage life in the country rather than the city. The work goes on steadily among the country folk, and exhibitions are held every year in London for the purpose of selling the goods mode and of extending the interest felt in the enterprise. The Guild of Handicraft, Ltd., and the Birmingham Guild, Ltd., are conducted on methods that are frankly commercial, and that also have been proven very practical in the working out. They have exhibit rooms in London, where the goods are for sale, and are incorporated, the individual craftsmen having shares in the companies. There are expert salaried managers who handle the designs, superintend the work, etc., and all work is under the name of the Guild,individuals not being recognized. This comes very close to the methods of some of the old trades guilds, and tends to a certain steadiness of purpose and fixity of sta,ndard that could hardly be obtained in any other way. The Artificers Guild, of which Mr. Edward Spencer is the head, undertakes all branches of handicraft, recognizes individual workers and also finds sale in its London shop for the work of non-members. The Clarion Guild, under the leadership of Mr. Robert Blatchford, was founded on a socialistic basis, and ma,intains shops in English towns where working men and women can do crafts work at night and obtain all necessary instruc484
This guild employs no paid tion. teachers, but is purely cocperative, the older workers teaching those of less experience. The Peasants Arts Society of Haslemere and London, of which Godfrey Blount is the head, pays its workers daily wages like the others, and disposes of their products. One of the features of the foreign exhibit was a num,ber of pieces of appliquC work designed by Mr. Blount and done by the peasant-workers under his instruction. The Guild of Handicraft of ChippingCampden, Gloucestershire, was also represented in the exhibition by photographs. This ha,s a regular school for handicrafts which is conducted by Mr. Ashby. The French craftsma,n Ribaud said of the English work that it had distinctly the peasant quality. This was intended as a criticism by the Frenchman, whose standard of work naturally excluded everything that had not the fineness of finish that we are accustomed to associate with the products of his country, but in reality he touched the keynote of the hope of real growth that the future holds for English handicrafts as well as of our own. A vital new art can spring only from the people, and if this revival of the old arts is to take any deep hold it must be revivified by new art which shall spring up from it as a new shoot does from an old root. Perhaps the most direct and practical effort ever made to establish a marketable handicraft for the benefit of all the people of some one district was the movement set on foot by Lady Aberdeen to encourage the making of rugs by the Irish peasants who were almost starving on their little fa,rms. With designs influenced by Voysey, and of a workmanship that was directed by all the skill and experience of a prominent Scotch manufacturer, these
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rugs were so essentially good in themselves that they <became instantly a product for which there was a steady a,nd increasing demand. The peasants who learned to make them found it worth while to become good workmen, for in this work there lay the possibility of a steady and comfortable livelihood, which hitherto they had found so difficult to obtain. In short, it was an experiment in handicrafts allied with agriculture that has proven entirely successful, and the suggestion of it is one that we cannot afford to ignore. Our own government is now manifesting some interest in handicrafts by establishing manual training in our public scl~ools, but the standard of efliciency for design and workmanship is no more fixed in this than it is in the individual handicrafts such as we see at the exhibitions. Each teacher carries out his own theories and is himself free from the necessity of conforming to any recognized standard, such as is demanded from teachers in If the government other courses. could be induced to extend its interest sufficiently to provide expert instructors and inspectors such as are now maintained for the fostering and encouraging of agriculture, forestry, mining, etc., we would have a working basis sufficient to give handicrafts the start toward being a great national movement that in time would penetrate the whole life of the people, and when allied with agriculture would work great good in establishing better industrial conditions. This encouragement either could come from the central government at Washington, or it could be a matter for the legislation of states or even of cities until such time as the practicability of the plan had been so thoroughly tested that the federal government might deem it advisable to take up handicrafts as being a matter of vital
importance to all the people. An example of what can be accomplished by city legislation is seen in the work done by the Arts and Crafts School of the London County Council. One of the most interesting groups of photographs shown in the exhibition was that representing some of the significant work of students of this institution. At this school instruction is given to students in any craft, especial attention being paid to builders, furnishers and craftsmen who turn their attention to trades which hold a recognized position and products that have a market Silversmithing is one of these value. trades, and other prominent branches are printing, bookbilnding and everything connected with the making of books. The fees are nominal and apprentices and workmen who desire to improve themselves need pay no The field that is opened to the tuition. talented student and ambitious workman by such a practical arrangement The as this is almost without limits. fact that the school is in the hands of the city government gives it a standing and dignity that could hardly be attached to an individual enterprise and also takes away a11semblance of charity, of which there is no more than we have in our public schools. In addition to this, it establishes a certain recognized standard of workmanship, and so affords some foundation upon which It would be well worth while to build. for every one in this country who takes a genuine interest in handicrafts and who believes that in the cultivation of them lies the solution of many of our industrial difficulties, to give some serious thought to the establishment of schools formed somewhat on the plan of those maintained by the London County Council, and see whether the outcome would not justify the effort to establish handicrafts upon a broad and permanent foundation. 48s
It may be proved, with much cert&zty, that God intends 1~0man to live in this world without working; but it seems vto less evident that He intends every man to be happy in his work. It was written: in the sweat of thy brow, but it was never written: in the breaking of thy heart. -John Ruskin. OOKING back over the past year, with its many significant happenings and its depressing close, these words of Ruskin come back to us laden with a profound and personal meaning that brings the question: Are the achievements of our vast and complicated industrial and commercial system worth the price we are paying for them? We have done wonders in the way of developing and controlling large industries and combinations of industries, for our ingenuity in the invention and use of complicated labor-saving machinery has made it possible for our manufacturers to divide and subdivide labor so that men and machines alike form parts of a smoothly running whole. The development of this system has brought us much wealth and has been a cause for much pride. Yet, with all our cleverness and our ambition, we seem now to have reached a point where we are beginning to ask ourselves whether as a nation we are not losing more than we have gained in the evils that have come to our people as a, result of the factory system that dominates all the land. 486
It is characteristic of us as a nation to reach out for big things and to try to gain them. by quicker and easier It is means ,than primitive hard work. this quality which has made possible the gig-antic growth of the factory system and the same quality which has induced people to flock to the cities in search of employment in some big industrial or commercial concern, believing that by doing so they might come in touch with a larger life and lay the foundation for a more permanent prosperity than could be had in the smaller towns or on the farms. Yet we are beginning to realize even now that this tendency on the part of the people, which has resulted in such immense growth to all the larger industries, may mean the ultimate disintegration of our national life. The backbone of a nation is its working people, especially those :who work for themselves and gain at least a part of their living from the soil. When they are too far removed from the source of natural supply-that is, from the farm or the acre of ground which yields food alike for man and .beastthey lose the independence and selfreliance which come from the knowledge that with ordinary industry they are at least sure of a home a,nd a living. When they are ,huddled together in cities it is inevitable that they should come in time to see everything from an artificial point of view. They live and work dav by day with the knowledge that thhr work and their in,come
