THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR.

Northern Advocate, 29 August 1919, Page 4

THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR.

M/XT irt)Oß TO FAIRY I.AMD.

liV NULL! ('IC NT WADHAM

(Sculptor.)

Every real child loves an artist's studio, and feels at home in it, because every real artist's studio lies just next door to fairyland, and iwill always lie t'hore, us long as fairyland is the place where beautiful Impossible things live and sire true, and a studio i.s the place where beautiful impossible things are being , born ami are comiiit;- true (wliicli, when all is said siiid doiu\ is perhaps as good a definition of Art as any other). So because every child loves fairyland, he loves and instinctively feels at home in the next-dodr-hous<>. He will not understand a:ll that happens in it: subtle colour schemes and mysterious half-tones; complicated orchestrations, intellectual triuinp'hs, brilliant techniques—-these will barely affect him, but all that he understands he will love, and he will reach it through fairyland. CLL'E TO BBAUTIFIGATION. j Now thi's is, to me, a point of im- j niense importance, "it is a profitable doctrine and inuchimay be said of it" and must be said of it, I fancy, both by teachers and artists, if we are to malke progress toward a more beautifuland balanced civilisation. For in this close neighbouring , of Art to fairyland and the child's relation to both lies our clue for the beautifying of life, and if it is to be followed up, teachers and artists will have to work together to an extent at present scarcely dreamed of. EDUCATIONAL "EXTRAS." What happens to-day? Art, music, dancing- and so on are indeed "subjects" of the scthool curriculum, but most of tihem are "extras," to be indulged in only if the parents can afford them, and so the ehdld grows up to regard them as "extras," frills, unnecessary adjuncts to life that can be cut off without damaging the fabric of it, and he may be pardoned for never suspecting , that they come (poor things) from the house next door to fairyland, seeing that he lias to pass examinations in them as often as not. I z'ea-Uy wonder that fairy- | land itself has not been put on the examination list: I suppose it was of ? such little importance that the examiners mercifully overlooiked it! THE CHILD'S NATURAL CHOICE. Let us hope tlh'a.t these bad old days are nearly over; tihere is no long-er a civilisation left that uve can point to proudly as the result of them, the war has seen to that for us, and it is for us to follow up this advance wisely and well, by seizing upon every clue we can 'get, :and above by learning from the child. We know already that if we watdh children ■they will t'heniselves l'eveal their proper direction of growth, as surely as the" flight of aa arrow reveails the diection of its goal, and in the niatter of beauty, iflie child's unhesitating , flight towards fairyland—as swift ■and unerring , als any shaft loosed from the bow of the beloved Robin Hood himself—is indeed such a direction. We must be blind if we fail to see it, and stupid if upon consideration we fnil to appreciate its significance. FOOTPATH TO FAIRYLAND. The child knows instinctively ; the importance of fairyland, iand possesses by divine inheritance a direct right of way to it — his very own littile footpath that foe can'tread all times; and he also possesses, by virtue of his rigflits in fairyland , , an instinctive love of its neig'hoour, Art. Rut he has no right of way there — yet. He goes only as a visitor, upon invitation as it were, and sometimes —only too often —is never invited there iat till, and so never even knows of the house next door with its fascinating possibilities, And this is a tragic thing, , because as the child grows up, and throws inrore and more of himself into externals, his footpath is less often used, until it becomes faint and moss grown, and at last disappears, and tlhen alas the child, now a man, is cut off from fairyland, and can reach it only at rare times, in the lightning- flashes of joy and sorrow, or in the shadowy kingdom of dreams. THE STUDIO LINK. Alas for him tilien if he has never learned of the house next door, never played in it and loved it, for Hie will never know that though private footpaths iimiy fade, Art is the world's highway to fairyland—right throug-'h the heart of the studio it rurts to the shining neighbour, and once he ihas learned to tread that road, fairyland need never be exit off, and life need never become materialistic ,and sordid and not -worth while. And so we see that the studio is the limk between tUie child, the man,. and fairyland— waiting , to be forged to them, tihat the chain nuay be complete and unbroken, instead of the powerless ami disconnected thing it ia to-day.