As We Are and As We May Be

by Walter Besant

Compare, for instance, the young workman with the young gentleman—the public schoolman, one of the kind who makes his life as 'all round' as he can, and learns and practises whatever his hand findeth to do. Or, if you please, compare him with one of the better sort of young City clerks; or, again, compare him with one of the lads who belong to the classes now held in the building of the old Polytechnic; or with the lads who are found every evening at the classes of the Birkbeck. First of all, the young workman cannot play any game at all, neither cricket, football, tennis, racquets, fives, or any of the other games which the young fellows in the class above him love so passionately: there are, in fact, no places for him where these games can be played; for though the boys may play cricket in Victoria Park, I do not understand that the carpenters, shoemakers, or painters have got clubs and play there too. There is no gymnasium for them, and so they never learn the use of their limbs; they cannot row, though they have a splendid river to row upon; they cannot fence, box, wrestle, play single-stick, or shoot with the rifle; they do not, as a rule, join the Volunteer corps; they do not run, leap, or practise athletics of any kind; they cannot swim; they cannot sing in parts, unless, which is naturally rare, they belong to a church choir; they cannot play any kind of instrument—to be sure the public schoolboy is generally grovelling in the same shameful ignorance of music; they cannot dance; in the whole of this vast city there is not a single place where a couple, so minded, can go for an evening's dancing, unless they are prepared to journey as far as North Woolwich. Not one. Ought it not to be felt and resented as an intolerable grievance that grandmotherly legislation actually forbids the people to dance? That the working men themselves do not seem to feel and resent it is really a mournful thing. Then, they cannot paint, draw, model, or carve. They cannot act, and seemingly do not care greatly about seeing others act; and, as already stated, they never read books. Think what it must be to be shut out entirely from the world of history, philosophy, poetry, fiction, essays, and travels! Yet our working classes are thus practically excluded. Partly they have done this for themselves, because they have never felt the desire to read books; partly, as I said above, we have done it for them, because we have never taken any steps to create the demand. Now, as regards these arts and accomplishments, the public schoolman and the better class City clerk have the chance of learning some of them at least, and of practising them, both before and after they have left school. What a poor creature would that young man seem who could do none of these things! Yet the working man has no chance of learning any. There are no teachers for him; the schools for the small arts, the accomplishments, and the graces of life are not open to him; one never hears, for instance, of a working man learning to waltz or dance, unless it is in imitation of a music-hall performer. In other words, the public schoolman has gone through a mill of discipline out of school as well as in. Law reigns in his sports as in his studies. Whether he sits over his books or plays in the fields, he learns to be obedient to law, order, and rule: he obeys, and expects to be obeyed; it is not himself whom he must study to please: it is the whole body of his fellows. And this discipline of self, much more useful than the discipline of books, the young workman knows not. Worse than this, and worst of all, not only is he unable to do any of these things, but he is even ignorant of their uses and their pleasures, and has no desire to learn any of them, and does not suspect at all that the possession of these accomplishments would multiply the joys of life. He is content to go on without them. Now contentment is the most mischievous of all the virtues; if anything is to be done, and any improvement is to be effected, the wickedness of discontent must first be explained away.

Let us, if you please, brighten this gloomy picture by recognising the existence of the artisan who pursues knowledge for its own sake. There are many of this kind. You may come across some of them botanizing, collecting insects, moths and butterflies in the fields on Sundays; others you will find reading works on astronomy, geometry, physics, or electricity: they have not gone through the early training, and so they often make blunders; but yet they are real students. One of them I knew once who had taught himself Hebrew; another, who read so much about co-operation, that he lifted himself clean out of the co-operative ranks, and is now a master; another and yet another and another, who read perpetually, and meditate upon, books of political and social economy; and there are thousands whose lives are made dignified for them, and sacred, by the continual meditation on religious things. Let us make every kind of allowance for these students of the working class; and let us not forget, as well, the occasional appearance of those heaven-born artists who are fain to play music or die, and presently get into orchestras of one kind or another, and so leave the ranks of daily labour and join the great clan or caste of musicians, who are a race or family apart, and carry on their mystery from father to son.