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may be stopped at any moment by conditions absolutely beyond their control, and which are unaffected by efficiency or faithfulness in service. The maintenance of a roof over their heads and even their supply of food depends not so much upon their own honesty and industry as upon the need of shops, factories and contractors for more or less help, and this dependence upon the uncertain chances of being able to get a job and so pay for food and shelter tends to destroy thrift and forethought, and, in time, even self-respect. There is no occasion for thrift when the days income barely suffices to meet the days need, and there is little room for self-respect when a man feels that the very best he can do will not avail to prevent his being laid off in times of commercial depression. On the farm or in village life a masn controls to some extent his own destiny, and is himself responsible for his success or failure to provide his family with the necessaries of life. There is always the incentive to gain as much as possible that the future may be provided for, and the interest in work which comes from the fact that these possibilities are limited only by a mans own industry and ability. When we take away from him the power of initiative that grows out of the feeling that he is working for himself, we are also taking away the power of direct creative thought. With this gone there is no pride or pleasure in the work he is doing. It becomes merely a necessary evil, and, instead of earning his bread in the wholesome sweat of the brow, he earns it in all the heartbreak that comes with the feeling that it takes all he can do to provide for today and that tomorrow may bring expenses which are beyond his power to meet. This is why we need fundamental legislation on a constructive basis; laws that will help the people to help
themselves. Of late the insistent demand has been for reform laws to curb political corruption, to control or break up the trusts and to set a limit to the accumulation of private fortunes; but when we think a little back of all this, we must realize that such legislation deals merely with the surMany reform laws have face of things. been passed, and in some cases we have even attempted to enforce them. Some have been wise and well considered and have done much to bring about the beginning of a better state of things; others have been mere hasty expressions of prejudice and feeling, and when enforced have proven more disastrous than beneficial, but all have been made to meet emergencies which have arisen because they were the natural consequence of long-established conditions. Emergency legislation is undoubtedly necessary, especially when the need for it has grown so urgent as we have felt it during the last decade, and all genuine reforms are good so far as they go, but the best of them deal only with results and a few superficial causes, leaving the deep underlying cause untouched. \iVe do not in the least mean to minimize the evils that have arisen from the depredations of trusts and other great combinations of capital. These things are so apparent that they can and will be legislated against and the laws enforced sooner or later, but when we have done that we still have to face the biggest problem of all-the fact that our present industrial system is dwarfing the American people by taking away from them those qualities of brain and physique upon which depend the welfare of future generations; that it is actually creating such conditions that no more great men will spring from the people. Therefore, our urgent need is for laws that tend to create better conditions at the very 487
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foundation of our national life, laws that will give a chance to people who have lent themselves to exploitation because they could not realize that there was any other way for them to make a living. One result of the wholesale abandonment of our farms has been increased cost of farm produce of all sorts, and this rise in the price of living as borne most heavily upon the wage earner who lives from day to day, threatening to reduce him to actual want should he be forced into the ranks of the unemployed. What this means is a question which every nation has had to face many times and which most of them are facing now. To England it is a constant menace, and the reports that are coming from Germany since the tide of emigration has turned back from America show conditions sufficiently grave to make us consider seriously the fact that we may not be so far from it ourselves. Germany is like America, a country of great commercial enterprises and an iron industrial system, and she is feeling even more keenly than we do the results that come from exploiting the labor of thousands of people. She is struggling now with the problem of finding some means to prevent the vast army of her unemployed from turning into a vengeful and destructive mob, and the mutterings of a similar storm are not entirely unfamiliar to our own ears. We realize that it is impossible now to return to the primitive conditions of farm life as it used to be, nor is it desirable, but farm life could be made so interesting and so profitable that men and women jaded by the feverish struggle for existence under present conditions would turn to it as eagerly as they once fled from it to the city. People who have the means are beginning already to get back to the country, and the indications are that an enormous 488
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percentage of wage earners would do the same if they could. Therefore it would seem that it is high time for us to weigh carefully the question of legislation that will help to solve this problem and that will also tend to conserve our nations1 capacity for producing in great abundance the necessaries of life. With the whole country given over to industrial enterprise on a gigantic scale it is not strange that people have felt that farm life, particularly in the East, has been neither interesting nor remunerative, and that the more enterprising among them should have abandoned it. As it was carried on in the last generation, life and work on a farm had a tendency to dwarf both men and women who, through sheer lack of interest in outside things, were apt to fall into a routine as dull and hopeless as that of a factory hand. If people are to return to farms, some measures must be taken to make farm life possible, and this can be done only by wise and wellconsidered legislation, such as now occupies the foremost place in the minds of some of the greatest statesmen in Europe. As we stated at length in the article entitled Social Unrest, which was published in THE CRAFTSMAN for November, 1907, several European governments, urged by the necessity of coping with this very problem, are taking active steps to encourage to the utmost small industries and handicrafts of one sort or another, allied with agriculture. Where there is need for it, money to buy land is loaned on such terms that with ordinary thrift the debt is cleared by small annual payments for a certain term of years. Every encouragement is given to the employment of the best modern methods of agriculture, but the revival of handicrafts, both as a means of adding to the income and as an opportunity for doing
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interesting and creative work, receives the greater amount of attention. Instruction is provided wherever it is desired ; markets are found where all products coming up to a certain standard may be sold at a fair price, and the results are shown by the statistics of the provinces and cantons where the experiment has been tried. Our own government gave every aid toward opening up the unpopulated lands of the West, and it could give equal aid toward restoring life to the depopulated farms of the East. If these were cut up into acreage that would give each householder a portion of land large enough to supply all his wants; if the establishment of hamlets or groups of houses were encouraged so that free communication and social life might be possible as in a city, and if definite encouragement were given to handicrafts such as bring rich profit to farmers and their families in Belgium, Switzerland and Hungary, there would be little fear that our supply of farm produce would fall short, or that we would shrink from the menace of the unemployed. The desire for just such action seems to be held in solution everywhere; it would crystallize at the first definite organized effort to get the government to act. Tentative attempts at community life, colonization and cooperative farming have been made now and then, but these have been sporadic and have failed largely because it seemed impossible from the very nature of the people engaged in them to put them on a sane, practical working basis. A general movement to restore and encourage farming, handicrafts and small industries would have in it nothing of the element which has brought failure in the case of nearly all of these attempts, but would be merely another phase of the desire to conserve and restore the natural resources of the country that is now being expressed in the effort to preserve our forests, our coal and oil fields and our waterways. We have been a recklessly extravagant people with regard to all these things. Our resources have been appa,rently inexhaustible, and we have abused Natures generosity with wanton waste of everything. In a great measure we have been freed from the necessity of turning everything to such close account as is done perforce in the older countries, and part of the reason of our wastefulness has been due to the effect of the sudden change upon Our foreign element in our population. Any easing of hard conditions is always followed by a slackening of effort, and extreme poverty is apt to find a reaction in wasteful extravagance when once the pressure is removed. But the fact that we are a composite people may in the end prove as much to our advantage as it has in some ways been to our disadvantage in the past, for we have incorporated into our national life the desirable as well as the undesirable elements of so many other nations. To hundreds of thousands of people who are now American citizens the course we have just been urging is entirely fa,miliar. With many of them skill in handicrafts is a matter of heredity, and thrifty farming in their own country would be almost second nature. If we will, we can turn all this varied capacity to our advantage as a people, for it needs little more than a real return to simpler and saner ideas of life to throw all our national energy into bringing it about. When the tide once sets in this direction it will be irresistible, for it will mean that America has absorbed into her own life the best results of the experience of countries which have been struggling for centuries with the problem which now confronts us. We have their mistakes to warn us as well as their achievements to encourage us, 489
