The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-12-04

much less in other ways to brighten
 their lives
 All the best educators of young chil-
 dren recognize the value of form and 1 color study to the mind of the child
 One of our citizens has lately suggested the omission of color study in the first
 four grades, retaining it as an optional
 in the last four. This, to my mind
 shows entire ignorance of the nature of | color study and ignorance of the mind
 Spencer again:
 The spreading recognition of draw
 ing as an element of education is one
 amongst many signs of the more ra- I tional view on mental culture now be- | ginning to prevail Had teachers been | guided by natures hints, not only in | the making of drawing a part of edu-
 cation, but in the choice of their modes | of teaching it. they would have done | still better than they have done | What is it that the child first tries to | represent? Things that are large, things that are attractive in color, things round which its pleasurable as sociations most cluster--human beings from whom it has received so many emotions, COWS aud dogs which interest by the many phenomena they present, houses that are hourly visible and strike by their size and contrast of parts. And which of all the processes | of representation gives it most delight? Coloring. That priority of color to form, which, as already pointed out, has a psychological basis, and ill virtue of which psychological basis arises a strong preference in the child, should be recognized from the very beginning; and from the very beginning also the things initiated should be real"
 About year ago I attended a class of Miss Skinner's in color study The children were very young, and their paints were the three primary colors squeezed out on to tin plate. They were asked to look out of the window and paint the sky as they saw it, and they all painted blue daubs on their pa per. When the shade most like the sky was held up for them to see, they were asked to look again out of the window and say If they thought that the sky was equally blue in every part. The children looked and thought; and then the more observing said that the sky was much lighter as 1t came down to the earth Very well, then. they were asked to paint it so. Tn another room the children were painting a flower from the real thing, and am sure that in their walks to the country they ob- serve with new appreciation and pleas ure the beauties of nature. When MT. Kendall is asked if art study will help the boys and girls to get positions in the' various factories of the city, I reply that we support the public schools to make good citizens of our future men and women, not successful artzans, and that anything else is taking low view of education, which our colleges would be ashamed to endorse. Whether such art teaching as I have described could be done as well without supervisors men and women specialists, who teach the other teachers and continually teach the children themselves, do not know, but I very much doubt it. Per haps some of the supervisors might be dispensed with, but I, for one am a taxpayer who does not begrudge one dollar rightly spent on the education of the children. I say children, for the questions involved in the High School are of different nature
 EDITH F, SCHWAB. !