Page:Speeches and addresses by the late Thomas E Ellis M P.pdf/43

 designs, noble views of his own with regard to the rendering of a great building, he makes this design in his studio, he probably submits it to some national body or to some committee, and when it is approved or accepted, it is then placed in the hands of men whom he has never known, with whom he has never come into any contact, and with whom he has, as a rule, very little sympathy. I believe I am right when I say that in the great ages of production, in the ages, for instance, of the building of the great abbeys and the great cathedrals and churches of England and of Western Europe, the actual architects had in all manner of ways a much nearer touch with the actual workmen. As a matter of fact, I believe that the artificers, the workers of our great abbeys and churches, were housed very often in the abbey church or in the very house of the great founder, very often the Bishop himself was the architect. And I have no doubt that Wyckham and Gower, as well as many others, were not merely architects living in a studio, but that they were in close and constant and loving touch