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work has distinctly an atmosphere of its own. His exhibition was well worth seeing. visit to that treasure quaint and interesting things, the shop of Bonaventure, has revealed some etchings and engravings of rare value. There are numerous good etchings of familiar paintings of all schools and times from the points of well known etchers. More interesting, however, are the originals: a soft, virginal mother and child by Millet, a Punchinello and a characteristically miniature Smoker by Meissonier, several Seymour Hadens, notably one called A Bit of Old Chelsea-From Whistlers Window, full of the energy and life and yet the haziness of the city. There are some very slushy, snowy scenes in Paris by Breda, while a young girl of Tissots, called Sunday Morning, has a most wonderful quality of texture. On the wall, one notices a large engraving of one of Detailles war scenes (which, one is told, the artist gave to Mme. de heuville, the wife of his master), and in the same frame are an etching of the painter by Massard, a most charming etching of a horseman by himself and an autograph letter of the great man. Just casually one sees on another wall two engravings by Millet, framed with a portrait of himself and an autograph letter, while in another frame are seven or eight most suggestive and intimate little sketches from the pencil of the same master. On turning to the engravings, more treasures are disclosed: two quaint colored ones printed for Carrington Bowles, in seventeen hundred and eighty-two, one of Mrs. Siddons as Isabella, dated seventeen hundred and eighty-five, several after the paintings of the immortal Sir Joshua, while a daintily colored French engraving is
and if only we are willing to dispe:lse with a libtle of our national vanity we may in another generation have far greater cause for true national pride.
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OME strong painting was shown at the Knoedler Gallerv during November in an exhibition of portraits by a promising young Englishman, Mr. Harrington Mann. The brilliant, flame-colored dress of a bright young Englishwoman not only caught the attention the moment one entered the room, but held it on closer inspection of the excellently handled color mass. Mr. Ma#nns charm reveals itself chiefly in his portraits of children. He paints in a clear, distinct, that is peculiarly gladsome way One adapted to youthful freshness. little pudgy youngster sits on the floor and peeks out of the frame in a most winning and appealing manner. lhere were three canvases of quaintly costumed little girls that fairly invited one into the painted room to play, the most charming of which was a little girl called Kathleen, with an apple of Mr. Manns favorite red in her hand. The chief reason why this picture SO far excelled the others is because the background was better managed-in fact, except the small study of the baby, it was the only pi,cture in which the background was sufficiently low to give full effect to the figure on which the attention should be concentrated. The portrait of Mrs. Francis Howard in an excellently painted rose-colored cloak would have been almost masterly had not the artist been diverted by the glitter of a mirror in the distance. Again, in The Fairy Tale, two delightful little girls are deprived of the attention they deserve by the brilliant color of the fire before which they sit. Mr. Manns color is suave and mellow, his drawing is fearless, and his 490
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finished off with verses beneath. of others full of delicacy that the best command.
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center of one wall, while on either side of it were two contrasting landscapes of Jo& Weiss-a tawny, autumn wood interior and a cool blue-green study of a farmhouse, in which a windy sky was An interior bv especially well done. De Hoog, full of Dutch atmosphere, g small Harpignies, with brilliant light and deep shadow, and a Thaulow of pleasing color and with some real water, were all well worth noting. PHOTOGRAPHIC process for reproducing pa,intings in color tliat is really satisfying is shown in a collection of eighteen pictures at the Berlin Photographic C6)mpany. TTsoalI?, one shrinks from tinted photo graphs. but in these reproductions the color seems not to be laid on aftrrward, but really to #be the medium tlmwqh Vie which the effect was obtained. warmth and mellowness of old paintings is remarkably well reproduccrl. Rubens Infaat Christ with St. John and the Angels has the pleasing flesh tints of the original, Rembrandts brsther in the gilded helmet has its own warm dark tone, and several of Titians masterpieces have an appearance of real age.
delicately suggestive There were numbers that quaintness and old engravers could
FIlVE lot of antique pottery is being exhibited at t#he shop, which is almost a museum, of Mr. H. 0. Watson. The collection, which was made forty years ago by an Italian gentleman, passed into the hands of a German, from whom Mr. Watson was fortnnate enough to obtain it. The pcriod of the pottery ranges from the bc,$nning of the fifteenth century to the seventeenth century, and most of thr Ilieces arc in perfect condition. Therr is a blue and white Riflet vase of gracefill shape, the mate of which is in the T,ouvre; a large blue and green Bokllnra plate is especially striking, and an interesting piece is a sixteenth century blue and white plate with delicate inlets of translucencies. The influence of Chinese designs is shown in the sixteenth century china-a large blue and white dish. which, while it does not carry out the dove legend in detail, Pieces in >macks decidedly of Canton. .quaint old animal designs have an especially human interest, and the yelj owness of age and the cracked glaze f all the pieces makes them extremeI> j;oft and pleasing. A collection nf old ;hina in such perfect condition, of such fcal historical interest and artistic value, should he in the hands of some Inuseum.
COTT c9: Fowlcs have lIeen show5 ing a room with some excellent canvases. Two pictures by Blommers, a utclman who paints with the pleasP 1 ,ng colors of the modern school, were j)rominent-nnc a lx-own interior ant1 jhr other a cool seashore scene. \ -ather hard Rouguereau. a reellipped, black-haired girl, occupied the
collection of albums conta,inphotographs of the chief lvorks in all the modern art galleries, taken bv Braun, Clement & Cornpan?. has recentlv received several valuable additions: an album of the Royal Gallerv and the Moltke Gallery in Copenhaken, a Qook of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and one containing tllc chief works of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This firm has now practically completed the photographing of public galleries and is about to talc? up some English private collectlons. The carbon prints are especially sympathetic in the reproduction of pamting. 491
T HE ing
NOTES
AND
REVIEWS
upon it and the times in which it lived, he writes with calmness and an atmosphere of justice which comes not only from the fact that personal prejudice must of necessity be lacking in speaking of men long since dead, but also because books have already been written and opinions been formed upon the subject of our early art. But when it comes to writing about the work of the present day, Mr. Caffin is less convincing and one feels the judgment of artistic perception an incomplete handicapped by the prejudice of personal feeling. That Mr. Caffin is an Englishman cannot be hidden under the thin disguise of including himself with Americans in the brotherly our with which he refers to American art. The prejudice which his nationality produces finds expression in his method of condemning the entire sweepingly American public, and in summing up American art as characterized by irreproachable table manners, rather than by salient self-expression. His criticism of our Puritanical attitude toward art is in its essence so just that it is a pity it should lose force by the fa,ct that Mr. Caffin seems to forget to give us credit for our present advance. To say of all America that it is a society sprawling in materialism and wallowing in ostentatious display, is to rouse a distrust of the critical faculties of the writer-while the extremely picturesque comments of which his summary is composed suggest to the critical reader that Mr. Caffin might easily be led away from justice bv bombastic words or inborn prejudice. (The Story of American Painting, by Charles H. Caffin. Illustrated. 396 pages. Price $z.~o net. Published by .Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York.)
BOOK REVIEWS
0 trace the growth of American painting in an impartial manner, discussing the various influences that have affected it, giving an idea of its present scope and its promise for the future, is a work that would meet a decided need, and it is unfortunate that Mr. Charles H. Ca,ffins attempt in this direction, called The Story of American Painting, has somewhat fallen short of its purpose. While the influences which have affectcd American art are well traced, and the book is arranged in an apparently chronological manner, there is nevertheless a certain lack of coherency, of proper summing up, that makes it illbalanced as a whole. This carelessness in arrangement crops out also in the reproduction of a number of canvases of artists who are not mentioned in the text, leaving them entirely without application to the general scheme. Metcalf and Lathrop, and the remarkable advance in American landscape painting which they represent, are treated in this summary manner, as well as Horatio Walker, Paul Dougherty, Ochtman, Albert Groll, Sargent Kendall and a number of others. A book on Arnerican art which omits even to mention the name of Frank Vincent Du Mond, who not only ranks as one of our foremost mural decorators, but who has an immense influence among American students of todav, must necessarily make us doubt ;ts authenticitv, an omission so glaring, together with the fact that the book does not mention the work of Howard Pyle, Maxfield Parrish, Ben Foster, or F. Hopkinson Smith, names which at once suggest themselves to a casual reader, tends to make it lose caste as an authority. As long as Mr. Caffin writes of early American art, the influences which acted
492
COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS Direct from Nature AT LAST

