The Newtown bee., 1897-12-10

pear quite insensible to such things, is
unconsciously Influenced by the beauty
and refinement of his home. We all
know how children, unmerciful to torn
carpets and shabby furniture, can be
taught to respect what is fresh and
pretty and to take pride in helping to
keep it so.
fosters the civic virtues. Who can long
be rough and slatternly and Indifferent
in pretty, well kept house? If little
of the prettiness and order Is allowed to
overflow into each room, each member
of the family will come to regard him
self as holding share in the capital of
beauty, and as vitality interested in pre-
serving and increasing that capital.
Every woman who knows the truth of
what have been saying, takes pains to
surround her children with beautiful
things. They teach them to love and
reverence beauty, as they love and rev.
erence goodness. The child who is shut
out from beauty during great part of
each day, in the schoolroom with it's
bare walls, will soon lose his feeling for
If, and become Indifferent to the grace
and refinement of his home.
The Importance of beautiful surround
ings in making study interesting and
teaching easy is an other point worth
considering. How it helps teacher,
who is talking of art, or history, or
literature, to point to some portrait of
the poet or hero in question. And how
easily the child remembers the lessons
so aptly Illustrated. Some of you have
anticipated the work by hanging photo
graphs, prints and various decorations
of your own making, Every attempt of
this kind made by teacher is direct
evidence of the need, the vital need, of
the work we have undertaken. To those
who have been the pioneers in this work
| wish to point out the fact that beauty
as means of education, performs a
double office. True beauty teaches not
only love of itself but hatred of ugli-
ness; and not only of positive ugliness
but of the negative kind which is less
perceptible to the unframed eye, but
really just as harmful and deteriorating.
In art, as in literature and in conduct,
the child must be taught to care only
for the best. 1t is as easy to buy a
plaster cast or photograph of some
really great work of art as foolish
pink and white chrome. 1t pays to buy
the best. Care only for the best, and be
content to 60 without art rather than
dulge your pupil in diet of prettiness.
Such diet is harmful as perpetual
nibbling of sugar plums. 1t destroys
the healthy appetite for beauty, as eat
ing sweets between meals destroys the
appetite for wholesome food. Beauty
Is not sugar plum; it is sterner fare.
Feeding on this trash beauty may be
compared to the perpetual reading of
Fra fna
such reading destroys a taste for the
best literature. Better bare walls in
schoolroom than bad art. But nowadays
there is no excuse for either. The best
reproductions in plaster or in photo.
graphs can be obtained for a small
amount of money. The best is within
reach; let US for ourselves and our
children refuse anything less than the
best.
You see what it is we ask of you
We want you to join us in giving a
series of object lessons in beauty, not
only to the school children but to the
public and to the selectmen. We want
to teach this lesson of beauty 80 clearly
and so forcibly that special appropri
alton for decorating the other rooms of
Greenfield school with works of art will
be regarded as matter of course; and
meanwhile we want you to help our
Village Improvement Society in carry
ing on the work that has been begun.