But, as regards any place or institution where the people may learn or practise or be taught the beauty and desirability of any of the commoner amusements, arts, and accomplishments, there is not one, anywhere in London. The Bethnal Green Museum certainly proposed unto itself, at first, to 'do something,' in a vague and uncertain way, for the people. Nobody dared to say that it would be first of all necessary to make the people discontented, because this would have been considered as flying in the face of Providence; and there was, besides, a sort of nebulous hope, not strong enough for a theory, that by dint of long gazing upon vases and tapestry everybody would in time acquire a true feeling for art, and begin to crave for culture. Many very beautiful things have, from time to time, been sent there—pictures, collections, priceless vases; and I am sure that those visitors who brought with them the sense of beauty and feeling for artistic work which comes of culture, have carried away memories and lessons which will last them for a lifetime. On the other hand, to those who visit the Museum chiefly in order to see the people, it has long been painfully evident that the folk who do not bring that sense with them go away carrying nothing of it home with them. Nothing at all. Those glass cases, those pictures, those big jugs, say no more to the crowd than a cuneiform or a Hittite inscription. They have now, or had quite recently, on exhibition a collection of turnips and carrots beautifully modelled in wax: it is perhaps hoped that the contemplation of these precious but homely things may carry the people a step farther in the direction of culture than Sir Richard Wallace's pictures could effect. In fact, the Bethnal Green Museum does no more to educate the people than the British Museum. It is to them simply a collection of curious things which is sometimes changed. It is cold and dumb. It is merely a dull and unintelligent branch of a department; and it will remain so, because whatever the collections may be, a Museum can teach nothing, unless there is someone to expound the meaning of the things. Why, even that wonderful Museum of the House Beautiful could teach the pilgrims no lessons at all until the Sisters explained to them what were the rare and curious things preserved in their glass cases.

Is it possible that, by any persuasion, attraction, or teaching, the walking men of this country can be induced to aim at those organized, highly skilled, and disciplined forms of recreation which make up the better pleasure of life? Will they consent, without hope of gain, to give the labour, patience, and practice required of every man who would become master of any art or accomplishment, or even any game? There are men, one is happy to find, who think that it is not only possible, but even easy, to effect this, and the thing is about to be transferred from the region or theory to that of practice, by the creation of the People's Palace.

The general scheme is already well known. Because the Mile End Road runs through the most extensive portion of the most dismal city in the world, the city which has been suffered to exist without recreation, it has been chosen as the fitting site of the Palace. As regards simple absence of joy, Hoxton, Haggerston, Pentonville, Clerkenwell, or Kentish Town, might contend, and have a fair chance of success, with any portion whatever of the East-end proper. But, then, around Mile End lie Stepney, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, the Cambridge Road, the Commercial Road, Bow, Stratford, Shadwell, Limehouse, Wapping, and St. George's-in-the-East. Without doubt the real centre, the [Greek: omphalos] of dreariness, is situated somewhere in the Mile End Road, and it is to be hoped that the Palace may be placed upon the very centre itself.

Let me say a few words as to what this Palace may and may not do. In the first place, it can do nothing, absolutely nothing, to relieve the great starvation and misery which lies all about London, but more especially at the East-end. People who are out of work and starving do not want amusement, not even of the highest kind; still less do they want University extension. Therefore, as regards the Palace, let us forget for a while the miserable condition of the very poor who live in East London; we are concerned only with the well fed, those who are in steady work, the respectable artisans and petits commis, the artists in the hundred little industries which are carried on in the East-end; those, in fact, who have already acquired some power of enjoyment because they are separated by a sensible distance from their hand-to-mouth brothers and sisters, and are pretty certain to-day that they will have enough to eat to-morrow. It is for these, and such as these, that the Palace will be established. It is to contain: (1) class-rooms, where all kinds of study can be carried on; (2) concert rooms; (3) conversation-rooms; (4) a gymnasium; (5) a library; and lastly, a winter garden. In other words, it is to be an institution which will recognise the fact, that for some of those who have to work all day at, perhaps, uncongenial and tedious labour, the best form of recreation may be study and intellectual effort; while for others—that is to say, for the great majority—music, reading, tobacco, and rest will be desired. Let us be under no illusions as to the supposed thirst for knowledge. Those who desire to learn are even in youth always a minority. How many men do we know, among our own friends, who have ever set themselves to learn anything since they left school? It is a great mistake to suppose that the working man, any more than the merchant-man or the clerk-man, or the tradesman, is ardently desirous of learning. But there will always be n few; and especially there are the young who would fain, if they could, make a ladder of learning, and so, as has ever been the goodly and godly custom in this realm of England, mount unto higher things. The Palace of the People would be incomplete indeed if it gave no assistance to ambitious youths. Next to the classes in literature and science come those in music and painting. There is no reason whatever why the Palace should not include an academy of music, an academy of arts, and an academy of acting, in a few months after its establishment it should have its own choir, its own orchestra, its own concerts, its own opera, and its own theatre, with a company formed of its own alumni. And in a year or two it should have its own exhibition of paintings, drawings, and sculpture. As regards the simpler amusements, there must be rooms where the men can smoke, and others where the girls and women can work, read, and talk; there must be a debating society for questions, social and political, but especially the former; there must be a dancing school, and a ball once every week, all the year round; it should be possible to convert the great hall into either theatre, concert-room, or ball-room; there must be a bar for beer as well as for coffee, and at a price calculated so as to pay just the bare expenses; there must be a library and writing-room, and the winter garden must be a place where the women and children can come in the daytime while the men are at work. One thing must be kept out of the place: there must not be allowed to grow up in the minds even of the most suspicious the least jealousy that religious influences are at work; more than this, the institution must be carefully watched to prevent the rise of such a suspicion; religious controversy must be kept out of the debating-room, and even in the conversation-rooms there ought to be power to exclude a man who makes himself offensive by the exhibition and parade of his religious or irreligious opinions.