WITH
This Colonial FireDlace
Leading Arckteo
Will Not
Smoke
By our peculiar methods of construction you can build a roaring fire on the bleak. cheerless days in this beautiful brick fireplace, and enjoy the warmth and cheer that : fireplace should give forth--and without fear of annoy ante from smoke. if you follow our instructions. 11 goes up the chimney--where it belon#s.
Any amateur or professional photographer with an ordinary camera can now photograph in natural colors.
Its
all in the
plate
that combine the greatest utility with beauty of desigr and honesty of construction. The designs are from &nericas foremost architects; the plans from a prac. tlcal fireplace builder; color schemes suggested to har. monize with any room, whether it be in cottage 01 castle. Our fireplaces are found in the homes of many mer of national fame. Our designs have a dignity and artistic value peculiarly their own. are built of finest specially made brick, and are therefore not to be. confused with the cheap wooden mantels you seeadv&ised
We Make and Sell Direct to the People Fireplaces for New or Old Houses
Plates and chemicals now on sale. THE LUMItiRE CO.

Factories.: Lyons, France Burlington, Vt.
F&YE DESI(IN BOOK
kwlfbe 4 tioluoble aid to you in chari@ a .ruitablefireplace. Lctusasnd itto you today. you should ace it before maKing P purchase.
11 West
27th
Street
Prices from $18.00 Upwards COLONIAL FIREPLACE CO., 2029 W. 12th St.,Chicaga
NEW YORK
ESPECIALLY
Ask your dealer for WEMPLE
Suitable for Craftsman
Homes
Wikdow
AND SHADE
Shad&
ROLLERS
P Stencils /
e
which were good enqugh to be alwa,ys preferred by your Grandparents ! Honestly. made in the ,beginning (nearly 65years ago) Wemple Shades, Shade Cloths and Shade Rollers have since improved only by reason of increased human skill and the developments of the more than half century experience in their manufacture.
Distinguished for remarkable flexibility, color durability awd lasti?zg strength.
ALL ACCESSORIES AT RIGHT PRICES.
designed and made to order to suit any scheme of decoration. Stenciling done or stencils sold for home use. . . . ; . Lessons given in design, stenciling, basket making and weaving. . . . . . . . .
Bowdoin
546.
& Manley
New York
AY
1
C. WEMPLE Company
York
mention
iX
Household Decorators -Shopping and Su&estions for Interior Furnishing
Fifth Avenue,
35, 37 & 39 East 20th St., dXy,New

