The Penn's Grove record., 1920-04-09
Cultivate The True,
Coed and Beautiful
Art In The School Creates High
er Thinking and Better
Living

The April meeting Of the Woman's
Club was held Tuesday afternoon in
the High School. In the absence of
the President and Vice President, Mrs.
Hannah Ashcraft presided. After the
business session the topic for the day,
"Music and Art" was taken up.
Mrs. Fred j. Peters described some
very beautiful pictures she had seen
and lectures she had heard and Miss
Rena Leap told of the recent visits of
members to the Academy of Fine Arts
in Philadelphia and some of the pic
lures seer there.
Mrs. Ralph P. Willis read the fol-
lowing paper on
The Value Of Art In The Schools
All great Art is the expression of
Mans delight in Gods work, not his
own.
The beauty in the grass, the trees,
the flowers are revelations of Gods
handiwork as much as the beauty of
the sunlight as seen in the rainbow
after the showers.
Art is the application of knowledge
or science to effect a desired purpose.
That desired purpose should be full
rounded development of all the facul-
ties of man to know how to use the
elements of the earth not only for
utility but to appreciate the true, the
beautiful and good.
The ancients divided arts into the
liberal and servile. Liberal arts are
grammar, logic or dialectics, rhetoric,
music, arithmetic, geometry, astrono-
my. The servile were the useful and
mechanical arts practiced by slaves.
Moderns divide the arts into fine arts,
as poetry, music, architecture, paint
ing, sculpture &C., and the useful arts
are the foundations of our school sys-
tenn. Esthetic or fine arts, the culti-
walton of the beautiful, has also long
been practiced in painting and sculp-
ture. Calling attention to pictures and
paintings, or better the practice of
making them is the best means of
teaching because greater impressions
ard more lasting are made on the
minds of The pupils. The skilled ar
list can show The beauty IN a uni1or-a
curve and the light and dark standings
or c~olorings. The beauties Of nature
are more fully appreciated by keen
observations and reproducing them on
paper or canvas.
Shakespeare says: Mature is above
art" One of the most important
things to teach is the observation of
nature and try to copy Oh initiate it.
The best paintings are the truest to
nature.
How many children observe the
beauties of nature and pluck the wild
flowers by the way side or are taught
to cultivate them. Teaching the parts
and colors of flowers by attempting to
draw them is helping to create a high
er love for the beautiful. The pic
lures of flowers, plants, birds and ami
mails in school books printed in colors
are of great value to attract the minds
but also to teach nature and to ap-
p~reciate it.
The writer visited a school room
once and was shown a book with such
pictures. The teacher had one sample
book and fifty children wanted it.
This instance showed the value of art
to hold the attention of children and
to better teach them.
1t has been said that many immi-
grants came to America with a rich
heritage of art and music that we
know not of. The paintings, sculpture
and music gave them many fine con-
ceptions altho they may be illiterate.
The older civilization is what makes
education and culture of superior val
ues. Most paintings, sculpture and
music have historic associations with
them that gives a national meaning of
value. They mean much to the ma
tional life.
There should be pictures of Ameri-
Fan life and national monuments in
the schoolroom to inculcate our patriot
ism. Instead of the ruined glories OF
pagan Rome, pictures of our National
and State capitols and the public off
Gals would more fully impress on the
children's minds the love of country
and a united people.
Art in the school rooms c~ultivates a
keener observation for all things in
nature about US. 1t creates not only
new conceptions but leads the mlnd
to think and the body to act.
True to nature the better 1t is for
the child, because wrong conceptions
should not be cultivated. Whatsoever
things are good, beautiful and true are
the best to teach in literature and art,
in the schools.