SOME FUNDAMENTAL 
 
 EDUCATION 
 
 
 
 MAXIMILIAN P. E. GROSZMANN 
 
Copyright N°_ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
Some Fundamental 
 Verities in Education 
 
 BY 
 
 MAXIMILIAN Pi E. GROSZMANN, Pd. D. 
 
 Auttior of •■ The Career of the Child " 
 
 With a Symposium Preface by Frederick E. Bolton, 
 W. Grant Chambers, A. B. Poland, H. H. Home 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 iJSKTlet 
 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS 
 BOSTON 
 
Copyright, 1911, by Richard G. Badger 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 - 
 
 The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 
 
 %\x<ft> 
 
 ©CI. A 3 033 13 
 
SYMPOSIUM INTRODUCTION 
 
 I 
 
 FREDERICK E. BOLTON. . . .Page III 
 
 II 
 
 W. G. CHAMBERS p age VII 
 
 III 
 
 A. B. POLAND p age X 
 
 IV 
 H. H. HORNE Page XV 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 I 
 
 The principles enunciated by Dr. Grosz- 
 mann in this booklet were daring prophecies 
 a score of years ago. When the author first 
 wrought out and tested experimentally the 
 ideas therein expressed there were many, as 
 the present writer well remembers, who con- 
 sidered such doctrines as "fads." But Dr. 
 Groszmann and others saw clearly, tested 
 courageously, and demonstrated beyond ca- 
 vil that the "new fangled notions" and 
 "fads" were indeed fundamental verities in 
 educational procedure. 
 
 No one has demonstrated more thoroughly 
 than Dr. Groszmann that the processes of 
 education can not be wisely administered by 
 those who possess only knowledge of the 
 subject matter and "common sense." Edu- 
 cation is a science as well as an art and the 
 educator must have scientific knowledge of 
 the growth and unfoldment of the powers of 
 the being to be educated. 
 
 The great topic of the day is "conserva- 
 tion," but only the prophetic yet understand 
 that the supreme problem of conservation is 
 iii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the conservation of human mentality. This 
 must be accomplished by prevision in de- 
 tecting the moments of germination of the 
 unfolding possibilities of the awakening be- 
 ing. Dr. Groszmann long ago foresaw that 
 education is a problem in psychogenetic sci- 
 ence. The various examples which he has 
 used to illustrate his principles, especially 
 those drawn from the realms of motor ac- 
 tivities and artistic impulses, all show the 
 fact of nascent periods in development. Un- 
 mindful, however, of these inexorable laws 
 of growth, many a course of study ignores 
 the true order of development and pre- 
 scribes abstract studies at a time when motor 
 activities predominate and place the simple, 
 concrete and motor activities at a time when 
 the mind should have become capable of sus- 
 tained abstract thinking. How long shall we 
 be obliged to witness the spectacle of boys 
 and girls prattling the dry forms of abstract 
 grammar and arithmetic at a time when they 
 would so delight in making things, drawing, 
 and painting, learning the elements of sci- 
 ence, becoming masters in speaking foreign 
 languages, etc.? Later, in college, about 
 half of their time is occupied with learn- 
 ing details which could have been more 
 iv 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 easily and certainly mastered a decade be- 
 fore. A recognition of the fundamental 
 verities in education suggested by the au- 
 thor would make impossible such atrocities 
 committed in the name of education. 
 
 No truth is expressed better by the author 
 than the important idea that education is 
 not a process of filling minds, but rather a 
 matter of stimulating to natural expression. 
 Happily we are coming to recognize inter- 
 est as a means, and expression as an end of 
 all true education. The individual develops 
 only through expression and he is stimulated 
 to expression only by becoming genuinely in- 
 terested. Interests are also coming to be 
 recognized as direct functions of instincts 
 and stages of development. 
 
 As Dr. Groszmann indicates, the ideas ex- 
 pressed in this book are no longer new ideas. 
 Happily, through the heroic and far-sighted 
 work of the author and others who have in- 
 dependent ideas and the courage to advance 
 them, educational practice in the better 
 schools is coming to be well in line with the 
 principles maintained. But even now the 
 general public, the parents of the children 
 to be educated in our schools, have a very 
 vague idea of the significance of these prin- 
 v 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 ciples which are revolutionizing our pro- 
 cesses of teaching and education, and which 
 are in strong contrast to the traditional 
 school courses. 
 
 It is hoped that this little book, though 
 tardy in appearing, may serve as a guide to 
 many who still seek light and may give cour- 
 age to many others who understand but who 
 lack the courage of their convictions. 
 Frederick E. Bolton, 
 
 School of Education, 
 The State University of Iowa, 
 
 Iowa City, la. 
 
 VI 
 
II 
 
 The time is past when a justification of 
 constructive and artistic activities in educa- 
 tion is demanded by leaders in educational 
 thought. However, the frequent outbursts 
 in the public press against the fads and frills 
 of the modern school suggest that the lay 
 mind is not yet at rest in this matter. 
 
 Dr. Groszmann's little book, which I have 
 read with much pleasure, and which is, in a 
 sense, an elaboration of certain points pre- 
 sented in his earlier book on "The Career 
 of the Child", presents in simple form, with 
 numerous illustrations, the chief justification 
 for art and industry in education. Dr. 
 Groszmann's long experience both as an ad- 
 ministrator in well known schools and as a 
 student of the life of exceptional children, 
 makes his judgment as to the function of ac- 
 tivity, construction, and art creation, as 
 these processes affect the normal develop- 
 ment of the mind, especially valuable. 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting, certainly 
 the most original, feature of the book is the 
 development of the conception of the "cul- 
 ture epochs" in the sphere of art. The au- 
 thor has worked out quite a convincing argu- 
 vii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 ment in two parallel series of illustrations, 
 one set selected from the work of children, 
 the other from survivals of primitive art. 
 This demonstration supplements nicely, on 
 the side of expression, the older form of the 
 theory of "culture epochs'' which emphasized 
 chiefly the child's interests. The experi- 
 ment from which Dr. Groszmann's theory 
 emerged was worked out many years ago 
 in the Ethical Culture Schools, then under 
 his direction. 
 
 The complete education in our day in- 
 cludes more than preparation for industrial 
 success— more than conventional knowledge 
 —more than social efficiency. It must in- 
 clude an appreciation of the goodness and 
 beauty in the world in which the individual 
 is to live. Mental sanity depends no less on 
 the processes of construction, representation, 
 and appreciation, than it has long been 
 known to depend on normal perception, 
 judgment, analysis, and all the rest. The 
 suggestion herein developed that these ex- 
 pressive activities develop in an order de- 
 termined by racial evolution, along with their 
 underlying interests, while not wholly 
 unique, is very cleverly and clearly illus- 
 trated. It is no mere figure of speech to 
 viii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 speak of the principles brought out in this 
 little book as "Some Fundamental Verities 
 in Education". 
 
 W. G. Chambers, 
 School of Education, 
 University of Pittsburg, Pittsburg, Pa. 
 
 IX 
 
Ill 
 
 Progress in elementary school education, 
 during the last twenty-five years in the United 
 States, has been rapid. Aims have broad- 
 ened, method less often consists in memor- 
 izing facts from a text book, and results in 
 general show that the average grammar 
 school graduate of to-day has acquired in 
 school a better knowledge of the 3 R's than 
 did his predecessor of a generation ago. 
 Moreover, the grammar school graduate of 
 to-day has learned in school to do a great 
 many useful things such as drawing, manual 
 training, sewing, cooking and the like. But 
 despite all this there exists, as always hereto- 
 fore, a widespread dissatisfaction with the 
 results achieved. Investigations such as that 
 recently had in Baltimore and such as that 
 now being conducted in New York City, bear 
 witness to the unrest and dissatisfaction of 
 the public at large. 
 
 For twenty-five years or longer there has 
 been developing gradually a public self- 
 consciousness of the insufficiency of former 
 aims in education to meet modern social and 
 industrial needs. With the increasing wealth 
 of the country the disposition to realize new- 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 cr aims has grown pari passu, until wc now 
 find the public mind altogether unsettled and 
 at times reactionary. 
 
 The chief cause alleged for present dissat- 
 isfaction with the schools is the congested 
 course of study which by natural implication 
 leads to the conviction that essentials are be- 
 ing neglected; second to this is the rapidly 
 growing cost of school maintenance. To de- 
 fend the latter by comparison with the in- 
 creased cost of living is useless; the public 
 might perhaps be satisfied if they were get- 
 ting what they demand, namely, a more per- 
 fect knowledge of, and skill in, the 3 R's. 
 To convince the public that these studies are 
 being taught much better than they were a 
 generation ago before the newer studies had 
 been introduced, seems to be futile. The 
 public will not believe it, for the time given, 
 it is said, is inadequate ; moreover, the facts, 
 it is alleged, do not warrant it. 
 
 If attention is called to such comparative 
 tests as have been made in Norwich (Conn.), 
 Springfield (Mass.), and Cleveland (Ohio), 
 showing as they do in each instance that bet- 
 ter results are being obtained in the 3 R's 
 than formerly, the public is still unconvinced. 
 
 Occasionally educators themselves, by 
 xi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 their public confessions, add fuel to the 
 flames of popular dissatisfaction. Thus the 
 National Education Association at its Cleve- 
 land meeting, in the year 1908, adopted in 
 its declaration of principles a resolution to 
 the effect that "diversified and overburdened 
 courses of study in the grades" should be 
 subordinated to a "thorough drill in the es- 
 sential subjects." 
 
 It is unfortunate, indeed, that we have no 
 adequate standards by which to measure the 
 products, and hence the progress, of edu- 
 cation. True, for some time back, the Na- 
 tional Bureau of Education, the Russell 
 Sage Foundation and other independent 
 agencies have attempted, with greater or 
 less success, to determine the relative effi- 
 ciency of schools and school systems in the 
 cities of the United States. The methods 
 pursued, however, have been solely quanti- 
 tative. Facts concerning the number of pu- 
 pils who leave school before completing the 
 prescribed course of study, facts concerning 
 the number of pupils who repeat the work of 
 the several grades, and figures to show the 
 probable additional cost entailed by such 
 repeating, are all quantitative and discover 
 little pr nothing of the qualitative, or real, 
 xii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 aspects of education. Information of the 
 latter kind can be ascertained only by an en- 
 tirely different method, namely, that of ex- 
 amining pupils as to their actual proficiency 
 in the studies taught and in their capacity to 
 do things. Until, in fact, such tests have 
 been applied, it will be impossible to show 
 statistically the measure of progress made 
 by the schools, great as we ourselves believe 
 it, and personally know it, to have been. 
 Meanwhile, the broader aims and better 
 methods advocated by Dr. Groszmann have 
 helped the situation immeasurably. 
 
 As an illustration of the reactionary ten- 
 dency, the last session of the Legislature of 
 the State of New Jersey amended its school 
 laws, by enacting a provision requiring a 
 uniform State examination in order to grad- 
 uate pupils from a grammar school into a 
 high school. The examination extends to 
 the 3 R's only, including geography and his- 
 tory of the United States. 
 
