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. • * *
Previous page