Kindly
(Telephone 3531 Bryant) The Craftsman
THE
FINISHING
TOUCH.
The
In choosing wall coverings 7 due consideration should be given to the color relation of furnishings and the finish of the The most artistic \ and pleasing effects are produced in interiors where walls are covered with
r Selection Of m / Wall Coverings \:
What is the finishing touch of a house? , The effort to decide this all important question thoroughly interested, even somewhat upset, four charming people who live in a delightfully human little book called The Finishing Touch. The final beauty of the brides house was under discussion. Mother decided upon some nice old-fashioned feature, father had his opinion, and the bride was excited, interested and overwhelmed. There have been many such discussions, but none more delightful. The people are very real and there is much drollery and genuine humor in their disThe architect has his own cussions. troubles and the builder his own opinions. There are some excellent suggestions in the book for the home maker, and it is really well worth while to send to Sargent & Company, 149 Leonard street, New York, for the little book called The Finwhich solved the problem ishing Touch, for these charming people as to what ma,kes for ihe fi,nal perfection of interior furnishing.
WOVEN
ViALL COVERINGS
I
The rich shades afford a wide variety of harmonious color combinations, while the strength of the fabrics, their durability,-sanitary value and economy all combine to make FAB-RI-KO-NA Fabrics the ideal Wall Coverin=.
Fait
Colors
I:
HEN people build a CRAFTSMAN house, or use in any other house a CRAFTSMAN scheme of furnishing, they are very likely to select a Cabinet Glenwood range. There are many practical reasons for this, such as convenience of arrangement, excellent baking qualities and such careful pla$nning of the construction that either end as well as the back of the range may be placed squarely against the face of the chimney, preventing the waste of a single inch of room in a small kitchen, but in addition to these valuable features the Glenwood appeals strongly to all who care for the simplicity of CRAFTSMAN furnishings for the reason that it is absolutely plain. There are no showy patches of nickel to get duU and no cast-iron ornamentation to catch the dirt and grease that collects in spite of even the most careful cook. The plainness of this range seems to us not only to show its absolute fitness for the use to which it is to be put, but also makes it much easier to keep in order. The very look of it in a well-ordered kitchen gives the same sense of satisfaction that one feels in seeing a perfectly adjusted piece of machinery which has not a superfluous bit of metal about it.
mention x
Kindly
-. I _ 1h.e Lrattsman
Effectiveness of Hardware
The architectural effectiveness of a house may be emphasized by the character of the hardware trimmings. The importance of right selection cannot be too strongly impressed upon the prospective builder, so if YOU are planning to build a new home, or remodel the old, choose the hardware yours&f. In this way you can keep the cost at its lowest figure, and at the same time know that in quality and appearance the hardware is in keeping with your ideas of what is appropriate.
SARGESVTS
is made in a wide range
Sargents of designs that accord with any architectural style or period. Book of Designs Sent FREE s an invaluable aid in the selection of right hardware. Illustratesand describesnearly seventy different designs to harmonize with your new home. Dont order hardware before seeing this book. Its a costly book to send If free, but its yours for the asking. interested in the Colonial-ask for ow Colonial Book in addition to the Book of Designs. SARGENT & CO.. lb8 Leonard St., NewYork
MIXTURE
OF COLORS
There are certain cases in which colors .act on each other when mixed together, and the permanence of a mixture can no longer be deduced from that of its constituents. For instance, if two lists are made, one containing all the pigments with a base of copper, and the other the Cadmium Sulphides, then no member of one of these lists can be mixed with any member of the other without risk of blackening. These colors are according to Winsor & Newton (List No. I): The Cadmium Yellows, Cadmium Orange, Orient Yellow, and Aurora Yellow; (List No. 2), Emerald Green, Malachite Green, Malachite Green No. 2 and Verdigris. The Vermilions (and, in Water Color, Kings Yellow) being also, like the Cadmiums,, metallic Sulphides, should be included in List I, as also should Jaune Brilliant, the Naples Yellows, and Neutral which contain Cadmium, and Orange, Scarlet Lake, which contains Vermilion. Some of these mixtures, however-such as that of Vermilion with a Copper Greenare not at all probable combinations. The
Kindly mention
Vermilions and Cadmiums are also likely to blacken White Lead, and the Chromes if they have been unskillfully prepared, but not otherwise. Mixtures of the Cadmiums and Vermilions with Prussian Blue (or of pigments containing Prussian Blue) are also of doubtful stability. Then, again, certain Chromates (Chrome Yellows, Orange and Red, Citron Yellow, Primrose Yellow and Strontian Yellow) should not be mixed with Prussian Blue, or with pigments containing Prussian Blue. These Chromates are, in fact, best kept apart from all organic pigmentsi. e., those, such as Indigo, Indian Yellow and the Lakes, which are of animal or vegetable origin. Mixtures of Aureolin, or of pigments, such as Mars Yellow, rich in oxide of iron, with organic pigments, should also be regarded with suspicion. It may be stated in conclusion that the permanence of a color is not, as a rule, improved by mixing it with White (the Lead Whites or Zinc White in Oil, and Chinese or Constant White in Water), or, in fact, by mixing it with other permanent pigments.
The Craftsman
xi
more than any other one thing, give a dignified, refined and substantial effect to your building.
are perfect doors fromevery standpoint. Morgan Doors will never warp. crack or shrink. They become a permanent part of the building. making it more desirable to live in and adding to its permanent value. The name Mordao stamped on the top of each door is your guarantee of absolute satisfaction. Made in any style of architecture, Empire, Colonial. Mission. Chateau. etc. Write today for our handsome illustrated book The Door Beautiful which will aive you helpful ideas and show the $eJ;;; of the real beauty of Morgan
strucreo
ana
Deatl*UIIy
nn,snea-mey
Morgan Company
Dept.C. Oshkosh. Wisconsin.
Distributed by:-Morgan Sash and Door Company Clucago 111.: Morgan Company, &hkosh, kis. : Morgan Company, Baltimore, Md.
PRACTICAL
LEATHER
WORK
ployed
persons
as hangings
of affluence.
in the
homes
of all
From the days when the primitive races, ignorant of the a,rt of spinning, employed the hides of beasts to cover their nakedness and td protect them from the cold, the practical and ornamental value of leather has been known to man. When the advance of civilization, with the invention of wool and silk fabrics, made its primary use as clothing no longer necessary, leather came to be more and more decorative, and during the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries its great ornamental possibilities
The adaptability of leather to decorative uses, known so well in former centuries, has shown itself to the handworkers of today, and much work of real decorative
value is being done with leather as
were developed to a remarkable extent, especially in the binding of books for which it was extensively used. The use of leather on articles of furniture, and also for various domestic purposes, began to be developed ,toward the end of the Middle Ages, and is no% almost universally known. From the end of the fifteenth century leathers, inlaid, gilded, silvered and painted, known as cordova leathers, covered the walls of apartments. The greater portion of inlaid leathers with which we are acquainted, however, were made during the following centuries in Holland where they were emKindly mention
medium. Some useful hicts with regard to the practical side of leather work are given in pamphlet form by F. W. Devoe and Company, IOI Fulton street, New York. Leather engraving offers no great difficulties and has the advantage that it can be executed by amateurs with no knowlAfter soaking the leather edge of drawing. in water, and hanging it on a board to dry, the desq-n is laid on, and gone over with an agate point ; this transfers the design to Further outlining is accomthe leather. plished with a pencil and modelling is then done with the roulette. The process is completed by using the point, and sometimes a penknife for deeper effects. RepoussC work, a kind of bas-relief, while more difficult, is also practicable for amateurs. The process involves laying on the design as in engraving, then by filling in
The Craftsman
Xii
Glenwood Ranges
Make Cooking Easy No Ginger Bread Work
or nickel on the new plain
Cabinet Glenwood
lL The Mission Just the natural black iron finish. Style applied to a range. A room saver tooEvery essential refined like the upright piano. and improved upon, The Broad, Square Oven with The Glenperfectly straight sides, is very roomy. wood Oven Heat Indicator, Improved Baking Damper, Sectional Top, Drawout Grate and AshPan are each worthy of special mention.
Everything is get-at-able at the front,