 The practical results of such legislation, 
 if allowed to remain on the statute books, 
 can not be other than to set back the wheels 
 of progress a generation at least. It will 
 cause, necessarily, undue emphasis to be laid 
 on the purely formal, or examinable, as- 
 xiii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 pects of the common school branches ; it will 
 cause most teachers to ignore to a very large 
 extent the real elements of knowledge in 
 which, rather than the formal, educators of 
 late have been more deeply concerned. The 
 raison d'etre for such reactionary legislation 
 is to be found in (a) inability to appreciate 
 the fundamental conceptions of what is 
 needed in an industrial democracy, (b) over- 
 appreciation of the utility of an elementary 
 school curriculum in which undue emphasis 
 is placed, as in this case, on the 3 R's. It is 
 the purpose, I take it, of Dr. Groszmann in 
 bringing out this last monograph to combat, 
 so far as possible, this reactionary tendency. 
 The writer takes pleasure in being able 
 to recall vividly the utterances of Dr. 
 Groszmann made in the early 90's along 
 these lines. These early utterances were re- 
 garded by many of the best educators in 
 New York and vicinity, who were fortunate 
 enough to hear them, as doubtless sound in 
 theory but too visionary and remote to be 
 put into immediate practice. Indeed, the 
 looked upon at that date as being an educa- 
 looked upon at that date, as being an educa- 
 tional experiment of very doubtful value. 
 But times have changed and a better phil- 
 xiv 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 osophy now prevails. That Dr. Grosz- 
 mann's views have been so generally ac- 
 cepted among the educators in all parts of 
 the country must be to him a matter of great 
 personal, as well as professional gratifica- 
 tion. 
 
 I consider "The Career of the Child" and 
 its companion book "Some Fundamental 
 Verities in Education" as valuable and time- 
 ly contributions. They can not fail to be 
 gratefully received by the public, lay as well 
 as professional, and will be likely to exert a 
 favorable influence upon the reactionary ten- 
 dencies to which allusion has been made. 
 A. B. Poland, 
 Superintendent of Schools, 
 
 Newark, N. J. 
 
 xv 
 
IV 
 
 A Brief Notice of the History and Phil- 
 osophy of the Motor Element in Education. 
 
 The demand of this book is that the mo- 
 tor element in training be made fundamen- 
 tal, consequently that the sensory element be 
 made secondary. The motor element in 
 general represents the educative influence of 
 action; in this book it is represented by the 
 two activities of manual training and art. 
 The sensory element in general represents 
 the educative influence of thought, especially 
 through the use of books. 
 
 Historically the sensory element has been 
 primary in education and the motor element 
 secondary. The Greeks regarded labor as 
 menial, though they excelled in the artistic 
 self-expression which slave labor made pos- 
 sible. The Romans were not above work 
 but they lacked in artistic self-expression. 
 Thus each of the classical nations lacked one 
 of two elements in motor training herein dis- 
 cussed. Among the Greeks the life of 
 thought dominated the life of action; among 
 the Romans the life of action dominated the 
 life of thought, and their schools, which 
 xvi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 produced the orators of Rome, reflected this 
 fact. 
 
 The mediaeval curriculum aimed to disci- 
 pline mind and body rather than to develop 
 them. Labor was regarded as a necessity, 
 not as an education; it consumed time that 
 otherwise might be misspent in idleness. 
 The sensory element of impression domin- 
 ated the motor element of expression. 
 
 The Renaissance revived the intellectual- 
 ism of Greece, and the whole modern cur- 
 riculum until twenty-five years ago has been 
 dominantly a matter of knowledge rather 
 than one of efficiency. Luther demanded 
 handwork to accompany headwork without 
 fully appreciating the educational significance 
 of his demand. Pestalozzi in his long life of 
 educational experimentation began to catch 
 glimmers of the educative value of hand- 
 work. Froebel first grasped the full educa- 
 tional significance of occupations and crea- 
 tive self-expression. Though the past twen- 
 ty-five years have seen the general recogni- 
 tion on. the part of leaders of educational 
 thought and of the most advanced school 
 systems of the truths behind the demand for 
 motor training, on the practical side the rev- 
 olution of the curriculum remains yet to be 
 xvii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 effected. This text is another voice calling 
 for the revolution. 
 
 On the philosophical side the demand for 
 motor in distinction from sensory training 
 means an emphasis on the will in distinc- 
 tion from the intellect. The conflict between 
 the claims of will and intellect is indicated by 
 the terms voluntarism versus intellectualism. 
 To the voluntarist the will is the essential 
 characteristic of man, to the intellectualist 
 man is essentially a thinking, not an active, 
 being. In educational philosophy Herbart 
 made the pendulum swing in the direction of 
 intellectualism, and our modern school meth- 
 ods have mainly followed him. 
 
 But the rise of the biological sciences in 
 the latter half of the nineteenth century have 
 stressed the deep place of instincts in life, 
 especially in the lives of children. Reason 
 appears to have the practical function of 
 guiding action instead of the intellectual 
 function of pure thought. Schopenhauer has 
 especially represented the primary place of 
 will and the secondary place of intellect. In 
 educational philosophy Froebel again has 
 represented the active side of our natures. 
 The remarkable pragmatic philosophy of 
 our own day is again a variant form of vol- 
 xviii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 untarism. The educational philosophy of 
 the next generation is likely to be voluntaris- 
 tic rather than intellectualistic. And, by im- 
 plication, it is the voluntaristic philosophy 
 that underlies the demands of this book. 
 
 In sum, the history and philosophy of edu- 
 cation are ready for the next step forward, 
 viz., the substitution of the motor for the 
 sensory element as fundamental in training. 
 H. H. Horne, 
 School of Pedagogy, 
 New York University. 
 
 xix 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 THIS small volume is a companion 
 to my book, "The Career of the 
 Child from the Kindergarten to 
 the High School," which has just 
 appeared. It emphasizes some of the argu- 
 ments presented there, and endeavors to 
 prove the fundamental value, in edu- 
 cation, of the native instincts and ten- 
 dencies of the child. While laying 
 particular stress upon the manual and 
 creative side of educational method, and 
 thus connecting more particularly with chap- 
 ters VI (The Manual Principle) and VII 
 (Kinds of Manual Expression) of the other 
 book, the present argument goes to the main 
 springs of child activity and interest, and 
 proposes to base educational science upon a 
 foundation of psychogenetic understanding 
 of the child soul, which in turn must find one 
 of its sources in an appreciation of those phy- 
 logenetic facts which are so often overlooked 
 in the discussion of educational problems. 
 
 This volume also adds an experimental 
 justification to the theory of developmental 
 periods, or culture epochs, of the child as 
 offered in Chapter v of "The Career of the 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Child" which treats of a rational course of 
 study. The experiments made in the "Ethi- 
 cal Culture School' ' of New York were later 
 repeated in various forms by the author in 
 other schools of this country, notably the 
 schools of Menomonee, Wisconsin; and 
 everywhere the same conditions were found 
 to be existing, thus further corroborating the 
 theory advanced. As it is easy to make simi- 
 lar tests anywhere, following the same sug- 
 gestions, anyone may convince himself of the 
 truth or error of my contentions. Experi- 
 mental work of this kind, in other words the 
 method of the pedagogical laboratory, will 
 elucidate other disputed problems of child 
 development and child psychology, and we 
 may look forward to the time when peda- 
 gogy will in reality be an exact science. 
 
 The experiments related in this volume 
 were made over a decade and a half ago. 
 And the manuscripts of my book on "The 
 Career of the Child" as well as of the pres- 
 ent one were written ten years ago. Some of 
 the chapters have since appeared in the form 
 of articles in various magazines; and all of 
 them were at some time or other made pub- 
 lic in the form of lectures. But while the 
 original manuscripts were of course revised 
 before they were presented for publication 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 in book form, little or nothing of the original 
 argument appeared to need change, and very 
 little new material had to be added. Altho 
 it is but natural that the educational world 
 has been moving ahead since the idea of these 
 books was first conceived, it will be found 
 that the educational philosophy here ex- 
 pressed is still distinctly modern. This book 
 may at least serve, on the one hand, as a 
 resume of previous efforts to formulate edu- 
 cational principles; and on the other, as a 
 starting point for further discussions. 
 
 Maximilian P. E. Groszmann, 
 "Watchung Crest", 
 
 Plainfield, N. J., October, 191 1. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction ........ ... .,. ., iii 
 
 Foreword . ., 5 
 
 PART ONE 
 
 Manual Culture and Sense Training 
 
 i —Knowledge Never Learnt of Schools 19 
 
 2— Motor and Sense Training 24 
 
 3— The Lesson of the Centipede. .... 38 
 
 4— Experience vs. Book Learning. ... 42 
 
 5— The Philosophy of the Tool 46 
 
 6— Not a New Branch, but a Method. 50 
 
 PART TWO 
 
 Art Culture and Art Expression 
 
 1— The Esthetic Attitude 59 
 
 2— Expression Thru Art 62 
 
 3— An Experiment, and Conclusions 
 
 Therefrom . 78 
 
 4— Interpretation and Symbolism in Art 
 
 Expression 86 
 
 5— Artistic Culture Epochs 93 
 
 6 — Suggestions as to a Course in Art 
 
 Training , ... 108 
 
 Conclusion . . ., 116 
 
 9 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Figure 
 
 i & 2 — Moqui Canteen, New Mexico 
 
 3 & 4 — Clay Figures 
 
 5-7 — Clay Figures 
 
 8 & 9 — Free Hand Cuttings, Grade ill 
 
 10 — Crayon Drawing, Grade Hi 
 
 11-13 — Crayon Drawings, Grade iv 
 
 14-17 — Crayon Drawings, Grade iv 
 
 18 — Crayon Drawing, Grade v 
 
 19 — Crayon Drawing, Grade vi 
 
 20 — Crayon Drawing, Grade vn 
 
 21 — Crayon Drawing, Grade vm 
 
 22 — Egyptian Drawing — A Pond with Palms 
 
 23 — Child's Drawing — A Pond with Trees 
 
 24 — Shaman's Lodge (Alaska) 
 
 25 — Child's Drawing — A Pond with Trees 
 
 26 — Ojibwa Medicine Lodge 
 
 27 — Child's Drawing — A Pond with Trees 
 
 28 — Egyptian Drawing — the Brickmakers 
 
 29 — Egyptian Drawing — the Coffinmakers 
 
 30 — Child's Drawing 
 
 II 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Figure 
 
 31 a & b — Shoemaker and Portrait 
 
 31 c — Still Life Drawing 
 
 32 — Clay Modeling 
 
 33-35 — Colored Drawings of Indian Vase 
 
 36 — Priam's Visit to Tent of Achilles 
 
 37 — A Winter Scene 
 
 38— Clay Modeling 
 
 12 
 
SOME FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES 
 IN EDUCATION 
 
 THE education of our children, in 
 the schools and in the homes, has 
 in a large measure been dictated 
 by the prevailing fashion of 
 thought. The result has not always been to 
 the satisfaction of those who made it their 
 business to adjust the natural child to these 
 varying fashions. Fashion is no respecter of 
 healthy bodies; it twists and distorts them 
 into artificial shapes, and ruins their health. 
 Thus, educational fashions are apt to distort 
 and destroy a child's natural instincts and 
 produce artificial minds and misfits. 
 
 Endeavoring to make the children con- 
 form to preconceived ideas as to what they 
 ought to be, we have often forever spoiled 
 their best talents. They were hedged in by 
 so many OUGHTS, and trimmed off here 
 and there to make them suit the artificial pat- 
 tern that their natural growth became seri- 
 ously interfered with. We insisted that 
 they ought to act in certain ways, that they 
 ought to feel fine things such as adults 
 thought were right, and noble, and sublime. 
 But we failed to inquire into what the children 
 really did think or feel, or whether they were 
 
 13 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 at all capable of feeling, thinking, and act- 
 ing as we expected them to do. 
 
 Unfortunately, it is quite easy to make 
 young children conform outwardly to our 
 rules, accept our standards in a conventional 
 way, and follow blindly our suggestions. But 
 the final outcome is not seldom in the nature 
 of an appalling surprise to parents and 
 teachers. And then there are lamentations 
 and astonishment: Had we not done all we 
 could for the boy who turns out to be way- 
 ward? Had we not given him the very best 
 education possible? Probably, we had not. 
 The real nature of the child had remained 
 an unknown quantity to us which we really 
 had not cared to discover. What we had 
 been educating was a shadow— the real 
 self of the child, perchance, we did not 
 touch. While we were trying to mold 
 the child after the best approved pat- 
 tern, there were underground forces at work 
 which slowly gathered strength, often from 
 the very repression, and finally blew up our 
 artificial structure from within, leaving ruin, 
 and desolation, and wailing. 
 
