Perhaps the advantage thus gained is counterbalanced by the loss of our old “traditions,” for amongst the wilderness of reproductions of French furniture, more or less frivolous—­of Chippendale, as that master is generally understood—­of what is termed “Jacobean” and “Queen Anne”—­to say nothing of a quantity of so-called “antique furniture,” we are bewildered in attempting to identify this latter end of the nineteenth century with any particular style of furniture.  By “tradition” it is intended to allude to the old-fashioned manner of handing down from father to son, or master to apprentice, for successive generations, the skill to produce any particular class of object of Art or manufacture.  Surely Ruskin had something of this in his mind when he said, “Now, when the powers of fancy, stimulated by this triumphant precision of manual dexterity, descend from generation to generation, you have at last what is not so much a trained artist, as a new species of animal, with whose instinctive gifts you have no chance of contending.”

Tradition may be said to still survive in the country cartwright, who produces the farmer’s wagon in accordance with custom and tradition, modifying the method of construction somewhat perhaps to meet altered conditions of circumstances, and then ornamenting his work by no particular set design or rule, but partly from inherited aptitude and partly from playfulness or fancy.  In the house-carpenter attached to some of our old English family estates, there will also be found, here and there, surviving representatives of the traditional “joyner” of the seventeenth century, and in Eastern countries, particularly in Japan, we find the dexterous joiner or carver of to-day is the descendant of a long line of more or less excellent mechanics.

It must be obvious, too, that “Trades Unionism” of the present day cannot but be, in many of its effects, prejudicial to the Industrial Arts.  A movement which aims at reducing men of different intelligence and ability, to a common standard, and which controls the amount of work done, and the price paid for it, whatever are its social or economical advantages, must have a deleterious influence upon the Art products of our time.

Writers on Art and manufactures, of varying eminence and opinion, are unanimous in pointing out the serious drawbacks to progress which will exist, so long as there is a demand for cheap and meretricious imitations of old furniture, as opposed to more simply made articles, designed in accordance with the purposes for which they are intended.  Within the past few years a great many well directed endeavours have been made in England to improve design in furniture, and to revive something of the feeling of pride and ambition in his craft, which, in the old days of the Trade Guilds, animated our Jacobean joiner.  One of the best directed of these enterprises is that of the “Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society,” of which Mr. Walter Crane, A.R.W.S., is president, and