Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1906-12-22
LAST SESSION WILL BE HELD
THIS MORNING
David Starr Jordan and Others promi.
nent In Educational Work Talk
to holders Of Young
Minds

Art Education" was the topic of
G. p. Nelson yesterday morning. He
said i'm part:
when we consider the immense
amount of enthusiasm skill and en-
ergy that have i'm all ages and by all
peoples been expended i'm the produc-
ton of works of art, It Is to some ex-
tent surprising that no department
of mans work Is less understood
This lack of understanding is not
due to want of interest, for the instinct
Is universal that seeks harmony both
In form and color. But no matter how
natural the instinct, 1t requires cult
walton and right development, or it is
bound to remain primitive and crude.
Unfortunately, art has been con-
sidered a luxury, something we can
get along without, forgetful of the fact
that the profoundest intellects and the
highest genious of the race has found
expression in ideal works of beauty.
Its measure of value has been gagged
by the measure of mans development,
oblivious to the fact that the mind
is the measure of mans development
and that the sublime harmonies of the
arts are among the most potent influ-
ences in life.
Ask for Vital Place
1.-THE subject of art, therefore, will
never be given an important place in
any system of education until it is
realized that the love of beauty has a
vital place in human life. The love
of art means more than the love of
nature. for art is nature plus the es-
thetic genius of the human mind. 1t
is an Interpretation of creation, rather
than an imitation, and it's value lies
in the fact that it expresses the deep
est feeling of the artists mind, having
the power to awaken and stir the fin
est harmony in the consciousness of
the behoder.
1.-The scope of the artists work is
not confined to pictures, but enters
into every department of human ac-
tivity where things useful are made
beautiful, in proportion, form or color.
art education in the public school
should begin by placing the boys and
girls in beautiful class rooms, the col
or scheme of the room, the pictorial
and architectural decorations, should
form harmony as perfect as the color
composition in a picture. The silent
influence of this color symphony will
be as potent as that of masterpiece
in music, its sister art. Nor should
pupils be left in ignorance of the wide
spread activities in the field of modern
art, both in their own and in other
countries.
"The school will not aim to make
artists any more than it will make
writer's or musicians, but 1t will full
fill high purpose if 1t gives an intel
ligent impulse to the child's natural
love of things beautiful, an impulse
that once rightly started may expand
the mind and more perfectly round the
future activities to the benefit alike
OF the individual and the state"
Medical Inspection
Yesterday morning at the normal
school assembly hall in the section on
health and development DR.. j. A. Col
liver, who has just returned from New
York city, where he has spent several
months making special study of dis
eases of children, addressed the teach
ers on medical inspection of the school.
He said in part:
medical inspection of schools in New
York city is in the hands of the board
of health, under the direction of Dr.
J. J. Cronan. For eight years this
was concerned with COM
batting contagious and infectious dis
eases. 1t was noticed, however, that
a certain large per cent of children
were always absent during all cpl
denies and at every change of the
weather; also that a certain high per
cent were always backward in their
studies and that others were truants
This led the board to investigate. AS a
result a system was introduced by
which each child was to pass physical
examination. About 80 per cent of
incorrigible and truant
children were found physically imper-
feet as regards their eyes, nose, throat.
nutrition, locomotive apparatus and
other general bodily functions"
In speaking of eyes, for instance, he
said
"Four-ffths of all our knowledge is
obtained through sense of sight. The
per cent of short sightedness increases
as you pass up the grades. Inasmuch
as 1t is now established that about 30
per cent of children have defective
per cent defective hearing,
we have at once SO 1-3 per cent of the
physically unfit to pursue their
studies with the same mechanical adj
vantage that others do as regards the
eye and ear cases. New York reports
show plainly that so per cent of those
cases have procured glasses and thus
in this short period of the present
method of work about 300 children
have benefited.
"Is it any wonder that teachers and
school children are nervous wrecks
after years of class attendance? Thirty
three and one-third per cent of the
children cannot see properly and this
edge is closed to them. Others in the
class progress and advance easily; only
by the greatest energy do the defec-
tiVes progress. After a time a limit
is reached in their ability to keep up;
the strain is too great, then diffidence
possesses them, their pride dissatisfles
them, and this restless, dissatisfied
feeling eventuates in truancy or desire
to leave school and even the estab-
lishment of bad habits. How many
bad habits exist in the leaders of any
class? l dare say, not any. To them
study Is a pleasure, but the poor de-
fective who cannot look at a book
ten minutes in succession without
headache or nervous flushing going up
and down the spine, is it any wonder
that he relaxes? To think that these
conditions have existed for so long n
time without a remedy being applied
is, to say the least, not complimentary.
When you consider that two-thirds of
all pupils are physically defective and
that 40 per cent of these are back
ward or incorrigible as a result and
when you consider that 80 per cent of
ali the backward and truant boys are
defective and that very large per
cent improve I'm conduct and mentality
IL no