 The new message is: Let us first under- 
 stand what the child does feel, not what he 
 ought to feel; what he can do, not what we 
 would like him to do; and then we may ex- 
 14 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 pect to be able to make him a man in the 
 service of the highest ideals of the race, one 
 who is first of all himself, and true to him- 
 self, not a copy of somebody else, not mere- 
 ly an "average" man, after the common 
 fashion: but an individuality, free, strong, 
 aspiring to the noblest. 
 
 Our traditional education, with all its 
 modern embellishments, is still only too deep- 
 ly concerned in repressing the natural in- 
 stincts of children. We force them to give 
 up their paradise of dreams, fancies and 
 play-activities, their glee and noise, and tie 
 them down, at a tender age, to school 
 benches and desks, and slates and books, 
 torturing their immature brains into dull- 
 ness. We rejoice when our artificial drill 
 succeeds in making them precocious, and im- 
 itators of adult ways, not imagining that we 
 have perhaps killed the divine germ of spon- 
 taneity and individuality in its very infancy. 
 We praise the quiet, sedate, blase child who 
 does not disturb the class room discipline as 
 a laudable product of successful education, 
 and wreak vengeance on the sinner who bus- 
 tles about in unrestrainable boisterousness. 
 And we ignore the fact that health means 
 vigor, noise, activity with a child; that real, 
 
 15 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 wholesome self-control can only come with 
 maturity, and that the quiet child is generally 
 an abnormal child, physically, mentally, or 
 morally. 
 
 True, intellectual work, as ordinarily un- 
 derstood, is a form of activity very welcome 
 to most children at certain stages of their 
 growth, and becoming more and more en- 
 joyed by them as their minds mature. But 
 at no stage, during the age of childhood, can 
 it form the exclusive occupation, or the prin- 
 cipal, or most normal, form of the children's 
 activity. Even the most studious child, if 
 in the enjoyment of normal health, will get 
 weary of continuous poring over books, of 
 memorizing, writing, and figuring, in school 
 and in the dreary hours of home work 
 which curtails his rest and play; and in cer- 
 tain periods, a fit of aversion to study will 
 take hold of every one. These symptoms of 
 a rather healthy development we are only 
 too apt to denounce as due to moral perver- 
 sion, laziness, naughtiness, and what not. 
 There would be fewer breakdowns, less of 
 nervous debility and irritable temper, less in- 
 efficiency and failure in after-life, if childhood 
 were given its native rights, if the needs of 
 children were better understood. 
 16 
 
PART I. MANUAL CULTURE AND 
 SENSE TRAINING 
 
Knowledge Never Learnt of Schools 
 
 ONE of the foremost characteris- 
 tics of healthy child life is the 
 play instinct of children. A play- 
 ing child is a happy child; a child 
 that plays with absorbing interest is normal 
 and in satisfactory condition. Loss of the 
 play interest is a danger signal. What is 
 presented in play form is eagerly taken up 
 and commands supreme interest. The play- 
 ing child exercises all his powers — never gets 
 tired until physically exhausted; he is inven- 
 tive, original, wonderful. The playing child 
 lives in a world by himself, glorious, full of 
 beauty, rich in possibilities; nothing is im- 
 possible. Thru play mainly is it that the 
 true natural instincts of the child manifest 
 themselves, and a wealth of experience, and 
 the power to do, are acquired. 
 
 It is a common experience among princi- 
 pals of schools that parents are very anxious 
 to have their children leave the kindergarten 
 and be advanced to the school classes proper 
 at as early an age as possible so that they 
 might begin to "learn" something. Learn 
 —what? Some figuring on slate and black- 
 board, some drawing of clumsy letters, some 
 19 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 so-called reading, stutteringly performed, of 
 brilliant thoughts such as : "I see a cat. 
 The cat can run." Is that learning? True, 
 it leads up towards an avenue of learning 
 which is more or less useful to all, and par- 
 ticularly so to some who are gifted in that 
 direction. But there is a wealth of experi- 
 ence and education to be gathered outside 
 of this narrow path of ordinary school in- 
 struction. Indeed, it has been urged, on the 
 ground of a more accurate knowledge of the 
 child's stages of mental and physiological 
 development, that these formal branches 
 should properly be postponed to a later per- 
 iod. The child is learning vastly more than 
 the superannuated believer in the gospel of 
 the three R's has begun to imagine, by 
 using his eyes and ears and hands for 
 a boundless variety of activities other 
 than counting up two and three is five, 
 or reading, "My cat sees a mouse", or 
 awkwardly flourishing a capital C. A 
 sorry child that knows and learns no 
 more than that. As Professor Preyer has 
 said: "A child in the first three or four 
 years of his life learns as much as the stu- 
 dent in his entire university course." Well 
 may Whittier's "Barefoot Boy" be quoted 
 20 
 
Knowledge Never Learnt of Schools 
 
 who gains — 
 
 "Knowledge never learnt of schools, 
 Of the wild bee's morning chase, 
 Of the wild flower's time and place, 
 Flight of fowl and habitude 
 Of the tenants of the wood; 
 How the tortoise bears his shell, 
 How the woodchuck digs his cell; 
 And the groundmole sinks his well; 
 How the robin feeds her young, 
 How the oriole's nest is hung; 
 Where the whitest lilies blow, 
 Where the freshest berries grow, 
 Where the groundnut trails its vine, 
 Where the woodgrape's clusters shine; 
 Of the black wasp's cunning way,— 
 Mason of his walls of clay, — 
 And the architectural plans 
 Of gray hornet artisans! 
 For, eschewing books and tasks, 
 Nature answers all he asks; 
 Hand in hand with her he walks, 
 Face to face with her he talks, 
 Part and parcel of her joy, — 
 Blessings on the barefoot boy! 
 ****** 
 
 He learns all this multitude of lessons 
 21 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 practically without a teacher, unless it were 
 his father or mother teaching him a commun- 
 ity with nature on those precious walks into 
 the open which now-a-days, alas ! are becom- 
 ing a thing of the past,— the bustle and noise 
 of the big cities swallowing up all this sweet- 
 ness of bygone times. He learns them quite 
 spontaneously and joyously, thru his play, 
 thru his natural activity which develops his 
 muscles, his nerves, his senses, his brain. 
 And he learns them so easily because they are 
 a matter of supreme interest to him, not 
 made a sorry task by a grumbling, critical 
 schoolmaster. To tell the truth, I have little 
 faith in the old Puritanical idea that there 
 is virtue in drudgery, and that we can 
 strengthen our moral nature materially by 
 doing what is distasteful to us. We shall do 
 our best only when our whole soul is in the 
 work; and that can only be when we are 
 supremely interested, when a motive behind 
 the act spurs us on, when we can be our- 
 selves in expression and activity. 
 
 Play is the child's work. What is the dif- 
 ference between play and work as the latter 
 is ordinarily conceived? "Compel a boy to 
 continue quietly his game of marbles after 
 an alarm of fire has sounded in his neighbor- 
 22 
 
Knowledge Never Learnt of Schools 
 
 hood, and play has changed to labor." 
 (Johnson). 
 
 It may be claimed, by way of a broad 
 statement, that all that is great in the world 
 has been done not by labor that was drudg- 
 ery, but by efforts which correspond to the 
 play instinct, that is to say such as were made 
 spontaneously, out of the fulness of the 
 heart, as an outcome of natural instincts, 
 powers, or talents. Man is wholly man, 
 says Schiller, only when he plays. 
 
 And what a world of information, inspir- 
 ation, and training is there thru play! Yoder, 
 in an older study (Pedagogical Seminary in) 
 says: "In the making of mud pies and doll 
 dresses, sandpile farms and miniature roads, 
 tiny dams, and water wheels, whittled out 
 boats, sleds, dog harnesses, and a thousand 
 and one other things, the child receives an ac- 
 cumulation of facts, a skill of hands, a true- 
 ness of eye, a power of attention and quick- 
 ness of perception; and in flying kite, catch- 
 ing trout, in pressing leaves and gathering 
 stones, in collecting stamps, and eggs, and 
 butterflies, a culture also, seldom appre- 
 ciated by the parent and teacher." 
 
 23 
 
II 
 
 Motor and Sense Training 
 
 Do not repress the play instinct in the 
 child, but recognize it in his school work! 
 What is called manual training is but one 
 form of this recognition. It means culture 
 thru manual training, thru sense training, 
 thru the play instinct. For true manual cul- 
 ture in the elementary school is directed 
 play, as are the kindergarten occupations 
 and games. Directed: — not in the sense of 
 crushing out the child's spontaneity and in- 
 ventiveness, but of following Nature's lead 
 by providing for the child, in a more or less 
 systematic and organized way, what he 
 craves for, and what will respond to his in- 
 nermost needs. 
 
 Manual training is in reality sense train- 
 ing. The senses are the gates thru which 
 the knowledge of the world around us comes 
 to us; but the gates only. The mind receives 
 messages from the senses in the brain. 
 There it is where impressions take place, 
 where concepts are formed. We do not see 
 with our eyes, but with the brain; we do not 
 feel with our hands, but with our brain. 
 Light, sound, hardness, etc., exist not in 
 reality, but are the forms under which the 
 
 24 
 
Motor and Sense Training 
 
 brain perceives the world and its messages. 
 Cut the nerve that connects the eye with the 
 centre of vision in the brain — ever so per- 
 fect and unimpaired as the eye may remain, 
 there will be no perception of light. On the 
 other hand, we have learnt very gradually 
 to understand the meaning of the messages 
 which the natural forces are sending con- 
 stantly thru the senses; learning to locate 
 and interpret the causes of sensation, is a 
 laborious task. Thus, sense training is brain 
 training; thru sense training, we are enabled 
 to have clearer and more accurate percep- 
 tions and concepts. 
 
 The new-born babe has not this know- 
 ledge; yet few of us can fully appreciate 
 that the conceptions which constitute the 
 adult's knowledge of the world, and which 
 seem so simple and self-evident, were of 
 such slow growth. A few illustrations may 
 serve to emphasize the character of this 
 conceptual development. 
 
 If we move a pencil point along the 
 groove between two fingers so that it touches 
 both at the same time, we are distinctly 
 aware of the presence of only one point, 
 even tho we close our eyes. But not so when 
 we cross the fingers over. If we now touch 
 25 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 them with the pencil, we feel two points, 
 and even the assistance of vision which in- 
 forms us that there is but one, will not dis- 
 pel the illusion. What is the cause of this 
 peculiar phenomenon? Experience has 
 taught us that one and the same point can 
 touch two adjacent fingers in normal posi- 
 tion, but that the two remote sides of these 
 same fingers cannot be reached by less than 
 two points at a time. Crossing the fingers 
 is uncommon because unnecessary for ordin- 
 ary functions; and consequently there is no 
 experience recorded in the brain of single 
 points touching them in this position. We 
 have learned to interpret sensations report- 
 ed from the adjacent sides of two fingers as 
 coming from one object, and those reported 
 from the remote sides as coming from more 
 than one. This interpretation has become 
 automatic and instantaneous, and can now no 
 longer be corrected by the messages sent 
 from other senses. 
 
 Another experiment has been described in 
 various forms by different psychologists. If 
 we lift up with our hands two bodies which 
 are equal in weight, but different in size, the 
 material being apparently the same, the 
 smaller one feels distinctly the heavier. This 
 26 
 
Motor and Sense Training 
 
 illusion lasts even after we have convinced 
 our intellect, by actual weighing, that the 
 two bodies are equipollent. In an experi- 
 ment with a series of eight such weights, even 
 persons who were well used to discriminate 
 between small weights, were carried away 
 by the illusion, and gave widely different an- 
 swers as to the comparative weights of the 
 objects. Some thought they discovered just 
 "a trifling difference"; others estimated the 
 smallest weight to be as much as eight times 
 as heavy as the largest! 
 
