30 JULY 1932, Page 11

The most successful of organizers of craftsmen in the West

holds tbitt nothing has so hampered success as the humility of the craftsmen. So urban and standardized has our com- munity become that the native rural artist must apologize for not being like the mass-producer. The village craftsman, as they say in Nova Scotia, " knocks " his own work instead of " boosting " it, as Sam Slick's British Columbian advised. It may be so ; but I have spoken lately with craftsmen who have as fine and dignified a pride in the quality and lasting endurance of their work as the members of a mediaeval guild. One of them almost cried with vexation because purchasers could not tell or appreciate the difference between a basket of cane that would last a generation and a botched thing of bad sallows already showing flaws. " Man needs must love the highest when he sees it " is a belief not wholly justified by the urban purchaser. It is still true of the country producer. • * *