Ash-pan, Broiler Door, Grate and Cleanout doorall are handy. Kitchen doors do not interfere in setting this range, for either end as well as the back may be placed squarely against the wall.
&
Write for handsome booklet of the Plain Cabinet (Ilenwood Range to Weir Stove Co., Tauntoo, Mass.
The Glenwood Furnace

is just what youve been looking for in a warm air heater -not light weight and shoddy built, but massive and strong, carefully fitted like the Glenwood Range, and a powerful and economical heater.
Glenwood Ranges, Furnaces, Steam

and Water Boilers are all made of the same good iron by the same skilled workmen in the great Glenwood Foundry at Taunton.
k-,
p$. ??:p
, .;,-*, A_ .I 1 .: :
You take no risk in buying

for each range or heater is guaranteed by the Makers to give the service and satisfaction that it was intended to give. Write for handsome Furnace Catalogue showing.many modem homes heated by the Glenwood to Weir Stove Co., Taunton, Mass.
--J. -*dQ,..i
.i
Glenwood Heaters Make Heating Easy

Kindly mrntion The .. . Craftsman
Xl11
HUNT, WILKINSON
1615 Chestnut St., Phfh
delphia.
Pa.
&A CO.
in
People Livine Philadelphia
I
Some Furniture from THE CRAFTSMAN WORKSHOPS
will find in our show rooms an excellent assortment of the famous products of The CRAFTSMAN Workshops. We not only carry an extensive line of furniture, but also The CRAFTSMAN Hand - Wrought Metal Work, Fabrics and Needle Work ; in fact, all things suitable for tne furnishing of a room in the CRAFTSMAN style. If you want to know all about the origin of this furniture, how it is 1 made. and whv the style endures, writeto us for copies of i Chips from WorkshoDs. a I The CRAFTSMAN written by -Gustav little booklet Stickley in answer to the many requests from people who wish to know 1 all about his work.
Address
Hunt,
Wilkinson
& Co.
Pa.
1615 Cheataut %
Philadelphia,
the wrong side of the bas-relief with wax, very fine effects are produced. The wax underneath the leather enables the modelBurnt ling to be very delicately executed. leather, especially when the design is laid on in color, is most attractive, while Spattering, a process of color washing, produces excellent results. White sheepskin has become popular in recent years, and very beautiful effe,cts are within reach of the amateur artist. The inlay of leather affords fine possibilities for decoration, as well as carving, for which exquisite lace designs are often used. A very small outfit of tools is necessary in leather work, a box containing the following articles is all that is required: a piece of board, or thick sheet of unpolished glass, a shoemakers paring knife, one or two agate points, some polished steel a,nd bone modelling tools, burnishers, roulette wheels, hammer, embossing tools, chiseling hammer, knives and a whetstone for sharpening. The leather, which must be chosen with regard to the work to be done, can be readily obtained from any dealer, and Devoes little book gives valua,ble hints for its selection.
Kindly mention
A WORD
ABOUT
SMYRNA
RUGS
F you live at a distance from the warerooms of W. & J. Sloane, New York, and would like to see an accurate representation in both pattern and color of a rug before making your selection, you will be interested in sending for the little illustrated booklet called Art and Utility, which has been published by this firm. The booklet not only gives accurately the characteristics of the Imperial Smyrna Rug, but contains a number of color plates showing the exact designs and colorings of these bea$utiful and durable rugs. Under each plate is a list of the sizes in which the rug is made, and all information concerning it. The rugs are so well reproduced in these color plates that any color scheme may be matched from this book as well as by seeing the rugs themselves.
To secure the promptest attention to requests for the illustrated booklet, inquiries should be sent to Messrs. W. & J. Sloane, at 31 East 18th str&, New York City.
The Craftsman
xiv
METRUIVORK
(,,,,.... .,i, .; ! ,_.I
VERYONE knows what an effect the choice of lighting fixtures has upon the success or The best decorative scheme may be failure of any plan for the decoration of a room. ruined by the use of lamps and chandeliers that are out of harmony, and another that has perhaps very few salient features of any kind may, by the selection of unusual and beautiful lights, be given all the character and accent needed to make a delightful effect of the whole. In the CRAFTSMAN scheme of furnishing we depend for the final touch upon the lanterns of hand-wrought metal and opalescent glass that, hanging either from beam, ceiling plate or brackets afixed to the side walls, not only give light just where it is needed, but are decorative in themselves. We have also portable electric lights that may be used upon any table, and All these are made in dull natural brass! wrought lanterns to serve as finials for newel posts. In addition, we make fireplace fittmgs, such iron or copper, to suit any scheme of decoration. as hoods, andirons, fire sets and coal buckets, all hand-wrought from CRAFTSMAN designs; such as are shown here, and all manner of as well as drawer and door pulls and escutcheons, articles for general use, such as chafing dishes, trays, jardinieres, umbrella stands and so on. Our catalogue tells you about them all.
Send ten cents METALWORK.
in stamps Address:
for illustrated
catalogue
of C~K,~FTSMAN
HAND-WROUGHT
GUSTAV
STICKLEY,
The Craftsman,
Endly
29 West 34th
Street, N. Y.
mention The Craftsman xv
Why does that house harmonize so beautifully with its surroundings? with ENGLISH SHINGLE STAIN which not only gives that artistic the shingles longer than any other stain or paint manufactured.
SEND FOR SAMILCF, BOARDS
Because it is stained effect but preserves
DEXTER
BROTHERS
COMPANY,
AGENTS:
103-105-107Broad
Street,
Boston
F. H. McDonald, 619 The Gilbert, Grand Rapids H. M. Hooker Co.. 57 W. Randolph St.. Chicago W. S. Hueston, 22 E. 22d St., New York F. H. Crowe & CO., Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, Wash., and Portland, Ore. John D. S. Potts. 218 Race St., Philadelphia Klatt-Hirsch & Co., 113 Front St., San Francisco
COMPETJTIONS
DESIGNS FOR
FOR
No. V
IN
CRAFTSMEN
LO\V RELIEF.
TILES
C&lFTSnlJ~N offers four prizes for the four best original designs for embossed or low relief tiles, suitable for interior decoration. It is the aim of THE Cm\FTsMANin this competition to stimulate interest in a form of tile decoration which is not at present, and never ha,s been, adequately appreciated in this country. A few years ago it had a brief popularity, having been introduced from England, but owing to a variety of circumstances its vogue was short-lived. Perhaps the chief reason for this was the utter lack of artistic training of the manufacturers, which led to the crowding of the market with the most absurd and inartistic productions. Upon every hand among experts we have encountered the opinion that something should be done to stimulate interest in the decorative value of this f.orm of tile. No other form of tile possesses greater artistic possibilities than
THE
this, the texture of the embossed surface lending itself harmoniously to the architectural spirit. The embossed tile is, from the ma.nufacturers point of view, a very profitable product and has the advantage of being difficult to imitate. When low relief is combined with a transparent glaze, ,close reproduction of the original is combined with a certain touch of individuality due to the variations of the glaze. Altogether, this competition offers peculiar problems which should stimulate the interest of a large body of craftsmen. Competitors may choose for themselves the part of the house they desire to design tiles for. One might choose the corridor, another the nursery,.another the bathroom, and so on. In Judging the designs submitted, their suitability for the particular purposes for which they are intended will be considered as well as their artistic merits. The practicability of reproducing the designs commercia.lly will also be taken into account. The prizes offered are: .First, Beautiful table lamp of unique design
on your furnace or boiler. Easily applied, fits any 5 heater. Sold by all dealers or sent on trial. Automatic.
Send for FREE BOOK. 43 Dearborn St., CHICAGO 114Fifth Ave., NEW YORK
$ 1
c
Kindly
mention
The Craftsmnn
xvi
THE
ONLY
REAL
STAINS
If you have only see the crude and tawdry colors of the thinned-paint imitations of
Cabots Shingle Stains

you have no idea of the beautiful coloring effects of the true stains. They are soft and deep, like velvet, but transparent, bringing out the beauty of the wood grain. Half as expensive as paint, twice as handsome, and the only stains made of Creosote, the best wood preservative known.
SamPles on wood, and Zitb-watercolor chart of arfistzc combfnations, sent free on request. Agents all Central at Points SAMUEL CABOT, Sole Manufacturer. 141 Milk Street Boston. Mass.
from New noted The lain,
the famous Newcombe Pottery, Orleans, La.; second, piece of the Grueby ware; third, copy of First Century of English Porceby W. Moore Binns; fourth, THE CRAFTSMAN for ,one year. All designs must be modeled in low relief and photographed, the photograph being submitted together with a sketch showing the applica,tion of the design, explaining the meaning and use of the proposed tile or tiles-whether to be used as a frieze, or as a damask, repeating designs, etc.
RULES GOVERNING THE COMPETITION.
All photographs of designs must be sent flat, not rolled or folded, to reach THE CRAFTSMAN not later than February Ist, 1go8. (2) Each photograph must be signed with a nom de plume and bear no other identifying marks whatsoever. The competitors name and address should be enclosed, together with the nom de plume used, in a separate sealed envelope accompanying the photographs. (3) Prizes will be awarded upon de-
(I)
signs for single tiles, or sets where the design takes more than one tile. Each competitor may send as many designs as he or she chooses, but only one prize will be awarded to any individual. (4) Photographs for which prizes are awarded are to become the property of THE CRAFTSMAN and the right to reproduce them in THE CRAFTSMAN is reserved. (5) THE CRAFTSMAN in its desire to maintain a reasonably high standard of excellence reserves the right to withhold any prize upon the advice of the judges, or to increase the number or value of the prizes offered. (6) THE CRAFTSMAN, cannot hold itself responsible for the return of rejected photographs. (7) Photographs should be addressed to THE CRAFTSMAN, 29 West Thirtyfourth Street, New York City, and marked, Tile Competition. (8) This competition is open freely to all who may desire to compete, without charge or consideration of any kind, and is not confined to subscribers of THE CRAFTSMAN.
Are Your SteamRadiators Like? THIS or THIS ? W

a
If they dont heat properly, they are air bound-and thats why you do not get all the heat from the coal you are burning. Air revents steam from circulating, because steam and air do not mix. Get t Re air out, keep it out and you will have a warm house day and night, with a big saving in coa
.Norwall Automatic Air and Vacuum Valves

expel1 the air and prevent its coming in arain. That will cause the steam to circulate throughout all your radiators and warm your house ss it should be warmed, and at the same time, reduce your coal hill. After installing they need Write for booklet today. no further attention.
104 W. 42nd St., New York City.
Norwall Manufacturing Co.
154 Lake Street. Chicago.
DO YOU APPRECIATE THE ADVANTAGES IN USING TILING IN HOME BUILDING?