 The explanation is again that we have be- 
 come accustomed to an interpretation of the 
 messages which we receive, this time by the 
 muscular sense, as in the first experiment it 
 was the sense of touch, so that it corresponds 
 to our ordinary and oft repeated experi- 
 ence. The larger a body, the heavier it usu- 
 ally is, especially when compared with other 
 bodies made of the same material. Auto- 
 matically, then, we will expend a greater 
 muscular effort in lifting the larger body 
 than in moving, or weighing, the smaller; 
 experiencing then less resistance from the 
 larger body than we expect, the illusion of 
 its being lighter will be produced. For we 
 measure weight by the resistance a body of- 
 27 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 fers to our muscular effort in lifting. The 
 motor response to the sensory impression, 
 as mediated by the sense of sight in this in- 
 stance, is practically reflex and unescapable. 
 It is noteworthy, however, to remember that 
 the illusion fails in the case of children 
 younger than six, and of imbeciles. Young 
 children lack the association of sensations 
 and ideas which characterizes true concep- 
 tion; the individual senses develop independ- 
 ently of each other, each producing a separ- 
 ate set of impressions which by numberless 
 repetitions under varying conditions become 
 gradually related and co-ordinated. In im- 
 beciles, there is a general weakness of as- 
 sociative power, and their sensations remain 
 essentially unrelated. The illusions here de- 
 scribed are impossible without a correlation 
 of sense-experiences; therefore, they are 
 possible only in those who have reached the 
 associative stage. 
 
 They are illusions of sensation only, and 
 of what may be called automatic judgment. 
 They can be corrected, as far as abstract 
 knowledge is concerned, by other sense tests. 
 But to make these corrective tests, requires 
 not only an extra effort, but presupposes a 
 consciousness of the possibility of error. 
 28 
 
Motor and Sense Training 
 
 * 
 
 This consciousness is again the result of ex- 
 perience; it cannot be expected to exist in 
 the young child, or the untrained mind. As 
 we are subject to numberless illusions of sim- 
 ilar character, in the entire sphere of sensa- 
 tions, the question may arise whether they 
 might not be avoided, at least in part, by ap- 
 propriate training in early childhood when 
 our first concepts are being formed. 
 
 However that may be, this fact will have 
 become clear from the foregoing discussion 
 that the child learns to interpret the mes- 
 sages it receives thru the senses just as the 
 telegraph operator learns to interpret the 
 meaning of the clicking of his apparatus. 
 And so we have come to call the messages 
 sent thru the ear, sounds; those sent thru 
 the eye, light; those sent thru the sense of 
 touch, hardness or softness, etc. ; and then 
 there are messages from the other senses, 
 those of smell and taste, the muscular sense, 
 the temperature sense, and perhaps other 
 senses as yet undefined. As a rule, as said be- 
 fore, it requires the co-operation of several 
 senses to give us the information needed for 
 tolerably clear images of external objects. 
 While these images may after all be but sym- 
 bols of reality they represent the reactions of 
 29 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 our mind to external stimuli, and therefore 
 answer the purpose of cognition. 
 
 Indeed, we are constantly at work — and 
 this is what constitutes our mental activity 
 — to correct and clarify our mental images 
 and to increase our conceptional possessions : 
 an activity which renders our world-idea 
 grander, deeper, nobler, hour after hour. 
 But there is a limit to this growth. Not 
 alone that our senses will never suffice to re- 
 veal all the mysteries of nature as thru them 
 we can only perceive that fraction of the uni- 
 versal forces which finds them ready chan- 
 nels, or competent messengers;— but the 
 mind has a conventional way of interpreting 
 sense messages in the manner they first im- 
 pressed it, and which has become fixed and 
 automatic, something like a mere reflex ac- 
 tivity. Thus, remembering the finger and 
 pencil experiment, we shall possibly never be 
 able to rid ourselves of the sensation of two 
 pencil points when there is only one. And 
 then, each nerve can convey messages only 
 in its own individual way, that is to say, it 
 can only report a shock which it receives and 
 which is then interpreted by the mind in an 
 habitual, fixed method. Everyone knows 
 about the unpleasant experience of ''seeing 
 30 
 
Motor and Sense Training 
 
 stars" when there are none to be seen, and 
 which happens when we receive a shock on 
 our eye which also affects the optic nerve. 
 The explanation of the sensation is that the 
 irritation of the optic nerve is reported to 
 headquarters and there deciphered in the 
 usual way, as coming from the ordinary 
 source of optic impressions, viz., rays of 
 light. The report could not be deciphered 
 or interpreted in any other way. Thus we 
 have the illusion of light even when the shock 
 was produced by other means, a mechanical 
 pressure, or an electric current, or what 
 not. 
 
 All this implies that we are apt to misin- 
 terpret messages, to be deceived about the 
 objects our senses perceive, in more than one 
 way. This again suggests that great care 
 must be taken so that the earliest impressions 
 a child receives be as clear and accurate, and 
 mutually supplementary, as the educator's 
 forethought can make them, lest the child 
 carry thru life a veritable burden of errone- 
 ous conceptions and modes of interpretation 
 which he can never shake off. The child 
 must learn to test his sensations as mediated 
 by one sense organ constantly by those of 
 the others, in order to arrive at reliable re- 
 31 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 suits. His power of observation must be 
 stimulated, so that he will learn to know ex- 
 actly, to think clearly and independently. 
 Here is seen the vast scope of sense training 
 without which all formal instruction in read- 
 ing, writing, number, in history and geo- 
 graphy, in whatever you please, will remain 
 empty and meaningless, mere "sounding 
 brass and tinkling cymbal." 
 
 Manual training is sense training. It is 
 training of the hand, as the word signifies, 
 which in itself is a training in muscular adjust- 
 ment, or motor training; but also of the hand 
 as guided by the eye and inspired and directed 
 by the mind. And were it but a training of 
 the sense of touch, and of the muscular sense, 
 it were much indeed. The sense of touch, 
 assisted by the motor sense, is the most an- 
 cient and effective of all. The wonderful ac- 
 complishments of children born blind and 
 deaf and mute, when they were placed under 
 careful training, — such as Laura Bridgman 
 and Helen Keller— have been made possible 
 by the sense of touch. Primitive organisms 
 have only this one sense from which all 
 other senses have been differentiated. Even 
 now, touch stimuli have many powerful ef- 
 fects, also in the province of emotional life. 
 
 32 
 
Motor and Sense Training 
 
 It is thru tactile and muscular tests, in arm 
 and hand and leg movements, that we have 
 conceptions of space, and of form in space. It 
 was once thought that the eye can at least lo- 
 cate the direction from which a ray of light 
 comes as a messenger of knowledge; but it 
 has been shown* that even in this fundamen- 
 tal function the sense of touch must in all 
 probability come to the aid of the mind. The 
 eye perceives nothing but light, or color, or 
 their absence, and degree. Light and color 
 impressions are quite deceptive and often 
 call forth very erroneous notions of an ob- 
 ject. The tricks of legerdemain and the ef- 
 fect of panoramas and cycloramas were im- 
 possible without this fact. The size and 
 shape of bodies, the distance of objects, the 
 nature and structure of the material com- 
 posing them, would remain much more a 
 mystery to us than they are, were it not for 
 the tactile and muscular sensations. Unless 
 we have once handled a ball, or a cube, we 
 shall never really know what these things 
 mean. The eye mediates to us only two di- 
 mensions, on the flat surface. No drawing 
 can give the immediate impression of solid- 
 
 *Cf. Am. Journal of Psychology, Oct., 1897, r> 
 
 33 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 ity; not even the cleverest painting in color 
 does. True, owing to the convergence of 
 the axes of our two eyes, we look somewhat 
 around an object and thus get a faint indica- 
 tion of solidity; a fact made use of in stereo- 
 scopic pictures. But it has also been conclu- 
 sively proven that the eye can be deceived in 
 spite of this ; that it depends upon touch and 
 muscular tests to perfect the idea of three- 
 dimensional space. That we now can rec- 
 ognize, with the eye alone, an object to be 
 solid, is largely due to the fact that we have 
 learnt to interpret certain light and color ef- 
 fects as indicative of certain conditions of 
 size, shape and distance, which were origin- 
 ally revealed to us by handling objects of 
 such size and shape, or by measuring the dis- 
 tances by reaching out for the objects, or 
 walking up to them ; and to the further fact 
 that we have forgotten the many sense tests, 
 often made quite unconsciously, thru which 
 we have gathered our experience, slowly, 
 gradually, laboriously, when we were chil- 
 dren. Similar associations enable us to ap- 
 preciate the meaning of paintings in which 
 these same light and color effects are skill- 
 fully imitated. 
 
 From the first efforts of the crowing babe 
 34 
 
Motor and Sense Training 
 
 in his crib to discover the nature of the 
 queer shining specks dancing before his eyes, 
 and which he finally learns to locate and rec- 
 ognize, by playing with them, by feeling pain 
 in them, and in numberless other ways, as 
 parts of his own body, his own dear, plump 
 little legs — from these baby experiments to 
 those of the scientist who weighs our globe 
 and measures the distance of stars, there is 
 indeed a long journey, but the process is the 
 same. 
 
 The value of sense training, even in in- 
 fancy, is thus clearly shown. Frobel recog- 
 nized this need, and his u Mutter-und Kose- 
 lieder" have been invented for the very pur- 
 pose of enabling the mother to assist her babe 
 in the mastering and control of this wealth 
 of sense-impressions rushing at him from all 
 sides. And in the kindergarten practice, the 
 need of sense training is admitted and min- 
 istered to, in a more or less thoro manner. 
 But the recognition of this need which is 
 verily paramount, must be continued thruout 
 the school, up to the highest classes. 
 
 The intellectual value of motor activity is 
 so high that its repression is fraught with 
 danger in regard to a healthful manifesta- 
 tion of the mind. "Motor centres make up 
 35 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 about 1-3 of the brain. ... By motor 
 training, brain growth and mental activity 
 are increased and new avenues are opened 
 leading to a more intimate acquaintance with 
 the world."* If we remember that the sense 
 of touch, combined with the muscular sense, is 
 the most primitive one from which all others 
 have gradually evolved, it will at once be 
 clear that the touch and motor centers which 
 control this province of sensations, are the 
 very first to develop in the brain, and that 
 they must be helped in their development by 
 use and practice. The other centres, the 
 other portions of the brain develop at later 
 periods. But "if the centre is forced before 
 its time, disorders of muscle and nerve con- 
 trol result" (Hancock, 1. c). Knowing this, 
 we need not be surprised why children whose 
 later and higher brain centres are stimulated 
 artificially and prematurely, are apt to be- 
 come nervous and abnormal. The percent- 
 age of pupils in which nervous disorders are 
 produced by the prevailing irrational meth- 
 ods and standards of education is appalling- 
 ly high. And let us not deceive ourselves by 
 believing that we gain time by making a 
 
 *Hancock, Pedagogical Seminary, Oct. 
 
 36 
 
Motor and Sense Training 
 
 child learn at the earliest possible moment 
 what ought to be postponed to a later per- 
 iod, when his brain is prepared and mature 
 enough for the work. All the seeming bril- 
 liancy of his tender age will not prevent him 
 from becoming really weakened and retarded 
 in his growth; he may never really mature. 
 Child prodigies rarely continue to develop 
 after attaining adult age. An English critic 
 has justly accused the ordinary methods by 
 which an artificial stimulation is effected, of 
 producing stupidity rather than intelligence, 
 dullness rather than alertness, degeneration 
 rather than progress. 
 
