thing worthy which is given to man's hand to do should have secured to it the greatest possible length of life. And the reason is that the artist, if he be a true artist, realises the value of things, the life value; that he is on the side of creation and not of destruction, of preservation and not of waste. He has within his nature an instinct that the greatest possible longevity is the right condition for all manual labour; that when a man sets his hand to a thing he should have it as his main aim to give good value, to make it so that it will endure. And in this connection I would like to substitute for the words "art training" the word "education." It is in the interests of education that things should be made to last, and that only things should be made of any lasting material that deserve lasting. Nothing should be produced the value of which will become negligible before it is honestly worn out. And so it is in the interest of education, as of Art, that we should eliminate as much as possible the passing and the ephemeral, the demand of mood and fashion, the thing cheaply chosen, cheaply acquired, and cheaply let go; and substitute the thing that we shall have a long use for, and should like to keep permanently—the thing acquired with thought and care, and thoughtfully and carefully preserved because it has in itself a value.
But you won't get any broad exercise of that kind of choice between evil and good until you get a sense of right values—going far away
