The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-03-22
DRAWING FROM LIFE.
The Art Teachers Recent Meeting in
 Hartford.

Hartford.
 At the conference of art supervisors and drawing teachers in Hartford Sat urday, papers were read by Victor I. Shinn of the Brooklyn, N. r., high schools drawing department; Miss Pot ter of New London; Miss Stella Skin- ner of the New Haven schools, and others. Miss Skinner's paper was on Primary Work and Illustration"
 Victor l. Shinn of the Brooklyn. N. Y, High schools drawing department, replied at some length to MT. Flagg of Hartford, who had made an address, holding that the teaching of drawing was not, so far as public schools are concerned, a matter of teaching art, but was the training of the eye to ob- serve, to see clearly and to express the thought by form. It is true that chill dren see without the influence of mind behind their eyes, and that being so, it is important that the factulty of sec ing should be trained, in order that they may be able to express ideas and to know in after life what they see and Tow they see it. Perspective is but mathematics when it is reduced to it's principles, and the laws governing it are not so important to the child as the fact that he sees truly. Drawing is not art, but training the eye to see.
 Miss Stella Skinner of the New Ha- ven schools followed in the same vein and illustrated by examples within her Knowledge the value of drawing from the pose, and Miss Rice of Providence spoke to the same purport. George Keller of Hartford said he was sur prised to learn from MT. Shinn that grade teachers who could not them selves draw were competent to teach drawing. He thought this was a sing ular statement and was sure that the work he had seen in Brooklyn under MT. Shinn's direction could not have been produced by such kind of teach ing.
 Miss Skinner adhered to MT. Shinn's proposition upon this point, saying that she had rather have the small children taught drawing by a broad minded grade teacher than by second rate, flippant art student, such as the salary provided would secure. This seemed to meet with the approval of the meet ing MT. Shinn stood by his conten- tion, but said that he hoped that in twenty years from now there would be no need of making such statement, as there would be grade teachers enough who could draw and teach as we'll. Mrs. Maynard of Springfield and MT. Campbell of the same city spoke in qualified support of the pose as the oth Of tnon1fpo o1t 11cr1, the latter was doubtful of its value in grades below the sixth. He was not sure but teaching the pose to children was a fad, but it was certain that it had interested them greatly.
 An entertaining feature of the after noon was the exemplification of a first lesson to children of six years old by MT. Flagg, at the request of the teach CTS, and return compliment by Miss Skinner, who gave first lesson in drawing to MT. Flagg, using a small box as an object. After the lesson was over MT. Flagg said:
 ''How long after giving this lesson to a child would you begin to teach from the .pose?"
 "Three months before" was the prompt reply.
 MT. Flagg asked repetition of the answer to make sure that Miss Skinner had made no mistake, and she main- .tained the position by saying that the child is more interested in life than in anything else and although it's first ex- pressions from life models would be crude-they would be expressions that with correction and teaching would bring to the child the lesson of feeling and spirituality.