 37 
 
Ill 
 
 The Lesson of the Centipede 
 
 Children of young years are not capable 
 of abstract, logical work; the ability to rea- 
 son is a late and slow growth. They learn 
 by objective, not by abstract means; by mus- 
 cular, not by intellectual observation. They 
 absorb more than they abstract; they per- 
 ceive more than they can reason out; they 
 can do more than they can argue about and 
 tell. Theirs is an instinctive activity, not 
 a reflective. Beware of making the child re- 
 flective and self-conscious before his time ! 
 His fate may be that of the Centipede of 
 whom the poet sings: 
 
 "The Centipede was happy quite, 
 Until the toad in fun 
 
 Said : 'Pray, which leg comes after which ?' 
 Which worked her mind to such a pitch, 
 She lay distracted in the ditch, 
 Considering how to run." 
 
 As Channing puts it: "The best chance 
 of all is not to be hurried; for the bright 
 ones will learn all the better in late years 
 for prolonged, early physical training, and 
 the defective ones will only tend to develop 
 their inherent weaknesses without it." 
 
 38 
 
The Lesson of the Centipede 
 
 This demand does not imply that the chil- 
 dren must be left idly to themselves; cer- 
 tainly not. An idle child is never a normal 
 child. There must be full activity, concen- 
 tration of attention, training in the making 
 of strenuous effort by arousing native and 
 intense interest. This interest may not al- 
 ways assert itself spontaneously, but, lying 
 dormant on account of an unsympathetic or 
 otherwise unfavorable environment, may 
 need an awakening. The child needs exercise, 
 healthful physical exercise, which will help 
 our children to unfold their native strength 
 to the highest pitch. 
 
 This plea for the recognition of the natural 
 instincts of children, of their need for motor 
 activity, refers not only to very young chil- 
 dren. There are several other periods in a 
 child's life when the motor forces should 
 have the preference. Young girls as well as 
 boys in the pubescent period should have 
 much more physical training and much less 
 mental overstraining than they have now, 
 when just at this critical age they are ex- 
 pected to graduate with all honors from 
 schools and academies. 
 
 I quote from an instructive article in the 
 "Child Study Monthly" (November 1897), 
 39 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 treating of this same period: "Too many 
 studies are imposed or permitted. Too 
 much time is spent indoors. The recess, in- 
 stead of being a time for real health-giving 
 physical romps and exercise, is devoted to 
 crocheting, making hemstitched, feather- 
 edge or herring-bone trimming. The pomp 
 and parade of public exercises, especially 
 commencement, the pressure and excitement 
 induced by working for marks and cram- 
 ming for examinations, are not entirely the 
 fault of the school, but rather the fault of 
 the parents who demand that their own 
 daughters be conspicuous above their mates 
 in school. These girls love to please their 
 blindly ambitious parents and spur their 
 overworked bodies beyond the point of re- 
 covery from fatigue, at too great expense 
 of real energy and nerve force. When will 
 parents learn that a whole ton of knowledge 
 gained at the expense of a single ounce of 
 health is far too dearly paid for?" 
 "TOO MUCH BRAIN WORK AND 
 TOO LITTLE BODY WORK IS THE 
 EVIL OF OUR SCHOOLS." 
 
 The brain work referred to here is of 
 course the one-sided stimulation and prema- 
 ture forcing of the higher centres; brain 
 40 
 
The Lesson of the Centipede 
 
 training thru rational sense training and mo- 
 tor activity will re-establish the balance in 
 these critical periods. 
 
 The motor element must be recognized 
 thruout the school course. The present 
 standard of education is altogether false. 
 We must learn to recognize fully the new 
 principle of Learning by Doing which is 
 based upon an appreciation of the natural 
 instincts, not only of childhood, but of the 
 human race. 
 
 41 
 
IV 
 
 Experience vs. Book Learning 
 
 A certain class of so-called educated per- 
 sons imagine themselves very superior beings 
 if they can recite from memory an algebraic 
 formula, or know how to spell "paral- 
 lelepipedon", or can call a sparrow by its 
 Latin or French name. To possess such 
 knowledge is perhaps an enviable thing; yet 
 any ordinary carpenter may throw such a 
 fine person into the utmost confusion by ask- 
 ing him questions upon very simple proper- 
 ties of matter and very common operations, 
 even tho he may not be able to spell his 
 name. We need not undervalue literary 
 education, and may deplore the illiteracy of 
 a still too large percentage of our people as 
 a great evil; and yet believe that ordinary 
 school branches are not all there is of educa- 
 tion. A great deal of training can be de- 
 rived from the common pursuits of life, from 
 the practice of the arts and trades — really a 
 mine of intellectual wealth of which many 
 have very scant appreciation. A "common" 
 man, if he is otherwise effective in his pro- 
 fession, may shame a philosopher in intel- 
 ligence and "common sense", if the latter be 
 
 42 
 
Experience vs. Book Learning 
 
 a mere theorist, with little knowledge of the 
 world of reality. 
 
 Learning from books about the tendency 
 of water to seek the lowest level is certainly 
 less effectual than to lay out and build an 
 actual dam and canal for irrigation. And a 
 theoretical knowledge of architecture is 
 surely of less value than the practical ability 
 to construct a Brooklyn Bridge or a Cologne 
 Cathedral. Let us not confuse formal and 
 conceptual education; and while we should 
 give formal training its due place, and be in- 
 spired by the lofty thoughts of the thinker 
 and admire the works of the poet, 
 of the historian, or the grammarian— : let 
 us not forget the greatness of the 
 DOERS, the creators among us whose works 
 the others talk and write about, even tho 
 these doers be poor spellers and unreliable 
 geographers. An ingenious machine that 
 seems almost endowed with human under- 
 standing; a towering dome giving grandeur 
 and character to an entire landscape; a mys- 
 terious tunnel, hewn thru massive mountains 
 and connecting two nations; or even the tiny 
 shoe of a maiden if it fits the dainty foot with- 
 out constraining the natural movement, are 
 as much proofs of the ingenuity of the hu- 
 
 43 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 man mind, as much triumphs of human crea- 
 tiveness over the brute forces of the uni- 
 verse, as much evidence of the nobility and 
 divineness of human nature, as is the sweet- 
 est song of a Tennyson, or the most power- 
 ful drama of a Shakespeare. And altho the 
 best work can be done only by the best 
 trained man, by him who is a representative 
 of the civilization of his time at its fullest, it 
 must be remembered that some of the most 
 immortal creations of the constructive mind 
 have been produced by persons who were 
 deficient in formal knowledge, in reading 
 and writing and such things, from the per- 
 iod of antiquity to our own era. All these 
 activities are different expressions of ideas, 
 more or less lofty and comprehensive, but 
 yet borne up by aspiration towards perfec- 
 tion. And while an even balance of all these 
 different powers may make the ideal man, 
 this glory is only for the greatest genius such 
 as may bless the earth from time to time. We 
 humbler mortals have each our special little 
 gift or talent thru which we can render our 
 mite of service. Let us give each child a 
 chance to be himself, to work out his own 
 destiny, to express the ideas and ideals he 
 cherishes as best he can, in his own way, be it 
 
 44 
 
Experience vs. Book Learning 
 
 by planting trees, or by fitting machinery, or 
 by writing articles for the daily press. And 
 it is the doing of things which is ever the 
 foundation of the thinking of thoughts ; and 
 the thinking of thoughts is vain unless it in- 
 spires the doing of things. 
 
 45 
 
The Philosophy of the Tool 
 
 Man's most faithful servant is his hand, and 
 the hand's complement is the tool. "Tools", 
 says Dr. Paul Carus in his interesting mono- 
 graph, "The Philosophy of the Tool", "ex- 
 tend the sphere of our existence. Ham- 
 mers, spades, axes, are prolongations of our 
 hands; the dairy, the bakery, the kitchen, are 
 as it were appendices to our digestive or- 
 gans, to the teeth and the stomach; engines 
 and railroads are wings to our feet; and 
 machinery of all descriptions are tools that 
 have become independent, but still remain 
 our faithful servants. Their work increases 
 our powers and widens our dominion in na- 
 ture. Every invention and perfection of 
 tools represents a growth of power. . . . 
 Man's reason has been developed by work- 
 ing with tools, but the possibility of tools de- 
 pends in its turn upon man's ability to han- 
 dle tools. . . . The development of 
 reason depends so much upon the proper me- 
 chanical employment of our hands, that we 
 even to-day use the words "to grasp", "to 
 comprehend", "to conceive"* as expressions 
 
 *Cf. the German "begreifen". G. 
 
 4 6 
 
The Philosophy of the Tool 
 
 denoting the most important act of a ra- 
 tional cognition. . . . The history of 
 tools, and of their invention, is the history of 
 the growth of the human mind." 
 
 If history were taught in our schools from 
 the viewpoint of the evolution of culture and 
 civilization, instead of as a record of wars 
 and battles, this conception would long have 
 been more generally accepted. But in the 
 light of the essential facts of history, who can 
 deny that the demand for manual training has 
 a true claim? If man's reason has been de- 
 veloped by working with tools, if the work 
 of tools depends upon man's ability to han- 
 dle them, has an instruction in the use of 
 tools not a just place in the curriculum of 
 the elementary school? This age of a tech- 
 nical mastery of the world's forces, of com- 
 merce and industry, of printing presses, rail- 
 roads and electric lights, cannot be under- 
 stood unless the child is introduced into a 
 knowledge and appreciation of the motive 
 power that makes this world of human ac- 
 tivity move. From books he cannot get a clear 
 conception of that; there is enough which 
 must be got from them, but which will re- 
 main unintelligible to him, a mere shadow, 
 unless he has a basis of experience, typical 
 
 47 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 experience, that can serve him as a key to un- 
 derstand the rest. We ought to take our 
 children into the machine shops and fac- 
 tories to make them see with their own eyes 
 typical illustrations of how things are made, 
 and how the making even of apparently sim- 
 ple things requires much skill and ingenuity. 
 And better still, let us put them to work at 
 such things; let us teach them the use of 
 typical tools, such as the needle, the knife, 
 the hammer, chisel and saw; of typical ma- 
 chines, such as sjtoves, engines, lathes, sew- 
 ing machines. They should build and con- 
 struct dresses and boxes, chairs and dyna- 
 moes; they should invent: designs, pat- 
 terns, models, whatever they can. They 
 should represent dramatically, as it were, 
 and at the same time actively and practically, 
 the various busy occupations of life. Then 
 their conception of the world and of human 
 activity will be broadened and elevated. 
 
 But it is not industrial training, it is not 
 trade schools for which I plead. They have 
 their proper place at the proper stage, in a 
 differentiated system of public instruction. 
 Here, however, I wish to emphasize the gen- 
 eral educational value of manual culture, its 
 broadening influence, its effect upon mind 
 
 4 8 
 
The Philosophy of the Tool 
 
 culture, without which no child can develop 
 to the fullest, were he to become a lawyer, or 
 a merchant, or a shoemaker in later life. 
 Men need to become more effective; they 
 ought to have their chance of experience even 
 in childhood, to make the best of it when the 
 mind is still pliable. They should have an 
 opportunity to test their faculties all around, 
 when it is still time to grow, to mature, to 
 choose. It is therefore no trade exercise, no 
 one-sided work of any kind, whose introduc- 
 tion in schools is desired, but typical exer- 
 cises chosen to illustrate the possibilities of 
 the human mind in the direction of produc- 
 tive activity, just as a well chosen course in 
 reading will illustrate, by typical selections, 
 how the human mind has conquered the 
 world by thought, or mirrored her life in its 
 own emotions. 
 