Its DURABILITY saves the costs of repairs and replacin& A tiled floor or wall never has to he oiled, varnished, painted or papered. Dirt or liquid matter of any kind will The steel nails of the shoe not stain it. cannot scratch or wear it. Its SANITARY QUALITIES and the facility with which it can be cleaned dives assurante that the bath-room, kitchen, butlers pantry, laundry, vestibule and other places where it is used will always be in a clean sanitary condition. Its DECORATIVE POSSIBILITIES permit the execution in tilinP or ceramic mosaic of any possible desidn or color scheme on the floor or wall. Tilintj is fire-proof, germ-proof, waterproof, damp-proof and vermin-proof. For interestin booklets on tilin& distributed free, write
INFORMATION BUREAU OF THE TILE INDUSTRY

212 Corcoran Buildin& Washin&on, D. C.
BOUND
VOLUMES CRAFTSMAN.
OF
THE
That The Craftsman, the exponent of the growing sentiment for strong, beautiful and artistic workmanship, uses Advertisers Covers for the cover of its monthly issue, is good reason why you should see The Book of Advertisers Covers before you decide on a cover for your next catalog or booklet. Ask your printer-better still, write USfor our valuable collection of specimen books (the postage alone on these books is 20 cents, ~~Fziich we pay) showing ourAdvertisers paper outfit, viz. :
Advertisers Covers Advertisers Text Advertisers Japan Parctiment Advertisers Catalog Envelopes Advertisers Announcement Boards
If you will send us your copies of THE CRAFTSMAN, we will bind them for you either in full limp leather or in half-leather, making a set of beautiful volumes to add to your library. Six numbers of THE CRAFTSMAN make up the volume, and we will bind them for you in half-leather and leaf-green linen crash for $2.00, or in full limp leather for $3.00 a volume. Where we furnish the copies of the magazine as well as the binding, the price of each volume is $4.00 for limp leather and $3.00 for half leather. If you wish to preserve your files of THE CRAFTSMAN, which are daily increasing in value as works of reference, send us your back numbers with instructions as to binding. Address
GUSTAV STICKLEY, 29 West
THE TAYLOR-BURT CO., PAPERMAKLPS
HOLYOKE /
London
Office
10 and 11 Wardrobe Chambev pueen Victoti Street. E. C.
34th St.,
New York.
Kindly mention The ... xv111 Craftsman
I Burpees
And
ETHE NEW PROFESSION

Home-study courses -an illustrated 66.page booklet free. and books: Health, Food, Cookery, Diet, House. Plannmg. For Management, Children. Nursing, Dressmaking, etc. home-maker?., teachers, institutional managers, etc. Am. Schonl of Hnme Economics. 604 W. 69th St, Chicago. III.
SeedsGrow! A
the Burpee Business Grows! Last year (our 31st) we sold more seeds than ever before in any one year and in 1908 we shall sell even more. You will understand the reasons why when you read
CHRISTMAS PRESENT
SILVERWARE
four CO. will send you a beautiful
HE ROGERS
But-pees New Farm Annual For 1908

This cotnolete book. bound in lithog~apl~rd co&s and containing also six superb colored plates pmnted from nature, is YOURS for the asking,-provided you have a earden and will mention ad&tisement. It is an elegant book-the best seed catalog we have yet issued-and offers some most remarkable NEW CRXATIOKS in Vegetables and Plowers, which can be obtained only direct Many a winters evening can t@ spent from us. profitably in planning your garden, by a calpful study of this book. Shall we send you a copy? If you appreciate Quality in Seeds you will say Yes! If so. wrfts forget until it is too late I
piece set of coined silverware, guaranteed full-size for family use, packed in a case, all charges prepaid to your home. A cold meat fork, butter knife, gravy ladle and sugar shell for only $1.25. This offer is made solely to advertise our products. The pattern is one of the latestthe Famous Rose. The pieces are fit to grace any table and will last for years. Only one set will be sent to each family. Positively no duplicate orders. Order today. Send cash or stamps.
to-day-do
not put
off and possibly
ROGERS SILVERWARE CO.

Department A. A.
W. ATLEE
The Largest
BURPEE
Mail-Order
& CO.
114 FIFTH
AVENUE
NEW
YORK
Seed House,
Burpee
Building,
Philadelphia
We are selling direct a $25.00 silver service set. fully guaranteed, for $12.50. All charges prepaid to your home.
It is a story of the divine humanity of Christ, as shown in his daily life and ministrations among the people he loved, taught and helped. We published the little book in THE CRAFTSMAN WORKSHOPS, because it was the best of its kind that we had ever seen, and its appeal to others has been as strong as it was to us. It is printed on heavy antique paper with wide margins and illuminated initials, and bound in heavy grey paper with the title illuminated in faint tones of rose, yellow and dull blue. The illustrations are reproduced from Frederick von Uhdes famous paintings of scenes from the life of Christ. Price 25 cents. ~p,$&;t~~opP~ andSunday
GUSTAV STICKLEY. THE CRAFTSMAN,* 29 West Thirty-fourth St., New York
CHRIST
in the land, as well as the older folk, would be better for reading
AMONG
HIS
FELLOWMEN.
THE
INTERIOR
HARDWOOD
COMPANY
MANUPACTURERS.
INDIANAPOLIS,
Ill&
Kindly
mention
The
Craftsman
xix
Something
If you are b UI Idmg or remodeling
Entirely
your home you may now get
New
the most beautiful
by the running foot or yard, just as you would buy carpet or wall-covering. This wainscoting is made in paneled sections and in heights running from two to six feet. It is of quartered white oak of choice quality of grain, and is so made as to adapt itself to any sort of room, Many homes are without this touch of refinement and and can be put up by your own carpenter. elegance because of the expense of wainscoting under old conditions.
OAK WAINSCOTIN
Superior
May now be purchased in any quantities
This
Paneling
needed and at about
and it is not only suitable for side walls, but for ceilings and every use where paneled woodwork is desired. This oak wainscoting is made of selected figured wood, and is built up of either threeor five-ply, cross banded, and will mt shrilzk, check OY warp. It is shipped knocked down and is easily put together and in place. The baseboard is in two parts, the lower conforming to inequalities in floor and the upper forming the base proper. Base and cap rails are grooved to engage edges of panels and sty!es, so that any size panel, as well as adjustment to any variation of wall space, is possible.
HALF-USUAL COST
HARDWOOD COMPANY, I
Johnson City, Tennessee
INTERIOR
Kindly
mention xx
The
Craftsman
SOME
CRAFTSMAN NEEDLEWORK HAND-WOVEN LINEN

