Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/91

 SOCIAL CONTROL 77

of art must run the gauntlet of them ere it can gain easy access to the multitude. Flanking these are the church with its Index, the pulpit with its thunders against the stage, W. C. T. U.'s, Y. M. C. A.'s, mothers' associations and reading clubs down to the local oracle and the village Dogberry. What with censor, police, critic, priest, schoolmaster and matron, the hindrances society can oppose to a demoralizing work of art are very considerable.

Still more effective is the furtherance given to that which is deemed most salutary and wholesome. A great quantity of art- work is selected and paid for by society. The literature conned in the schools, the libraries of barracks and ships, the eloquence of senates, the oratory and poetry of public occasions, the fres- coes of public buildings, the collections in public galleries and museums, the repertory of subsidized theaters, the art in churches and cathedrals on these the social purgation shows as plainly as the patronage of the Bourbons shows on the battle pieces at Versailles. Add now to this the effect of general praise and commendation, the favor shown one class of literature by the church, the fillip given another by the "family" maga- zine, and it will be evident that the policy of society toward art is anything but laissez faire.

Abandon though we may all official censorship, so long as society spontaneously organizes itself into a hierarchy of leaders and led, of makers and takers of opinion, it will be possible greatly to let or hinder the access of the artist to the public. Let those of influence but appreciate the moral bearing of art, and the universal impulse of everyone to look out for his neighbor's morals will do the rest.

Artists resenting the yoke of morality have coined the absurd phrase "art for art's sake," and with it have bewildered not a few. To meet this cry with empty assertions of the " moral pur- pose of art," the " moral obligations laid upon the artist," is but to heap up chaff. But put "social" for "moral" and the situa- tion becomes clear.

The realists, naturalists, and veritists assert that art is an individual affair, that one has the right to speak, print, or publish