Page:Speeches and addresses by the late Thomas E Ellis M P.pdf/45

 use hand, and brain, and affection in the way to which I have referred. But I am convinced that it is our duty, so far as in us lies, to make it easy for the workmen and for those for whom homes and schools and chapels are built to feel and to realise that it is possible to give thought and brain and the highest qualities of art to the construction even of the simplest form of building, whether that building be a house, or a school, or a chapel, or a hall of council. And although we in Wales cannot hope to produce at command great sculptors, or great painters, or great architects, yet lam convinced that we can very largely through our public and national system of education do much to kindle and rekindle and nourish the instinct for art in its application to industry, for beauty of design and truth in workmanship, in the mind and the life of the people, and more especially by nourishing the domestic and decorative arts, which are the handmaidens of the mother art of architecture.

You may ask me what is meant by decorative art? I would reply to that in the