The moment any nation begins to import food,* its political power and moral worth are ended.1 (9.) All the food, clothing, and fuel required by men, can be produced by the labour of their own arms on the earth and sea; all food is appointed to be so produced, and must be so produced, at their peril. If instead of taking the quantity of exercise made necessary to their bodies by God, in the work appointed by God, they take it in hunting or shooting, they become ignorant, irreligious, and finally insane, and seek to live by fighting as well as by hunting; whence the type of Nimrod, in the circle of the Hell-towers, which I desired you to study in Dante.2 If they do not take exercise at all, they become sensual, and insane in worse ways. And it is physically impossible that true religious knowledge, or pure morality, should exist among any classes of a nation who do not work with their hands for their bread. Read Letter 11 carefully.3 (10.) The use of machinery † in agriculture throws a certain number of persons out of wholesome employment, who must thenceforward either do nothing, or mischief, The use of machinery in art destroys the national intellect; and, finally, renders all luxury impossible. All * It may always import such food as its climate cannot produce, in exchange for such food as it can; it may buy oranges with corn, or pepper with cheese. But not with articles that do not support life. Separate cities may honourably produce saleable art; Limoges its enamel, Sheffield its whittle; but a nation must not live on enamel or whittles.* † Foolish people are continually quibbling and stupefying themselves about the word "machine." Briefly, any instrument is a machine so far as its action is, in any particular, or moment, beyond the control of the human hand. A violin, a pencil, and a plough, are tools, not machines. A grinding organ, or a windmill, is a machine, not a tool: often the two are combined; thus a lathe is a machine, and the workman's chisel, used at it, a tool. 1 [See above, pp. 132-136, 140.] 2 [Inferno, xxxi. 76: see Letter 62, § 13 (p. 523).] 3 [See Vol. XXVII. pp. 30, 185–189. Compare pp. 435–436; and above, pp. 35– 36, 134 seq., 489-491, 564 seq.] 4 [Ruskin in his memoranda for the projected Index writes here that "the note needs expansion."] machinery needful in ordinary life to supplement human or animal labour may be moved by wind or water: while steam, or any modes of heat-power, may only be employed justifiably under extreme or special conditions of need; as for speed on main lines of communication, and for raising water from great depths, or other such work beyond human strength.1 19. (11.) No true luxury, wealth, or religion is possible to dirty persons; nor is it decent or human to attempt to compass any temporal prosperity whatever by the sacrifice of cleanliness. The speedy abolition of all abolishable filth is the first process of education; * the principles of which I state in the second group of aphorisms following. 2 (12.) All education must be moral first; intellectual secondarily. Intellectual, before-(much more without)moral education, is, in completeness, impossible; and in incompleteness, a calamity.3 (13.) Moral education begins in making the creature to be educated, clean, and obedient. This must be done thoroughly, and at any cost, and with any kind of compulsion rendered necessary by the nature of the animal, be it dog, child, or man.* (14.) Moral education consists next in making the creature practically serviceable to other creatures, according to the nature and extent of its own capacities; taking care that these be healthily developed in such service. It may be a question how long, and to what extent, boys and girls of fine race may be allowed to run in the paddock before they * The ghastly squalor of the once lovely fields of Dulwich, trampled into mud, and strewn with rags and paper by the filthy London population, bred in cigar smoke, which is attracted by the Crystal Palace, would alone neutralize all possible gentlemanly education in the district. [See Vol. XXVII. p. 87; and above, pp. 21, 128-135, 138, 236-237.] [See Vol. XXVII. p. 256; and above, pp. 22, 138, 204, 298-304. Compare Lectures on Art, § 116 (Vol. XX. p. 107).] 3 [Compare Vol. XXVII. pp. 143, 213; above, pp. 237, 501; and Letter 94, § 5 (Vol. XXIX. p. 484).] [Compare Vol. XXVII. p. 145; and above, p. 20.] are broken; but assuredly the sooner they are put to such work as they are able for, the better.* Moral education is summed when the creature has been made to do its work with delight, and thoroughly; but this cannot be until some degree of intellectual education has been given also.1 (15.) Intellectual education consists in giving the creature the faculties of admiration, hope, and love.2 These are to be taught by the study of beautiful Nature; the sight and history of noble persons; and the setting forth of noble objects of action.3 (16.) Since all noble persons hitherto existent in the world have trusted in the government of it by a supreme Spirit, and in that trust, or faith, have performed all their great actions, the history of these persons will finally mean the history of their faith; and the sum of intellectual education will be the separation of what is inhuman, in such faiths, and therefore perishing, from what is human, and, for human creatures, eternally true.* 20. These sixteen aphorisms contain, as plainly as I can speak it, the substance of what I have hitherto taught, and am now purposed to enforce practice of, as far as I am able. It is no business of mine to think about possibilities; any day, any moment, may raise up some one to take the carrying forward of the plan out of my hands, or to furnish me with larger means of prosecuting it; meantime, neither hastening nor slackening, I shall go on doing what I can, with the people, few or many, who are ready to help me. * See an entirely admirable paper on school-sports, in the World for February of this year.5 [Compare Vol. XXVII. pp. 50, 119-120, 129, 147, 449; and above, pp. 199– 200, 211.] [Wordsworth, Excursion, Book IV. Compare Vol. XXVII. p. 90 and n.] 3 [See Vol. XXVII. pp. 156-157, 384-385, 496; and above, pp. 118, 237, 615.] [See, for instance, Vol. XXVII. pp. 314, 481; and above, pp. 328, 519.] 5 [Here Ruskin has given a wrong reference. There is no such paper in the World for January-June 1876, nor is it in the Christian World.] Such help (to conclude with what simplest practical direction I can) may be given me by any persons interested in my plans, mainly by sending me money; secondly, by acting out as much as they agree with of the directions for private life given in Fors; and thirdly, by promulgating and recommending such principles. If they wish to do more than this, and to become actual members of the Company, they must write to me, giving a short and clear account of their past lives, and present circumstances. I then examine them on such points as seem to me necessary; and if I accept them, I inscribe their names in the roll, at Corpus Christi College, with two of our masters for witnesses. This roll of the Company is written, hitherto, on the blank leaves of an eleventh-century MS. of the Gospels, always kept in my rooms; and would enable the Trustees, in case of my death, at once to consult the Companions respecting the disposition of the Society's property. As to the legal tenure of that property, I have taken counsel with my lawyer-friends till I am tired; and, as will be seen by the statement in the second page of the Correspondence, I purpose henceforward to leave all such legal arrangements to the discretion of the Companions themselves. 1 [Ruskin afterwards signed another roll, which then (1884) contained seventyseven names. This roll is in the custody of the present Master of the Guild, Mr. George Baker. For other references to the roll of the Guild, see above, pp. 377, 459.] 2 T XXVIII. NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE 21. (I.) AFFAIRS of the Company. The new purchases of land round our little museum at Sheffield have been made at rather under than over the market price of land in the district; and they will enable me, as I get more funds, to extend the rooms of the museum under skylight as far as I wish. I did not want to buy so soon; but Fors giving me the opportunity, I must take it at her hand. Our cash accounts will in future be drawn up, as below, by our Companion, Mr. Rydings, to whom all questions, corrections, etc., are to be sent, and all subscriptions under fifty pounds. 22. The following letter from Messrs. Tarrant will be seen to be in reply to mine of the 6th May, printed in last Fors. From the tone of it, as well as from careful examination of my legal friends, I perceive that 1 [See above, p. 611.] 2 [See Letter 66, § 19 (p. 629).] |