b -.. -_ ._ .._-. . I ^. -.-. . --____ - - -.4. ___ -___--
ON
4 I
THE
llDOGWOOD"
BORDER THE CHINA TREE" DESIGN
The table scarfs and doily illustrated here are all wrought on gray hand-woven linen, which comes fifteen inches wide, just the right width for dresser scarfs and table runners. The designs shown are all based upon conventionalized plant or insect motifs, and, with the exception of an occasional use of the outline and satin stitches to define lines and masses, a simple darning stitch taken in short uneven lengths parallel with the woof threads is used throughout. The ground stuff is left between these stitches to glimmer through the whole design, so that the latter looks almost as if it were woven in with the material. The designs for scarfs, centerpieces and doilies, as shown in the November CRAFTSM.L\K, will be stamped upon the linen referred to and sent with materials for working out in any desired color scheme to any address, postpaid, f:lr the following prices :
THE
WILD-ROSE
DESIGN
SCARFS
linen.. $1.30 . . . . 1.50 :::: i.2: .L I :::: ;:;g a aa :::; ::;g 8 (Stamped) (Work started (Stamped) (Work started (Stamped) (Work started iStamped) (Work started
CENTERPIECES
:,; :z 5 hand-woven I linen.. .
AND
........... . . ..*.........
DOILIES
.60 .80 (Started) (Work started:
~~
THE DRAGON-FLY" DESIGN
GUSTAV STICKLEY,
29 West Thirty-ifourth
The Craftsman
Street, New York
Khdly
mention
The
Craftsman
xxi
CRAFTSMAN FURNITURE
THE WORD CRAFTSMAN IS REGISTEItED IN THE U. S. PATENT OFFICE AS THE TRADE 3IARK UNDER WHICH IS SOLD THE FURNITURE DESIGNED BNI> MADE BY GUST,4V STICKLEY IIE name CRAFTSMAN, which I first adopted because it seemed best fitted to express the quality of workmanship that distinguishes the furniture I make, I have registered as a trade mark, because the necessity of maintaining the high standard I have established has forced me to seek protection against imitators. I cannot too strongly emphasize that under this name alone is my furniture sold, for the reason that some of my most persistent imitators bear the same surname as myself, and this circumstance is used both by themselves and by the houses that sell their goods for the purpose of inducing the ublic to accept what is called Stickley furniture as the genuine c!? RAFTSMAN furniture. As a further means of identification, each piece of CRAFT% MAN furniture bears my own shop mark, a joiners compass of ancient make, enclosing the motto Als ik kan, with my personal signature just below. This shop mark is stamped in red upon some inconspicuous part of the piece, which is also distinguished by the brown pasteboard tag bearing on one side the description, number and price of the piece, and on the other the shop mark. Las tlv, a brown paper label showing both trade mark and shop mark with the number of the piece is pasted on the under side of the lighter pieces, such as chairs and the like, within one of the drawers of each desk, large table or chest of drawers, and on the back of each of the heavier pieces of furniture. Every piece of CRAFTSMAN furniture is made as well as we know how to make it, the greatest attention being paid to the harmony of line and proportion in the design, to the selection of the wood used and the heauty of color and finish. Made at TIXIX CRAFTSMAN WORK Strops-Eastwood, N. Y. (Near Syracuse.)
Send
lor
OUT Booklet,
Chips
No.
New York Address:
29 W. 34th
St.
Rindly
mention
The
Craftsman
xxii
DINING ROOM FURNITURE

HE sideboard and dining chairs shown on this page are some of the latest products of the CRAFTSMAN Workshops. Like all the CRAFTSMAN furniture, they are made in fumed oak, but in this case the finish is decidedly gray, giving the most woody effect In some lights we have yet achieved. the wood seems to be a cool light brown with just a suggestion of green in it, and in others a soft gray, showing only The an undertone of the wood brown. seats of the chairs are of sole leather finished in the CRAFTSMAN way, so that the surface, while preserving all its leathery quality, takes on exactly the same tone of soft gray with an underI tone of brown that is seen in the wood. I The seats are fastened to the frame with ornamental nails of dull unfinished It is 56 inches 38 The sideboard is meant for use in a medium-sized dining room. brass. A linen drawer big enough to hold tablecloths folded just as they inches wide and 22 inches deep. come from the laundry extends across the bottom, and the two small cupboards above are most The top drawer is lined with chamois SO that silver may be kept in it, and there are convenient. The wrought iron trimmings of this two small drawers below to hold the smaller pieces of linen. sideboard are very decorative and harmonize perfectly in color, as they are given the a&or finish, which shows a dull silvery tone in the high lights. Send for CHIPS from the CRAFTSMAN Workshops, which tells you all about CRAFTSMAN furniture, how it is made and how we get our wonderful effects in the finish of wood.
long, bright
Address:
GUSTAV STICKLEY, The Craftsman, 29 W. 34th St., N. Y.

Kindly mention The Craf-tsmnn ... xx111
This is one of the most artistic booklets on Shingle Stains ever published
HERE are many valuable suggestions for builders, or prospective builders, in our handsome Widdanzs Pwservative new booklet, 57 uvwzzShifzgZe SLaim. ) ) It tells about beautiful shingle effects and how to obtain them; shows illustrations in actual colors of artistic shingle houses and gives specifications for finishing; explains the economy and durability of our shingle stains and their preservative qualities, and has complete directions for the proper use of S-W. Preservative Shingle Stains.
Home builders will find. this booklet especially interesting and We will send it to the readers of the Craftsman, free of cost, upon valuable. Ask for a copy of R-56. Address: request.
THE
LARGEST 619
SHERWINPAINT CANAL AND VARNISH N. ROAD,
WILLIAMS
MAKERS W.. CLEVELAND, IN
Co.
THE WORLD. OHIO.
Kindly
nrcmtion
Thr
Craftsman
xxiv

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Caricature The The

Alla Nazimova Lrnion

Frontispiece 375 384 385 395 396 . 397

and the Poem A Kindly .

BJ~ the Editor . By Edith Gor-,y IIclm . . . I~)# Elstr Bdrkrr

de Zayas: I//lrJlrd~d Staff:

The The The

English IT?))Lou Bcrzmtt

Illustrated in the Paintings Illi~.s/l.~//~~d Industrial

A Practical School w-here an Opportunity Self-Supporting Citizens. //lllvtrtll~d

Behold, This What Nature

Dreamer: A Story Holds for the Artist

By Ewer~~ Pottlc By Gilts IGlgertou

A Story of the Heritage I Il,f5!r~lld

By Cliutorr Rogers ?1oodvll/T 433

BJf Hcitor A-I lliot

A Carpenter Who is a Collector IlllL.\tr<ll~~d Among the Craftsmen

of Domestic and Practice: . Doing

450 458 473

Design in Theory 1~~llStrUtcd . Interior

A Series of Lessons: . . By a Ballroom

Illrf.s/ra!cd The Craftsmens

Illz~strut~~~i . Als ik Kan Notes and Reviews

475 486 490

Entered June 6. 1906.at hewYork City.a, wcond-class manc~

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