Page:Ploughshare and Pruning-Hook.djvu/236

216 revival, in so many of our towns and villages, through the efforts of Miss Mary Neal, Mr. Cecil Sharp and others, of our old folk-songs and Morris dances, and lastly—perhaps I shall surprise you—the Boy Scout movement.

Coming into contact with these two movements, I have found that they have in them certain elements in common. Instituted with a rare combination of tact and enthusiasm, they have taken hold of the blood; they have got home at a certain point in boy and girl nature which has already made them become native. I find that these two organisations tend to develop among their members grace and vigour of movement, good manners, a cheerful spirit, a more alert interest in the things about them, a feeling of comradeship, and best of all, a certain sense of honour toward life. And therefore, even in a place technically devoted to the training of students, I say boldly that I see nowhere better hope of a sound basis for national Art than in this revival of village dancing and folk-song and in the Boy Scout movement.

The assertion may perhaps seem strange and ironic to some of you that it is not from a study of beautiful objects that the sense of beauty can be made national, but only in the recovery of an ordered plan for our social and industrial life, and in the finding of a true and worthy purpose for all that our hands are put to do. But in that connection you may remember how Ruskin maintained that great