ABSTRACT
The Elmhirsts had wanted things to happen in the arts and they had. They had also begun to realise the need for professionals. The Nellie Cornish was not quite to Dartington arts what Cornell was to Dartington agriculture. But Cornish did suggest the need for professional teaching. Margaret had no friendship with Dorothy Elmhirst and Leonard Elmhirst she could draw on to prevent herself from being sacked. For them her combination of the professional with the amateur did not sufficiently offset her combination of artiness with politics. Up to the war Dorothy and Leonard had been unobtrusive patrons of the garden as well as all the other arts except the theatre. The arts were important not just for the good life they could afford professionals, and the pleasure they gave to their audiences, but also the fulfilment they could give to amateurs when they stopped being audiences and became practitioners themselves even though not professional ones.
