The citizen. [volume] (Berea, Ky.) 1899-1958, 1914-11-12
ADDRESS or MRS. T. C. DUNCAN
ON THE OCCASION OF THE DEDI-
CATION OF RUSTIC COTTAGE TO
THE WORKING OF THE FIRES1DE
INDUSTRIES

lNDUO hlBo
A short list Of Manual Laborers,
men who have been leaders of men,
yet we're some time hand workers
GObelin, a dyer.
Shakespeare, a wool carder.
Burns, plough man.
Lincoln, a rail splitter.
Grant, a tanner.
Carnegie, a weaver.
Orville Wright, maker Of aero
planes.
st. Paul, tent maker.
Our Master, Jesus Christ, a car
pentcr.
So am glad today to congratu-
late Berca College, to congratulate
Kentucky, on the noble Department
Of Preside Industries, now famous
throughout the world under the
wider name ARTS and Crafts" which
you have instituted in Berea and to
which this building is this day be-
ing dedicated.
/ II would be superfuous, and an
impertinence in me, a stranger, TO
rchearse here the tale of its Won
derful and Providential beginnings;
but | confess my heart thrilled
within me as | listened a night or
so ago to Mrs. Ernberg as, with
lashing eyes and brilliant speech, she
pictured the simple yet dramatic
genesis Of this work in its Berean
nativity.
And / must congratulate your
wise President on his happy selec-
lion of one to carry forward this
work in Berea, and, through Berea,
n the nation, whose eyes are upon
lou. Do you realize that they are
lpon you?
| think it was Thoreau who said
hat if any one can do anything bet
er than il has ever been done be-
ore, the footsteps of men will soon
1eat a pathway to his door, though
[ was in a wilderness. In your
resent Director of Fireside Indus
ries, President Frost detected such
| person, a woman with vision. yet
With trained hands subservient to
your ideals. Vision and skill are
he well matched pair that carry
men to success.
We have this from Tennyson:
I doubt not through the ages
)ne increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widen
ed
With the process of the SUNS"
IL seems far cry from 1850, when
can Gobelin first entered his little
I've shop, to the comprehensive
resent day technical schools (Open-
d primarily for the masses) with
heir new and loftier conception Of
he significance Of manual labor and
II symbolic manifestations in tech
lical art. There have been many
lalts on the way, yet in all ages
there have been those who never
bowed the knee to Baal, but saw, be-
yond the crudities and horrors OF
our composite art and often mean
ingless artistry, up to the holy mat
rimony Of beauty and use.
You here today are giving con-
crete expression to the truth that
art and craft may not be divorced.
Craft, divorced from art, loses its
dignity and, failing to beautify the
familiar things of every day life, be-
comes meaningless and Improbable
to the spiritual conception, while
art, divorced from craft, loses its
fecundity, cOnfers nothing on the
rank and file of mankind and is only
another glut in the homes of wealth.
II is to the joyful concord of these
two, that we owe our beautiful
cathedrals, our massive bridges, and
our delightful roadways, as well as
the utensils and furnishings that
make homes honey and preserve all
that is indestruGtible in commonest
things.
And so, as you pass and repass
this Temple of Industry day by day,
and hear the clink of the treadles
playing about the oaken beams, you
will be inspired by what Doctor
Frost and Mrs. Ernberg are clasping
hands to achieve-the idea, scarce
conceivable, to lift, by simplest ma
tive arts, the life of the mountain
people to the plane of seeing that
the essential beauty of the human
spirit can be translated into action
and permanency.
Mrs. Fannie Casseday Duncan,
1000 First St.,
Louisville, XIV.