As for the teaching of the classes, we must look for voluntary work rather than to a great endowment. The history of the College in Great Ormond Street shows how much may be done by unpaid labour, and I do not think it too much to expect that the Palace of the People may be started by unpaid teachers in every branch of science and art: moreover, as regards science, history and language, the University Extension Society will probably find the staff. There must be, however, volunteers, women as well as men, to teach singing, music, dancing, sewing, acting, speaking, drawing, painting, carving, modelling, and many other things. This kind of help should only be wanted at the outset, because, before long, all the art departments ought to be conducted by ex-students who have become in their turn teachers, they should be paid, but not on the West-end scale, from fees—so that the schools may support themselves. Let us not give more than is necessary; for every class and every course there should be some kind of fee, though a liberal system of small scholarships should encourage the students, and there should be the power of remitting fees in certain cases. As for the difficulty of starting the classes, I think that the assistance of Board School masters, foremen of works, Sunday schools, the political clubs, and debating societies should be invited; and that besides small scholarships, substantial prizes of musical and mathematical instruments, books, artists' materials, and so forth, should be offered, with the glory of public exhibition and public performances. After the first year there should be nothing exhibited in the Palace except work done in the classes, and no performances of music or of plays should be given but by the students themselves.

There has been going on in Philadelphia for the last two years an experiment, conducted by Mr. Charles Leland, whose sagacious and active mind is as pleased to be engaged upon things practical as upon the construction of humorous poems. He has founded, and now conducts personally, an academy for the teaching of the minor arts; he gets shop girls, work girls, factory girls, boys and young men of all classes together, and teaches them how to make things, pretty things, artistic things. 'Nothing,' he writes to me, 'can describe the joy which fills a poor girl's mind when she finds that she, too, possesses and can exercise a real accomplishment.' He takes them as ignorant, perhaps—but I have no means of comparing—as the London factory girl, the girl of freedom, the girl with the fringe—and he shows them how to do crewel-work, fretwork, brass work; how to carve in wood; how to design; how to draw—he maintains that it is possible to teach nearly every one to draw; how to make and ornament leather work, boxes, rolls, and all kinds of pretty things in leather. What has been done in Philadelphia amounts, in fact, to this: that one man who loves his brother man is bringing purpose, brightness, and hope into thousands of lives previously made dismal by hard and monotonous work; he has put new and higher thoughts into their heads; he has introduced the discipline of methodical training; he has awakened in them the sense of beauty. Such a man is nothing less than a benefactor to humanity. Let us follow his example in the Palace of the People.

I venture, further, to express my strong conviction that the success of the Palace will depend entirely upon its being governed, within limits at first, but these limits constantly broadening, by the people themselves. If they think the Palace is a trap to catch them, and make them sober, good, religious and temperate, there will be an end. In the first place, therefore, there must be a real element of the working man upon the council; there must be real working men on every sub-committee or branch; the students must be wholly recruited from the working classes; and gradually the council must be elected by the people who use the Palace. Fortunately, there would be no difficulty at the outset in introducing this element, because the great factories and breweries in the neighbourhood might be asked each to elect one or more representatives to sit upon the council of the new University. It 'goes without saying' that the police work, the maintenance of order, the out-kicking of offenders, must be also entirely managed by a voluntary corps of efficient working men. Rows there will undoubtedly be, since we are all of us, even the working man, human; but there need be no scandals.

I must not go on, though there is so much to be said. I see before us in the immediate future a vast University whose home is in the Mile End Road; but it has affiliated colleges in all the suburbs, so that even poor, dismal, uncared-for Hoxton shall no longer be neglected; the graduates of this University are the men and women whose lives, now unlovely and dismal, shall be made beautiful for them by their studies, and their heavy eyes uplifted to meet the sunlight; the subjects or examination shall be, first, the arts of every kind: so that unless a man have neither eyes to see nor hand to work with, he may here find something or other which he may learn to do; and next, the games, sports, and amusements with which we cheat the weariness of leisure and court the joy of exercising brain and wit and strength. From the crowded class-rooms I hear already the busy hum of those who learn and those who teach. Outside, in the street, are those—a vast multitude to be sure—who are too lazy and too sluggish of brain to learn anything: but these, too, will flock into the Palace presently to sit, talk, and argue in the smoking-rooms; to read in the library; to see the students' pictures upon the walls; to listen to the students' orchestra, discoursing such music as they have never dreamed of before; to look on while His Majesty's Servants of the People's Palace perform a play, and to hear the bright-eyed girls sing madrigals.