 49 
 
VI 
 
 Not a New Branch, but a Method 
 
 In reality it is not a new branch of instruc- 
 tion for which a plea is here made, even tho 
 manual training may mean a reduction of 
 the time consumed by the so-called common 
 branches. But these common branches will 
 be the gainers thereby. The plea is made 
 for a rational method of instruction — the 
 objective, the creative, the experimental 
 method as against the book method. Each 
 school should be, in a sense, a laboratory 
 where all branches are taught by the help 
 of the laboratory method, by experiments 
 and tests which are largely conducted by the 
 pupils themselves. If there exists a well ar- 
 ticulated and co-ordinated course of instruc- 
 tion, there is mathematics in the workshop, 
 there is history in the art studio, and better 
 logical training than grammar affords, in 
 the science laboratory; and there is health- 
 ful exercise, and power, and inspiration in 
 all these things. The spirit of this method 
 must pervade all school work, so that there 
 be reality instead of names, experience and 
 practice instead of mere rules, self-expres- 
 sion instead of routine work, individuality 
 
 50 
 
Not a New Branch, but a Method 
 
 instead of a common average. 
 
 Such a method would be an appeal to the 
 natural instincts of the children who delight 
 in objective and constructive activity, whose 
 play instinct is gratified by this work, and 
 who will profit more from it than from defin- 
 itions, and synopses, and booklore generally; 
 who will do their best in spontaneous activ- 
 ity, and who, being allowed to work in their 
 own individual way, will develop the power 
 of independent thinking. It is by objectify- 
 ing, as it were, their concepts, by reproducing 
 what they see, or study about, in tangible 
 form, that they will test their power of ob- 
 servation, correct their errors, adjust mis- 
 proportions, and arrive at accurate ideas. 
 
 We need have no fear that the language 
 work of the children will suffer, if so much 
 time and energy be given to manual exer- 
 cises. On the contrary, our pupils will have 
 a wealth of real things, of things that inter- 
 est them, to write about. One who can think 
 correctly, will, as a rule, speak and write 
 correctly; and it is a common experience 
 that, when we have something to say, we 
 can say it. But normal children have little 
 to say about fine emotions and self-conscious 
 reflections; they may look up cyclopedias 
 51 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 or torment their parents, their older broth- 
 ers and sisters, for "points", and yet not 
 produce anything of much use to themselves 
 or to anybody else. But they can tell about 
 what they have seen and heard and handled 
 and made, and what interests them. Such 
 work may not be so highflown as an essay 
 on "The Vindication of Xanthippe", or a 
 critical examination into the feelings of a 
 butterfly on a summer's morning,* but it will 
 be more genuine and helpful, especially if 
 care be taken not to mass pupils together, 
 but to grant each a chance to write about 
 what he knows best. Many teachers will 
 testify to the truth of the statement that ap- 
 parently dull pupils, who were simply 
 weighed down by the routine of mass work, 
 suddenly woke up and displayed a remark- 
 able power of observation and expression 
 when the teacher hit upon a subject which 
 was of interest to them. Thus, when a point 
 of vantage is found, an avenue can soon be 
 opened along which even those faculties 
 which are either dormant, or truly weak, can 
 be reached and more or less developed. 
 And these points of vantage are almost in- 
 
 *These topics are actual quotations. 
 
 52 
 
Not a New Branch, but a Method 
 
 variably in the nature of objective or con- 
 structive work, of play or spontaneous ac- 
 tivity which commands the child's supreme 
 interest. 
 
 In this way, manual work proves itself as 
 a valuable instrument with which to influ- 
 ence the growth of even the formal arts and 
 more abstract faculties. 
 
 But the manual method is a veritable 
 savior of those who are not gifted in literary 
 expression, or formal mathematics, or gram- 
 mar and such things; whose principal, or 
 only, form of expression is in the making of 
 things. They, who are cast out as dunces 
 from the ordinary school, often have a genius 
 of their own which in due time may out- 
 shine that of their classmates who were more 
 successful at school. Should they not be 
 considered? Let us give them their due, 
 their opportunity, a training that is commen- 
 surate to their faculties. There are more of 
 them than some may suppose; the schools 
 are full of them, only their native genius is 
 repressed, and they are made to drag on in 
 the primary classes until they can go no fur- 
 ther, and are finally allowed to depart to 
 drag on thru life, dwarfed, spoiled, robbed of 
 their birthright. These who, with the ex- 
 
 53 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 ception of conquering geniuses, never get a 
 chance to find their true place in life, and to 
 become conscious of their power and their 
 limitations, help in composing the vast army 
 of the inefficient who drift along, or move 
 in ready made grooves whither they know 
 not, but cannot make their own road, or set 
 up their own goal. 
 
 This alone would also prove the moral 
 value of manual training. For he who drifts 
 instead of controlling his fate as far as hu- 
 man effort can avail, will never be a truly 
 moral man. Morality means self-control, self- 
 determination, self-direction. And manual 
 training, sense training, makes for truth — as 
 far as human mind can conceive truth. It 
 sets reality against semblance, fact against 
 error, test against illusion. It fosters a 
 scientific spirit as opposed to opinionism 
 and prejudice. It means, therefore, 
 genuineness, in place of artificiality and 
 verbalism. And it teaches the true dig- 
 nity, the enormous moral significance of la- 
 bor. "Work", as Carlyle puts it, "is the 
 grand cure for all the maladies and miseries 
 that ever beset mankind — honest work which 
 you intend getting done." And again : "All 
 true work is sacred; in all true work, were it 
 54 
 
Not a New Branch, but a Method 
 
 but true hand labor, there is something of 
 divineness." Thru honest labor, the race 
 and the individual can alone be saved from 
 rot and ruin, from decay and degeneration. 
 But above all, the principle of manual cul- 
 ture recognizes the child's natural instincts. 
 The child is by nature constructive, and in 
 gratifying his tendency to grow intellectually 
 by the work of his hands, we are but in ac- 
 cord with the laws of natural development, 
 which are the same for the race as for the in- 
 dividual. Mankind has reached the present 
 high state of civilization by conquering 
 the forces of nature thru industry, the devel- 
 opment of which has ever been the truest in- 
 dex to its mental and moral evolution. 
 
 55 
 
PART II. ART CULTURE AND ART 
 EXPRESSION 
 
The Esthetic Attitude 
 
 IN this age, when art enters into all the 
 details of life, when it represents the 
 stage of perfection in all manufactures 
 as well as in the reproduction of the 
 beautiful, pure and simple; when the ethical 
 element in esthetic culture has become so 
 widely appreciated; when one who cannot 
 at least enjoy the masterpieces of great 
 artists, is hardly counted among the 
 truly educated: in such an age it ought 
 to be superfluous to plead for a recognition 
 of art education in the curriculum of our 
 schools. And yet, drawing and modeling 
 have been denounced as fads which take up 
 time needed for more necessary and funda- 
 mental things. More necessary and funda- 
 mental things! If it is the end of education 
 to awaken the faculty of judgment and to 
 build up a moral character, to produce re- 
 finement in place of crudity and immaturity: 
 is it not worth more to a child to be able to 
 appreciate the stern grandeur of Michel An- 
 gelo's Moses or the chaste beauty of a Venus 
 de Milo, and to have learnt to express his 
 own thoughts of beauty, however stammer- 
 ingly, in a drawing or clay model, or in some 
 
 59 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 constructive way, — than to spell all the 
 words in the English language by heart, or 
 to distinguish between "distributive pro- 
 nouns" and "compound indefinite pro- 
 nouns?" Without knowledge of this gram- 
 matical distinction he may yet be able to use 
 very fair English, and if he should have for- 
 gotten the spelling of "idiosyncrasy", he can 
 look it up in the dictionary. But an esthetic 
 attitude, such as will result from careful 
 training in art conception and art expression, 
 during his young years, cannot be easily dis- 
 pensed with or quickly replaced. 
 
 Drawing, at least, became recognized in 
 the program of some schools a few decades 
 ago, when the wave of the practical-educa- 
 tion idea struck them. Under the watch- 
 word: We must give our children a prac- 
 tical education, many pedagogical sins have 
 been committed. It was claimed that it was 
 of practical benefit to a child if he would 
 learn to draw designs, decorative motives 
 and the like ; just as it has been suggested to 
 introduce systematic bookkeeping into the 
 elementary schools, — for such things, it is 
 thought, can be easily converted into dollars 
 and cents as soon as the young person goes 
 out to earn his or her own living, or pocket 
 60 
 
The Esthetic Attitude 
 
 money. In point of fact, school bookkeeping 
 has proved itself to be of very doubtful value 
 to the practical merchant; and school de- 
 signing has perhaps been even less market- 
 able. But still, under the name of "indus- 
 trial drawing" a great deal of geometrical 
 construction and conventional designing has 
 been done — and is being done yet in a num- 
 ber of schools— mostly in the form of copy- 
 ing and dictation. But this is not art. 
 
 Deeper insight into child-psychology has 
 revealed the true function of art education. 
 
 61 
 
II 
 
 Expression thru Art 
 
 Art training in schools does not mean in- 
 struction in drawing only. We shall see la- 
 ter that drawing is in fact the most difficult 
 part of the art. Art training includes model- 
 ing in clay, paper cutting, color work, 
 construction, decoration (on paper, in 
 carving, weaving, etc.), and a number of 
 other occupations. It means beautifying the 
 objects the child handles, or makes, or loves. 
 It means the beautifying, finishing touch to 
 all his products. Art is the manifestation of 
 the highest genius of the race; it makes the 
 creature a creator; it means a rebirth of the 
 world, from the mind of a human being, so 
 that it may become his own world, his own 
 life, his own glory and perfection. It is thru 
 art that man divines the divine. 
 
 Art will pervade all the child does. It is 
 the liberating element in manual culture. It 
 is the noblest form of motor expression. It 
 is expression. Let us be definite about this: 
 It is expression as much as language is. 
 The language of the pyramids speaks to us 
 with a powerful voice, and the wall-paint- 
 ings of ancient Egypt tell us more about her 
 62 
 
Expression Thru Art 
 
 civilization which has long since vanished 
 from the face of the earth, than even the 
 papyrus rolls of their contemporaries. And 
 long before there were books, there was art. 
 The carvings of the Fiji Islanders, the pic- 
 ture writings of the American Indians, the 
 hieroglyphics of ancient Peru and Mexico 
 are a treasure trove of ancient historic docu- 
 ments. 
 
 Thus, even to a young child of a mod- 
 ern father and mother, art is a form of ex- 
 pression which develops even before he can 
 express his conceptions adequately in oral 
 or written form. The child loves to build 
 structures in the sand and mud, or with 
 blocks and toys; to cut out and draw, long 
 ere he can write a composition on the 
 thoughts which these representations em- 
 body. He who can read a child's mud pies 
 and scribblings, will get a deeper insight into 
 his nature than he who waits until the child 
 can tell him, or write out for him, what he 
 has in mind. This instinct is a relic of race- 
 history and must be so understood and util- 
 ized. With many people, this objective, or 
 graphic, or constructive form of expression 
 will forever remain the best part of their 
 self-manifestation; and the revelation that 
 
 63 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 comes to us of the genius of Raphael in con- 
 templating his wonderful Sistine Madonna, 
 would hardly have been enhanced if he had 
 attempted to write out his conception of di- 
 vine motherhood with pen and paper. And 
 with most children, representative expres- 
 sion, which is at the same time creative, i. e., 
 art expression, will strengthen the power of 
 right conception and the power of self-ex- 
 pression in general, while, if it is condemned 
 and repressed as idle play, the child's psyche 
 may remain crippled forever. 
 
