The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1896-11-26
beautiful in form and color in their every

in the means of culture and enjoyment
bought by money, can grow up iii you
will just take pains to help start them
right with a capacity for taking delight
in little every day things that cost moth
ing, except the trouble of noticing that
they are there. And, as matter of
fact, there are not only moral reasons for
trying to wake up the sense of beauty in
chldren-there are the most ''practicaP'
dollar and-ce reasons, if you want that
kind. Do you know why the United
States spends millions every year for
articles manufactured in France rather
than buy things of the same general kind
manufactured at home? 1t is because
French artisans have been trained from
childhood to appreciate the difference be-
tween beautiful things and crude, clumsy,
ugly things, and have been taught to put
good taste into the work of their hands.
There is no reason on earth why American
manufactures should not be of as high
grade and artistic quality as the French,
if only the people engaged in our indus
tries are equipped with the right sort of
training. The power to read the Consti-
tuition and sign their names does not quite
cover the ground, you see. 1t is our ele-
mentary art education that comes into the
common schools under the title of draw
ing, which is going to gradually raise the
level of our industrial intelligence and
prosperity.
Not all the school children are going
into the trades and industries, do you say?
Very true. But are there any who will
not grow up to be purchasers and users
and consumers of industrial products?
Supply has to follow demand. 1t depends
greatly on the degree of cultivation in the
general public whether there is to be any
market for really good, beautiful, well
planned and well made things. The need
for elementary aesthetic training is every
where.
Now you see this work in drawing does
mean something. 1t means 50 much that
you simply cannot afford to do any less
than your best in handlingit. OF course,
you need good text books for the teachers
and text books for all the children, except
the very youngest ones The textbooks
for the teachers should lay out the work
clearly and Systematically, so that every
teacher can know just what she is driving
at, and can be free from HE danger OF
drifting into some triting side issue. The
course should include for every class some
work in the line OF fact drawing (the sort
of drawing used in the constructive indus
tries and trades. 1t should include work
in the line of decorative drawing and de
sign (for that also enters into all the
trades and industlieS). And it should in
elude work in the line of pictorial draw
ing (for an apprecatve understanding of
pictorial drawing means the power 10 get
immensely more pleasure and satisfaction
out of every good picture and every Illus
trated book and magazine that comes in
ones way, Even an elementary knowl-
edge of the principles of pictorial draw
ing and an elementary command OF its
processes are las | have already eXplained)
of the greatest assistance in other school
lessons. And there is always of course
the possibility of discovering in some
child real ability in the direction of the
fine arts. The chances are that you will
discover nothing phenomenal in the way
Of artistic sensibility and genius; but if
the school work should bring out one
really great artist in good many years it
would be one of the best investments ever
made in the State of Maine.
Besides text bocks for the teachers you
need text books for the children. Of
course | do not mean the old fashioned
copy books where children just painfully
initiate ready printed outlines of boxes
and buckets and birds and beasts-possi-
bly, not very good outlines at that. | mean
sensible, well planned, up to date books,
that will ensure the keeping of each pu-
Pills work all together, SO that his prog
ress can be seen and his special needs
noted; and that will give him, as he goes
along, good examples of drawing as sug-
gestions of how to do it. When you are
trying to develop boys ability in Eng
fish composition, you put as much good
FpUlj Sl rp9flipU a noSSihla in HE
that both his mind and his style of writ
ing may be improved. In just the same
way, when you are trying to develop
boys ability in drawing you need to put
as many examples of good drawing as
possible before him. The ideal thing
would DE to have every public school fur
nlshed with little museum of art eX-
amples; (that is the way the best French
schools are equippecD but we must be we'll
content for the present if we can have
few we'll chosen and well reproduced ex-
amples of industrial drawings and deco
ratlve designs and pictorial drawings in
the exercise books under each pupil
own hand The industrial drawings
should be made as a matter of fact always
from objects either present or imagined;
never from copies. But the drawing book
illustrations will suggest just the right
workman-like way to proceed in original
work. The pictorial sketches should be
made chiefly if not exclusively from OBJ
jects. But the drawing book illustrations
will give hints about the right ways to
express appearances and etfects-ways
which child Tor the average adult for
that matteD mightnot hit upon in months
of hopeless cropping and laundering by
himself
The drawing of historic ornament must
in the very nature of the case he directly
from copies. The work corresponds in
drawing to the reading of the very best
standard authors in Literature. And the
illustrations serve at the same time to
show good, effective, simple ways of
planning and drawing original decorative
designs.
Now what conclusions have we reached?
l. That drawing enters into all practi-
cal business affairs and all means of high
er culture to such an extent that we mus
give every child, high or low, rich or poor
in city or country, at least an elementary
understanding of it.
2. Drawing should be put into all
grades of schools, and be based on the in
dividual study of form in models and OBJ
jects. 1t should be taught as language
for expressing ideas.
3. Drawing should be regarded and
and treated as sensible, dignfied study