And as working men will
certainly do nothing without pay--in London, whatever may be the case
elsewhere, their strongest feeling is that their only possessions are
their time and their hands--we shall have to provide that the teachers
of the schools, the directors of the college, and the clerks in the
secretariat, shall never be paid at a higher rate than the current
rate of wage for manual work. The people themselves will in the end
supply council, executive officers, and teaching staff. The time is
ripe; we are ready to begin the work; I do not fear for a moment that
the working man will not, if we begin with prudence, presently
respond, and, through him, the boys and girls.
We must, however, have a museum, although on this subject I cannot
dwell. I should like to take the Bethnal Green institution entirely
out of South Kensington hands; they have had it for fourteen years,
and you have heard what they have made of it. I think they should hand
it over, if not to our new College of Art, then to a local committee,
who would at least try to show what an educational museum should be.
Our educational museum will be a branch of the College of Art; it will
be in all respects the exact opposite of the Bethnal Green Museum; it
will have everything which is there wanting; it will have a library
and reading-room; it will have lecturers and teachers, it will have
class-rooms; the exhibits will be changed continually; there will be
an organ and concerts; there will be a theatre, there will be in it
every appliance which will teach our pupils the exquisite joy, the
true and real delight, of expressing noble thought in beautiful and
precious work.
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