 Children's drawings, then, give a clearer 
 and more comprehensive account of their 
 concepts than their words and, later on, even 
 their written exercises will ever reveal. Let 
 us remember that the power of complete 
 self-expression in language is given to few 
 master minds only and develops slowly in 
 any one of us, and that there are many things 
 at all times which we can better illustrate 
 than tell. Children's drawings expose there- 
 fore also all their mistakes in conception, 
 and such exposure will help the teacher to 
 discover, and correct, erroneous impres- 
 sions. If a child is asked to illustrate a 
 story, his misconception of words often 
 shows itself significantly. A case in point is 
 
 6 4 
 
Expression Thru Art 
 
 quoted from a San Francisco primary 
 school. "'The Old Oaken Bucket' had 
 been read to the little tots and then ex- 
 plained to them very carefully, and as "busy 
 work" they were asked to copy the first stan- 
 za from the blackboard and illustrate it with 
 a drawing. One little girl handed in her verse 
 with several little dots between two of the 
 lines, a circle, and three buckets. 'Lizzie, 
 I don't understand this', said the teacher. 
 'What is that circle?' — 'Oh, that's the well.' 
 — 'Why have you three buckets?' — 'One is 
 the old oaken bucket, one is the iron-bound 
 bucket, and the other is the bucket that hung 
 in the well.' — 'Then, what are all of those 
 little dots?' — 'Why, those are the loved 
 spots which my infancy knew.' " 
 
 It is well, in this connection, to compare 
 Professor Earl Barnes' early investigations 
 on children's drawings. In No. V of his 
 "Studies in Education" (Nov. 96) he repro- 
 duces four drawings of Washington and the 
 Cherry Tree, by children, and comments upon 
 them as follows: "Do not the pictures il- 
 lustrate the way in which a child pieces all 
 the fragments of his knowledge together in 
 making up what to us seem very simple 
 concepts? . . . The child never grasps 
 
 65 
 
Some Fundamental Ferities in Education 
 
 the absurdity of the combination; for he 
 does not take the whole thing into conscious- 
 ness at once as we should do. ... If 
 this analysis of the picture is correct, then 
 we see how the most heterogeneous elements 
 are combined in forming concepts under our 
 direction. Is it not much the same with us 
 when we rise to higher planes? Take for 
 instance our conception of an angel : is it not 
 pieced together from just such odds and ends 
 as these? If this analysis is right, it fol- 
 lows, then, that in education we need to con- 
 sider not only the fragments that we insert 
 into children's minds, but the blended 
 whole that they piece together." 
 
 The use of drawing in this direction ap- 
 pears obvious. And it is well, apart from 
 any ambition to be artistic, that we should 
 learn to express our concepts graphically in 
 some adequate degree, to supplement our 
 language, so that we may make our meaning 
 clear in as complete a manner as possible, 
 when occasion arises. If we wish to have a 
 certain pattern made, or give a direction as 
 to some piece of furniture we desire to have 
 fitted into a certain space; or if we want to 
 describe an occurrence that we have wit- 
 nessed; or if a physician desires to fix some 
 66 
 
Expression Thru Art 
 
 microscopic observation on paper; and in a 
 thousand other ways, — some skill in draw- 
 ing to express our thoughts, or to record our 
 observations— be it diagrammatically or by 
 way of a more or less perfect representation 
 of the object — will be found exceedingly 
 helpful and often indeed indispensable. Our 
 words not infrequently prove insufficient to 
 describe what we have in mind. 
 
 Moreover, an effort to draw an object will 
 intensify the clearness of our perception, 
 and bring out, and fix in our mind, many de- 
 tails that would otherwise have escaped our 
 attention. Drawing shares in this respect 
 the virtue of manual reproduction and con- 
 struction, and we shall see later that the ar- 
 tistic correlative to manual construction, 
 viz.: clay modeling, has its peculiar excel- 
 lence. It is well to encourage the drawing 
 of the objects of study, in the laboratory, in 
 geography, in history, etc., to produce more 
 lasting and more exact impressions, and to 
 test the correctness of the concepts. 
 
 I do not pretend to say that this kind of 
 representative drawing is art proper, or art 
 as yet; just as little as the compositions of 
 young children have value as literature. But 
 it helps in the development of the self, and 
 67 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 points towards art; it is as legitimate a form 
 of expression as any other. 
 
 Drawing, it has been said, is the general 
 language of construction. It enters into man- 
 ual work at every point, and geometrical un- 
 derstanding would be impossible without it. 
 In this form, it is not an immediate art ex- 
 pression, but may be a means towards it, if 
 the end sought is the expression of an art 
 idea, as in architecture. To be able to read a 
 working drawing, a plan, a chart, and to 
 make such drawings, is a necessary requisite 
 in manual work. But this does not imply 
 that a course in the technique of drawing, in 
 mechanical drawing, should come first. Such 
 a course would, in many cases, only kill the 
 spontaneous art instinct and art enjoyment. 
 There is not much need of such training for 
 children, certainly not in the lower grades. 
 Exactly as we must not apply the adult's 
 standard of accuracy to the productions of the 
 child in the field of manual training itself, 
 just as little is there need of enforcing exact 
 technique in the drawings that enter into 
 that work. Only when the child himself 
 feels the need of training in technique, 
 should instruction therein be supplied. As a 
 rule it will sufiice to point out a few simple 
 68 
 
Expression Thru Art 
 
 rules and devices, and let the rest come by 
 practice in connection with actual exercises. 
 In the highest classes, in connection perhaps 
 with the more scientific study of geometrical 
 problems, in architectural drawings to a 
 scale, and for the purpose of assisting the 
 pupil in getting better control over the mus- 
 cles of eye, hand and fingers, to secure finer 
 adjustment, more stress may justly be laid 
 upon exact drawings. But even here, we 
 must exercise discretion and not elevate an 
 exactness which is possible to perhaps only a 
 few, into a fetich to be worshipped by all. 
 At any rate, young children should be saved 
 from the tyranny of this superstition. 
 
 I wish to warn art teachers against the 
 gospel of the straight line. The straight 
 line is an abstraction. Nature knows of no 
 absolutely straight line, except perhaps in 
 minute proportions. The straight line is a 
 mechanical invention, but has no virtue in 
 itself except for purely mechanical purposes 
 —for manufacture in the trade sense. Our 
 children have nothing to do with it. They 
 are not ripe for it— fortunately not. Their 
 minds cannot yet be reduced to a rectilinear 
 conventionality. There is no character in 
 the straight line, just as a man whose path 
 
 6 9 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 in life is absolutely straight, is either an an- 
 gel or a fool; either a mechanical contriv- 
 ance, a soulless pedant, or a bigoted fanatic, 
 but not one with a genuinely human char- 
 acter. I am afraid of the infallible. To 
 make the young child a victim of the soulless 
 straight line, is as cruel as it is useless. 
 
 True art is more than reducing the ob- 
 jects of nature to a geometrical "type", or 
 than their mere mechanical reproduction; In 
 the same way as literature is more than an 
 enumeration of the things the author has in 
 mind. Art and literature represent the indi- 
 vidual attitude of the artist or author towards 
 nature and life; they show how nature and 
 life picture themselves in these human minds. 
 No great poem, no great painting, no great 
 work of sculpture that does not suggest a no- 
 ble thought or a noble feeling, a thought or 
 feeling that had been in the minds of their 
 makers, struggling for expression. A great 
 artist, as well as a great poet, is first a great 
 man, a man with a noble soul, which is re- 
 vealed in his works. Art is self-expression, 
 and from it we may read character as we do 
 from literature. 
 
 Not every one can produce literature that 
 will become the common property of the 
 70 
 
Expression Thru Art 
 
 world, because not everyone can think eter- 
 nal thoughts, or has literary power to ex- 
 press them in immortal form. But every 
 one can learn to express his own thoughts in 
 his own words — not very fluently perhaps, 
 but in a manner, or style, peculiar to himself 
 and which is as much an index of his mental 
 calibre as is the thought itself. Likewise, 
 altho not everyone can produce works of 
 art worthy of a Phidias or Raphael, yet 
 everyone can learn, in a measure, to express 
 himself in art form, if he is left free to do it 
 in his own way which will be characteristic 
 of himself, provided he has something to ex- 
 press. If we understand art to mean indi- 
 vidual expression of a thought or feeling, 
 we shall at once perceive that for every at- 
 tempt to draw or model anything, there must 
 first be a thought or a feeling in the child's 
 mind, one which is his own, which is more 
 or less spontaneous, first hand, not second 
 hand, intense, full of motive power so as to 
 struggle for expression; and second, there 
 must be as little as possible of restraint, of 
 conventional rule, and the largest possible 
 latitude for individual form of expression, 
 freedom and individuality. 
 
 There must he, first, a thought or feeling 
 71 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 in the child's mind that seeks expression. 
 The clearer this is understood, the better. 
 A realization of this fact will once for all 
 do away with the senseless exercises so com- 
 mon in many drawing courses, and which 
 mean nothing to the child. If we study the 
 child life of our greatest painters and sculp- 
 tors, we shall find that they did not go to 
 work drawing straight lines, or a cube, or 
 modeling a perfect sphere. Perhaps there 
 was a time in their life, later on, when their 
 minds were maturer, when they had to en- 
 dure the drudgery of technique to perfect 
 themselves in their vocation. But, while 
 they were young, they did not go for in- 
 spiration to cubes and spheres. They drew 
 what they loved most — they took a bold 
 hold of anything in their environment that 
 appealed to their innermost soul on account 
 of its beauty, its harmony of form or color, 
 its meaning and association. They would 
 beautify by decoration such things as were 
 dear to them: the first leaf in an album 
 which their mother had given them, or a 
 scarf they would present to their sister, or 
 perhaps, blushingly and full of strange emo- 
 tions, send to their first girl love. And nothing 
 would seem to them too difficult to attempt. 
 72 
 
Expression Thru Art 
 
 They gloried in color, they were enrap- 
 tured by the multitude of wonderful forms 
 surrounding them. Oh, for that transcend- 
 ent ecstacy of youth, when all the world is 
 ours, when we do not yet know our measure, 
 when we strive for the highest, like unto the 
 babe that will, with its tiny arms, reach out 
 for the shining moon ! Let us treasure it in 
 our memory, let us jealously preserve it in 
 our children. They will run against the 
 walls which hedge in the province of the pos- 
 sible, only too soon; and when the time of 
 disappointment, of disillusion, arrives, then 
 we should stand at their side and guide their 
 steps, and revive their hopes, and strengthen 
 their power, so that they may build up a new 
 world of reality which will be no less their 
 own than their world of beautiful fancy had 
 been. What to the child whose mind is not 
 yet rational would have been like cruel ty- 
 ranny, like lack of sympathy, what would 
 have meant for him a disenchantment, a 
 spoliation — will appear to the struggling 
 youth like a new revelation, a succor and re- 
 lief whose immediate need is deeply felt. 
 We must render technical help only when it 
 is needed; or it will have the effect of offi- 
 cioysness and repression. 
 
 73 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 Besides, the time we can devote to art edu- 
 cation in school is so short, so few of the 
 pupils will ever be in a condition to pur- 
 sue art as their life vocation when they will 
 need technical drill, that we should bend all 
 our energies upon inspiring their youthful 
 soul with a true interest in, and love for, the 
 beautiful. True interest and true love mean 
 not merely an attitude of contemplation, of 
 admiration for beautiful objects and works 
 of art ; but the desire to do, to be ourselves 
 a power, to create as best we can. 
 
 Art work should therefore be co-ordinated 
 with all those activities and interests in which 
 the children take their most spontaneous and 
 deepest delight. Let them illustrate the 
 stories they enjoy most; design and weave in 
 color blankets for their doll's beds; model 
 vases and decorate them with gay flowers in 
 water colors as a Christmas present for 
 mother; or even make their own clay dolls 
 in imitation of their elders; whatever fas- 
 cinates their fancy, or interests them in their 
 lessons, in history, geography, literature — 
 whatever has a pictorial element (and what 
 has not, as all our concepts can be reduced to 
 more or less distinct images from the world 
 of objects!) : all these are so many chances 
 74 
 
Expression Thru Art 
 
 for art expression. 
 
