Preface

In the following pages, originally written in a series of letters to The Hinḍū of Madras, I have endeavoured to set down in a form intelligible to expert and non-expert the results of twenty years’ practical experience in all teaching in India, hoping that they may be useful in promoting the cause I have at heart—the revival of Indian art and craft.

As Lord Minto declared recently, the most pressing questions of the moment in India are educational, sociological and industrial. All three are closely involved in the future of Indian art and craft, the preservation of which is not only vital to India but is a matter of international importance; for the possibility of building upon the basis of Indian civilisation and culture, a better social and industrial system than that which now exists in Europe is a matter which concerns all nations. In Great Britain national art education is a problem of which a satisfactory solution has yet to be found. In India, where the difficulties should be infinitely less, as the opportunities are so much greater, it can hardly be said with truth that it has ever received serious consideration from the Indian point of view.

E. B. Havell

London
February, 1912