John Ruskin his Life and Work and John Ruskin Social Reformer

William Smart (1853–1915) became Professor of Political Economy at Glasgow University in 1896 and made numerous contributions both to economic theory and, through his well-known Economic Annals of the Nineteenth Century, to economic history. But, in the early 1880s when he wrote this piece on Ruskin, he was still employed in business. His short pamphlet originated as a lecture given to inaugurate the Ruskin Society in Glasgow and it is worth reprinting now principally because it offers a fine, early conspectus on Ruskin’s social thought which it places in the context of Ruskin’s life, developing interests, and schemes such as the famous St George’s Guild which he founded to try to demonstrate the practicality of his ideas. (Smart’s description of the Guild indicates that he was a functioning member of it.) It also gives the newcomer to Ruskin’s writings a good insight into the style and substance of Fors Clavigera, the long series of letters in which, in the 1870s, Ruskin concluded his attack on the economic foundations and the social philosophy of capitalism. In addition, the pamphlet contains brief, but clear and insightful, comments on a number of major Ruskinian themes such as the nature of wealth, usury and the use and abuse of machinery, which are still well worth reading today.