"Yes. You see, up to this time very little glazed ware had been made in England, for until the Dutch traders came with their Chinese and Delft wares the English had been cheerfully using, as I told you, unglazed clay, wood, pewter, and on rare occasions silver dishes. Even the ladies of Queen Elizabeth's household felt no shame to eat from wooden dishes. As for knives and forks—nobody used those! Every one ate with his fingers. Think how primitive it must have been to go to a banquet of the Lord-Mayor of London arrayed in your silk or velvet costume, and eat roasted ox with your fingers from a trencher, or square slab of wood! Yet such a procedure was considered entirely proper in those days."
Theo was much amused.
"Afterward for quite a long time dishes of brown stoneware were in vogue; and then as an improvement on those came a coarse greenish-yellow type of ware. It was about 1645 that into England strayed a few Dutch potters who began to make a reproduction of Delft pottery. In the meantime in quite another part of the country a salt-glazed stoneware of far better quality than any previously manufactured made its appearance. To this the name porcellane was given, and although the product was in reality simply a gres the fact is interesting because it is the first time that we have the word applied to china. It probably came from the Italian noun porcellana, meaning a shell, which the thinness of the new ware may have suggested; or the term may have been derived from the French word pourcelaine, a word used for any material from which a sculptor models his statues. We are not certain which of these theories is correct. Nevertheless we have the name, although at this particular date it was incorrectly applied."
"But the English had nothing at that time but pottery to give the name to," objected Theo.
"Exactly! So they shouldn't have used the term at all," he said, "because they have confused a lot of good people since then. From this period on England went steadily forward with its china-making. Earthenware of various kinds covered with salt glaze were made at Fulham, Stoke-on-Trent, and Staffordshire. It was about 1750 that the second of the great potters made his advent."
"Ah!" cried Theo, "now we are going to hear who he was!"
Mr. Croyden paused a moment as if thinking just how he should best tell the story. Then he began:
"The name of this second pottery-maker to whom the world owes a mighty debt was Josiah Wedgwood. He was a man who came naturally by his skill at pottery-making, for, not only was he himself a potter, but he also had several ancestors who had followed the trade. He was a conscientious workman of limited education, but a person to whom a thorough, careful piece of work, done as well as it was possible to do it, was a satisfaction and delight. Remember that fact, for it had much to do with Wedgwood's subsequent success. He also loved beauty of form, and probably had he been able to choose he would have turned his entire attention to making a classic type of pottery. But being one of thirteen children he was poor, and his common sense told him that there were far more necessary things to be done in the world than to give all one's time to articles that were not useful. So he put his dream behind him, like the practical fellow he was, and looked about to see what his contemporaries needed, and what he could do to aid his generation."
"I should think that if he could have made some dishes it would have helped as much as anything," asserted Theo emphatically.