There is nothing to my mind more coarse in conception and more vulgar in execution than modern jewellery.  This is something that can easily be corrected.  Something better should be made out of the beautiful gold which is stored up in your mountain hollows and strewn along your river beds.  When I was at Leadville and reflected that all the shining silver that I saw coming from the mines would be made into ugly dollars, it made me sad.  It should be made into something more permanent.  The golden gates at Florence are as beautiful today as when Michael Angelo saw them.

We should see more of the workman than we do.  We should not be content to have the salesman stand between us—­the salesman who knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it.  And watching the workman will teach that most important lesson—­the nobility of all rational workmanship.

I said in my last lecture that art would create a new brotherhood among men by furnishing a universal language.  I said that under its beneficent influences war might pass away.  Thinking this, what place can I ascribe to art in our education?  If children grow up among all fair and lovely things, they will grow to love beauty and detest ugliness before they know the reason why.  If you go into a house where everything is coarse, you find things chipped and broken and unsightly.  Nobody exercises any care.  If everything is dainty and delicate, gentleness and refinement of manner are unconsciously acquired.  When I was in San Francisco I used to visit the Chinese Quarter frequently.  There I used to watch a great hulking Chinese workman at his task of digging, and used to see him every day drink his tea from a little cup as delicate in texture as the petal of a flower, whereas in all the grand hotels of the land, where thousands of dollars have been lavished on great gilt mirrors and gaudy columns, I have been given my coffee or my chocolate in cups an inch and a quarter thick.  I think I have deserved something nicer.

The art systems of the past have been devised by philosophers who looked upon human beings as obstructions.  They have tried to educate boys’ minds before they had any.  How much better it would be in these early years to teach children to use their hands in the rational service of mankind.  I would have a workshop attached to every school, and one hour a day given up to the teaching of simple decorative arts.  It would be a golden hour to the children.  And you would soon raise up a race of handicraftsmen who would transform the face of your country.  I have seen only one such school in the United States, and this was in Philadelphia and was founded by my friend Mr. Leyland.  I stopped there yesterday and have brought some of the work here this afternoon to show you.  Here are two discs of beaten brass:  the designs on them are beautiful, the workmanship is simple, and the entire result is satisfactory.