Page:Chats on old prints (IA chatsonoldprints00haydiala).pdf/188

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most strenuous efforts were made by the eclectic to bring it back to life. The cry of the wood engraver was heard in the land. Many of the finest craftsmen went to America, and carried with them their art, which has helped to establish the modern American school. An International Society of Wood Engravers was founded in the nineties. Every attempt was made to awaken the interest of the public in wood engraving, but with no avail. Professor Herkomer, Mr. Walter Crane, and others preached to deaf ears.

The former, in dealing with "the cause of the rage for process work," speaks of the "immorality of cheapness," and says "The Sister-Sin to this and the outcome of it is the Immorality of Haste, and this is the cause of the threatened extinction of wood engraving. Haste is the black plague of modern times, for it entirely destroys the repose so necessary for the production of great art. It produces a restlessness which finds its only comfort in the literature of Tit-Bits. . . . We can welcome quick work from an artist, but it is a dangerous thing to impose rapidity on the engraver; that should once and for all be avoided."

William Morris when he produced his noble edition of "Chaucer" at his Kelmscott Press had the co-operation of Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Men were trained by Morris to draw and engrave designs exactly as he wanted them, and some of their work would have satisfied the craftsmen of the fifteenth century. Under his inspiration the students of the Birmingham Municipal School of Art produced a