ARE WE TOO LAZY?

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 323, 7 April 1928, Page 24

ARE WE TOO LAZY?

DECLINE OF ENGLISH CRAFTS LACK OF PATIENCE A bishop, who is also a skilled carpenter, is earnestly advocating the revival of the spirit of craftsmanship in this age of “soulless industrialism.’* Perhaps his plea is not ill-timed to a generation that is in danger of becoming over-mechanised. In any case, it is sad to think that the handcrafts, which once flourished in our English homes and enriched the architecture of their day, should in recent times have fallen into semidecay. Yet the fact remains that amazingly few people in this age show any inclination to pursue a time-absorbing, indoor hobby, writes Winifred Phillips in the “Daily Mirror.’*

Where there was once a devotion to wood-carving, to hand-weaving, or to tine embroidery, there is to-day a marked preference for billiards, bridge or cross-word puzzles. It is now a rare exception to hear of an amateur carpenter who has triumphantly furnished part of his home with the fruits of hours of happy toil in his little workshop. Or to meet a young bride who has filled her linen chest with exquisite specimens of her own work.

We pretend that we prefer machineturned furniture and machinestitched linen! Are we not all familiar with the popular argument, “Why ruin eyesight and waste patience on work which can be equally well (and more quickly!) accomplished by machinery?’*

This may be a superficially sound argument, but it is one which at once recalls the indictment made recently by a certain distinguished person, “English people have ability—but they are infernally lazy!”

After all, it does seem a pity to leave possible talents 'undeveloped. For, in so doing, we are robbing ourselves of one of the grandest joys in life—the joy of achievement. Quite recently I was visiting the ruins of an eleventh-century abbey, which still bears witness to the remarkable skill and patience possessed by those early builders. Turning to the keeper, I said, with excusable disloyalty to my own generation, “What wonderful craftsmen these monks must have been/* and the old man replied simply, “Well, miss, in those days they built to the glory of God —and their heart was in it!’*

What has caused this decline in the arts and craft 3 as spare-time hobbies? Is it really that we moderns are less endowed with natural skill? That the stress and strain of existing conditions leave no time for serious application? Or that we definitely regard it as an act of folly to make by hand what can be more easily made by machine?

In my opinion, it is none of these things. It is simply that we lack the necessary patience and perseverance to accomplish a self-imposed task of any magnitude. We pause, aghast, at the very thought of an undertaking which might take months, or even years, to complete. Without patience,, there can be little hope for craftsmanship!