ABSTRACT
If there is one thing more than another which the experience of the Arts and Crafts Movement has proved conclusively, it is the impossibility of any group of craftsmen, however gifted—and in this connection it is well to remember that the movement secured the active support of the cleverest architects and artists of its day—to effect any widespread reform, apart from the organized support of the public. The ordinary British philistine will not admit this. Being without the finer aesthetic perceptions, which alone can enable a man to determine which is the right way of doing things, and lacking that spirit of humility which in the ages of great traditions made him conscious of his ignorance, he seeks to evade the problem by affirming that everything is a matter of taste. Truth to tell, in so far as the art of to-day does approximate to the popular notion there is no purpose in supporting it.
