Page:Speeches and addresses by the late Thomas E Ellis M P.pdf/44

 with the actual workmen who carved the stone and placed the wood and found pleasure in carrying out in the minutest detail the ideas of their great master, the architect of those churches and abbeys. That is not so in our day. The artist very often takes very little interest either in the problems or in the life or in the wants of the actual workman or craftsman, and the craftsman is not taught very often, and is not encouraged to take actual personal pleasure in carrying out the ideals and the plans of his master or his architect.

I venture to think that the only way in which that gulf can be to some extent bridged is by so modifying our present system of industry as to make it possible for the work-man to take and to feel a personal human interest in the actual details of his work from day to day. As things are at present, owing very largely no doubt to the enormous development of machinery, owing, perhaps, also to the enormous extension of our great factory system, it is difficult, and in many cases, perhaps, impossible for workmen to