Editor’s is an inseparable element of good quality, involving

Preface as ¡t does the selection of good and suitable material,

contrivance for special purpose, expert workman¬
ship, proper finish, and so on, far more than mere
ornament, and indeed, that ornamentation itself was
rather an exuberance of fine workmanship than a
matter of merely abstract lines. Workmanship when
separated by too wide a gulf from fresh thought
—that is, from design—inevitably decays, and, on
the other hand, ornamentation, divorced from work¬
manship, is necessarily unreal, and quickly falls into
affectation. Proper ornamentation may be defined
as a language addressed to the eye; it is pleasant
thought expressed in the speech of the tool.

In the third place, we would have this series put
artistic craftsmanship before people as furnishing
reasonable occupations for those who would gain a
livelihood. Although within the bounds of academic
art, the competition, of its kind, is so acute that only
a very few per cent can fairly hope to succeed as
painters and sculptors; yet, as artistic craftsmen,
there is every probability that nearly every one who
would pass through a sufficient period of apprentice¬
ship to workmanship and design would reach a
measure of success.

In the blending of handwork and thought in such
arts as we propose to deal with, happy careers may
be found as far removed from the dreary routine of
hack labour as from the terrible uncertainty of
academic art. It is desirable in every way that men
vi

of good education should be brought back into the
productive crafts ; there are more than enough of us
“in the city,” and it is probable that more considera¬
tion will be given in this century than in the last to
Design and Workmanship.

Of all the Arts, writing, perhaps, shows most
clearly the formative force of the instruments used.
In the analysis which Mr. Johnston gives us in this
volume, nearly all seems to be explained by the two
factors, utility and masterly use of tools. No one
has ever invented a form of script, and herein lies
the wonderful interest of the subject; the forms
used have always formed themselves by a continuous
process of development.

The curious assemblages of wedge-shaped inden¬
tations which make up Assyrian writing are a direct
outcome of the clay cake, and the stylus used to
imprint little marks on it. The forms of Chinese
characters, it is evident, were made by quickly repre¬
senting with a brush earlier pictorial signs. The
Roman characters, which are our letters to-day,
although their earlier forms have only come down
to us cut in stone, must have been formed by inces¬
sant practice with a flat, stiff brush, or some such
tool. The disposition of the thicks and thins, and
the exact shape of the curves, must have been settled
by an instrument used rapidly; I suppose, indeed,
that most of the great monumental inscriptions were
designed in situ by a master writer, and only cut in
vii

Editor’s

Preface