Beautiful things have dignity. Enjoy the rhythm of your dancing and admire the beauty of your embroidery or your bookbinding. In whatever you do, have an ideal of excellence. Any separation between art and work is not only an error, but it is very bad business. Our brave allies, the French, have made Paris the art centre of the world. They have built up and maintain their large and lucrative trade in the decorative products of France, mainly by reason of three qualities which they possess. In the first place, they enjoy art themselves, and reverence it. In the second place, they have a tremendous power of hard work. And in the third place, every Frenchman, and still more every Frenchwoman, have within them an immense fund of common sense. The threefold secret is, Love of Art, Industry, and Common Sense. To make available our industry and common sense in the trades where they are wanted, rigorous training in schools of design and technique are necessary. We have such departments here. But all such training of you will be a failure unless you yourselves enjoy art and beauty as a natural recreation. A technical school of training is like a deep, narrow well, sunk with careful labour to tap the underground river of water which flows below the surface of our natures. But your well will be dry unless the bright warm sun has first drawn up the vapour from the wide ocean, and the free untrammelled breezes have carried the clouds hither and thither, until at length they break, as it were by chance over the distant hills and soak the land with their downpour. What I have said about art is a parable which applies to other occupations and other studies. It is more than a parable; it is the literal truth. The love of art is the love of excellence, it is the enjoyment of the triumph of design over the shapeless products of chance forces. An engineer, who is worth his salt, loves the beauty of his machines, shown in their adjustment of parts and in their swift, smooth motions. He loves also the sense of foresight and of insight which knowledge can give him. People say that machinery and commerce are driving beauty out of the modern world. I do not believe it. A new beauty is being added, a more intellectual beauty, appealing to the understanding as much as to the eye. The wonder of London ever takes the mind with fresh astonishment. The city possesses parks, and palaces, and cathedrals. But no other parts of it surpass in wonder its houses of business and its workshops and its factories.