The record-union., 1897-08-15
BETTERMENTS FOR PUBLIC
SCHOOLS.

Sarah W. Whitman has made a valu-
able contribution to educational science,
by her graceful and forcible paper in
the Atlantic Monthly" on "Art in the
Public Schools" The title is mislead
ing; the essayist does not refer by it to
the teaching of drawing which is not art
instruction in the true sense. Her mean
ing is a great deal broader and deeper.
It will well repay to follow the out
lines of this admirable plea for feeding
the taste for the beautiful, which all
human beings have in some degree.
There is universal longing for the beau
tiful, a craving for it and the proof is
manifest constantly and among all
manner of people. The belief is that
this dumb demand may be, in most part,
satisfied through the agency of the pub
lie schools.
In this We are in full accord with the
essayist. Environment more influences
youth than age. Give to children's art
perceptions opportunities for develop
ment; open to them the things beauti-
full; teach them to know that which ex-
cites their admiration and appeals to
their love of beauty, and we refine, hu-
MAMIE and uplift; no matter what the
physical surroundings; in some degree
we better and elevate, and in just that
degree we secure the citizen Of law
abiding, of cleanliness, of justice and of
mercy.
SO we follow Mrs Whitman with even
more than sympathetic interest. She
points out that which we all know, that
art demands time of peace; it was not
to be expected, therefore, that in our
beginnings as a nation we could do any
thing for art among children in the
schools, for our communities had no Wis
ibIe past, and their future was con-
Jectural.
But we have now arrived at period
when all conditions are favorable for
art in popular education. The archi-
lecture of our earlier schoolhouses was
all opposed to art tastes; cold, barren,
unadorned shanties deficient in all
day we have commodious, well-nghted,
well-aired school buildings, but they
provide very little beyond material COM
fort and respond but little to the mar
ticulate, uncultivated love of beauty.
The Columbian Exposition at Chicago
proved by the eagar and absorbing
manner in which the masses drank in
the beauties Of noble architecture how
hungry is this love for the beautiful. 1t
is related of an overworked, worn wife
from a Minnesota farm, who visited the
exhibition, that she exclaimed, when
I saw the Peristyle, cried" This was
a passionate expression of longing for
the beautiful, mingled with the sorrow
that springs from regret, that contem
plates a thirst that may not be satisfied.
What Mrs Whitman would have may
be thus summarized: In addition to
large rooms, good ventilation, plenty Of
light and convenient furniture, she
would have school buildings by their
architecture and artistic adornment ap-
peal to, quicken and cultivate the art
perceptions of the children. For it is
here that ideals are formed and here, for
greatest part, our children get their first
impression of many things that enter
consciously or unconsciously into life,
creating ideas and controlling behavior
A thoughtful man, educated in a color
less. dreary and inartistic schoolhouse,
said once that from a window of the
dreary room where he studied. he could
see a little river which wound along in
the meadow, and the thoughts it ava
kened had affected his whole life.
The entrances to the school should be
as inviting as to the home; the yard
should be well kept, have a bit of ever
green, flowers in season, and vines wher-
ever possible.
Within the building all treatment
should tend to make a rational, beauti-
ful whole. All violent colors should be
avoided and all dark ones especially. The
tones should be suited to position and
use and always those which from room
to room are related to one another.
The entrances should be cheerful yell
low, or pleasing red; in bright sunny