There are certain ways of reciting verse and of speaking prose, certain
ways of walking on and off the stage, which are expressive, correct,
and necessary. To drop them is a sign of ignorance and decadence. They
cannot be replaced by something modern that is just as good: they are
a race inheritance. If you lose them you will have to re-discover them
subsequently, just as, if you were to lose the science of harmony, you
would have to discover it again before you could understand the music
of modern times. How is it that these practices and trade secrets of
the arts get preserved during periods of public indifference, when
perhaps the studios might forget them? It is by the institution of
Academies and Lyceums: by the endowment of galleries and theatres. The
nations of Continental Europe long ago resorted to state-supported
schools, galleries, and play-houses as a means of preserving tradition.
On the Continent no one is allowed to forget the old forms. They are
nursed and cultivated. The very nations which need training the least,
because of their natural talent, and of their proximity to the old
Mediterranean seats of culture, get the most of it, because of their
intelligent understanding of what art consists in. Among late-comers
at the table of civilization, and among young people generally, there
prevails an opinion that art is the result of genius, or of natural
temperament, or of race endowment. But the persons who have the
endowment of race, of temperament, and of genius know that art is a
question of training.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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