 If we watch the children's own spontane- 
 ous activity in this direction, we shall find 
 that they do not care much for sentimental 
 or contemplative subjects. Their interest 
 centers in action; in motion rather than in 
 repose. Stories where there is most of ac- 
 tion have the intensest attractions. In like 
 manner they will try to portray action, that 
 is, human beings and animals in action; and 
 even where there is a decorative purpose 
 pure and simple, they will often, like the an- 
 cient Greeks in the decoration of their vases, 
 prefer illustrative to ornamental motives. It 
 is more particularly the human form which 
 attracts attention, and is represented over 
 and over again. How the human form can 
 be converted into a decorative motive of of- 
 ten grotesque effect, a study of the art of the 
 North American Indians will soon reveal. 
 (Cf. Figs, i and 2.) 
 
 The same line of thought suggests the 
 reason why I have pleaded for freedom 
 from restraint, from insistence upon rules, 
 and directions, and so-called ''systematic de- 
 velopment". Art expression is a very sensi- 
 tive thing. It is just in the beginning of its 
 evolution in the human soul when it bears 
 
 75 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 the least interference. Such interference 
 would quickly kill the germ of spontaneous 
 creativeness. And it is a great mistake to 
 imagine that you must first learn to draw, or 
 model, a detail, before you can produce the 
 whole. The child sees the whole first, and 
 the part last. To work from details to the 
 whole would be just as absurd as to insist 
 that a child must first learn to spell all the 
 words he may possibly use some time, or 
 master all the rules of grammar and syn- 
 tax, and write perfect sentences, before he 
 can be allowed to express himself in lan- 
 guage, by writing a letter or a composition. 
 Sad to say, this thought-killing method is 
 still the rule in only too many schools, and 
 there are some whose pupils are not given 
 an opportunity to say what they really think 
 until very late in the course, if at all. The 
 result is a dead thing— rules of grammar in- 
 stead of a living thought. The truth of the 
 matter is that the children will learn to ex- 
 press themselves by intuition, by imitation, 
 by absorption; that they will be able to 
 write or speak with tolerable accuracy when 
 they have something to say and are given 
 frequent opportunities to express them- 
 selves ; that if their ideas are clear and cor- 
 
 76 
 
Expression Thru Art 
 
 rect, they will find little difficulty in adequate 
 expression. The prattle of children is so 
 delightfully suggestive and to the point, be- 
 fore it becomes hedged in by rules and 
 u grammaticated", that its repression is a 
 crime against the child-soul and its inalienable 
 right of self-preservation. What we must 
 work for is the thought, and the details will 
 take care of themselves, at least for a while. 
 Likewise art is expression : we must work 
 for the thought first and primarily. Then 
 as to method, attention must be paid to the 
 general aspect of things, to the composition 
 as a whole, to the character and swing of the 
 figures, rather than to the details. It is an 
 error to think that a child must draw leaves 
 before he can draw a tree. As a matter of 
 fact, it is easier to draw a whole landscape, 
 with forests, and lakes, and houses, than to 
 draw a single leaf, a single bough. Illustra- 
 tions of this fact will be given later. We 
 ought to work down from the whole to the 
 parts, not exalt the parts to such an artificial 
 importance that we may never reach the 
 whole. 
 
 77 
 
Ill 
 
 An Experiment, and Conclusions Therefrom 
 
 In the winter of 1896-97, an experiment 
 was made in all classes of the "Ethical Cul- 
 ture School" of New York, under my direc- 
 tion, to test the pupils' ability to represent 
 the human figure in clay, free-hand paper 
 cutting, and drawing. Some of the results, 
 all of which were truly remarkable, are here 
 reproduced. Figs. 3-7 show some of the 
 clay figures made by the children of differ- 
 ent grades. The originals were from five 
 to twelve inches high, and while the clay 
 was fresh and the figures intact, surprising- 
 ly expressive, spirited, and characteristic. 
 No general directions were given as to what 
 figures to model or how to go to work. All 
 figures are imaginative. Figs. 8 and 9 are 
 freehand cuttings from the III. Grade (pu- 
 pils of about eight years of age) ; both were 
 made from the object, a child posing for the 
 class. Fig. 9 represents a boy with a cane in 
 his hand; Fig. 8, a girl writing on the black- 
 board. Fig 10 is a crayon drawing from 
 the same grade; Figs. 11 to 17, from the iv. 
 Grade (as to Figs. 1 1 to 13, it may be said 
 
 78 
 
^ 
 
 ^J 
 
 
 •5* 
 
isfl 
 
 j 
 
 
 
 A B 
 
 Figure 3. Statuettes of the human form, by kindergarten pupils, 
 
 lower left hand corner. In the middle of the picture is bunch 
 
 of grapes by a First Grade pupil. Group A : Red 
 
 Riding Hood and Wolf, by Second Grade. Figures 
 
 B, Squirrels, and C, Swan, by Third Grade. 
 
 Figure 4. Statuettes by Fourth Grade 
 
 Figures J and 4. Clay Figures 
 
Figure 5. Statuettes by Fifth Grade 
 
 Figure 6. Statuettes by Sixth Grade 
 
 Figure 7. Statuettes by Seventh Grade 
 
 Figures j, 6 and y. Clay Figures 
 
Figure 70. Crayon Drawing Grade III 
 
1 
 So 
 
I 
 
 is 
 

 o 
 
 s 
 
 
^ 
 
 £0 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 O 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 5? 
 
 
 v> 
 
 
 
 
 Q 
 
 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 
 <m 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 <a 
 
 
 O 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 - 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 < 
 
 
 <55 
 
 
 »» 
 
 
 o 
 
Figure 8 — Girl Writing Figure 9— Boy with Cane 
 Freehand Cuttings, Grade 111 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 that the direction was given to omit the face 
 if that proved too difficult) ; Fig. 18, from 
 v. Grade; Fig. 19 from VI; Fig. 20 from vn; 
 Fig. 21 from vm Grade. Figs. 14 to 17 
 and Fig. 21 are by children who showed de- 
 cided artistic talent; the others were drawn by 
 ordinary children. In the vm. Grade, some 
 previous training in drawing the human 
 form had been given; in the lower grades, 
 such practice had been only incidental. All 
 the drawings, except Fig. 21, were from the 
 object, individual children posing for the 
 others. It should be said that drawing and 
 modeling was a regular feature of the cur- 
 riculum of the school where the experiment 
 was made. 
 
 Without discussing these productions in 
 detail, we may draw the following general 
 conclusions : 
 
 ( 1 )— Children are much more creative 
 and able to express a thought or feeling ar- 
 tistically with characteristic force than is 
 generally supposed, or than the ordinary 
 art courses in schools will allow them to put 
 in display and practice. 
 
 (2) — They are better able to represent 
 the general swing and character of a whole, 
 even one wb ; ch is apparently so difficult as 
 80 
 
An Experiment, and Conclusions 
 
 the human form, than to produce details ac- 
 curately and in proper relation to the whole. 
 (3) — There is no regular progress in 
 ability and skill from the lower to the higher 
 grades, individual differences and periodical 
 fluctuations manifesting themselves at every 
 step. 
 
 (4)— In clay modeling, the results are 
 most satisfactory, comparatively, while 
 drawing seems to represent the greatest dif- 
 ficulties. Freehand cutting occupies an in- 
 termediate place. 
 
 (5) — Freedom from restraint, from min- 
 ute directions, and from mechanical exer- 
 cises produces the best results. 
 
 With this last conclusion I do not wish 
 to imply that a child needs no guidance at 
 all — that it is enough to give him a piece of 
 clay, or a sheet of paper and a pencil, and 
 tell him, Now, go on. Certainly he needs 
 advice, he needs suggestion. But the form- 
 er should be given, as stated before, with 
 much discretion on the part of the teacher 
 who ought to have himself the art spirit, and 
 only when the child actually needs it; not pre- 
 maturely, or in a nagging way. And the teach- 
 er's function is to regulate the child's at- 
 tempts so that he may learn to choose the 
 81 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 best, and not waste time. A child is so open 
 to suggestion, and so dependent upon it. 
 
 There are several other points to be con- 
 sidered in this connection : 
 
 First — One of the commonest mistakes 
 in directing children's work is to insist upon 
 completing and correcting a piece of work 
 once begun until it is "perfect". The same 
 is often being done with regard to essay 
 writing: children are made to write an es- 
 say over and over again until it is "free 
 from mistakes" and until the child is sick 
 and tired of it. We must not measure 
 child's work by an adult standard. If this 
 is true of any kind of activity, it is particu- 
 larly true of art expression which will de- 
 generate into drudgery as soon as we de- 
 prive it of the character of a humanizing en- 
 joyment. If a young child is forced to toil 
 over a drawing or model after he has lost 
 interest in it, his results will not count for 
 much. Better let him begin a new piece of 
 work, even tho he may not have time to 
 finish the task. Whatever virtue there is in 
 the completion of a work once begun, in the 
 patient toiling on until the task is done: 
 such virtue is not the young child's. A 
 child's attention cannot be fixed long; his 
 82 
 
An Experiment, and Conclusions 
 
 nature demands frequent changes of activ- 
 ity and interest. The child is making only a 
 beginning of life; and it is our privilege to 
 help him in making a good beginning. Then 
 we can be hopeful that he will end well. The 
 difficulty lies just in beginning right. The 
 child often fails in the execution of things 
 because he began wrong. His is not the 
 ability to plan ahead — such circumspection 
 is but slowly acquired. To profit from his 
 errors is the wisdom of the sage : the child 
 possesses little of this wisdom. He must 
 begin many times before he will realize his 
 error. Therefore, rather than insist upon 
 nice and exact finishing, let us encourage 
 efforts to begin right, and be satisfied 
 with otherwise crude execution. It is re- 
 markable how quickly children will pro- 
 gress after they have learnt how to begin, 
 and how much pleasure they will then take 
 in finishing. 
 
 There is another side to this caution. 
 The toilsome finishing of one piece before 
 another is taken up will not only seriously 
 diminish the child's interest in his work; 
 but it will consume an undue amount of time 
 and will thus deprive him of the benefit of 
 trying his hand on a greater variety of sub- 
 
 83 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 jects. Skill comes thru practice— but not 
 so much thru practice within a limited 
 circle of experience, as thru such that 
 takes in a wide range of tasks and tests. 
 The child, at any rate, must explore a large 
 field of possibilities before he will discover 
 the little groove along which he can do his 
 best and quickest work. "There is," said 
 ex-President Eliot, u a general misunder- 
 standing of the word 'thoro' as applied 
 to an education. There should be a distinc- 
 tion between a sound education and a thoro 
 training in insignificant things. 'Thoro' 
 is an exceedingly mischievous word. It 
 conceives something which it is impossible 
 for an adult to accomplish and which it is 
 monstrous to try to force a child to under- 
 take. Is there anything in which any of us 
 is thoro? It is not to be expected that 
 anyone can become thoro in any branch 
 of human endeavor. It is often a terrible 
 waste of time to attempt it, and it is only 
 in a mechanical sense of the word that it is 
 achieved. If one could get rid of this idea 
 of thoroness, one would lighten the bur- 
 dens of childhood. Thoroness means stu- 
 pidity and lack of interest. Stimulate the 
 children to interest and the children will be 
 
 8 4 
 
An Experiment, and Conclusions 
 
 happy. Diversity of studies increases in- 
 terest and that interest is enjoyable and 
 wholesome. . . . Under the pretense 
 of aiming at thoroness, many teachers 
 positively destroy the children's interest. 
 If we look at education as the 
 cramming of information, we might not find 
 time for the subjects that help to increase 
 the richness and happiness of life". 
 
 My second caution is this: If it is true 
 that the child's standard is not that of the 
 adult, we must not judge of a child's form 
 of expression from the standpoint of the 
 adult. What may mean nothing to us, may 
 mean very much to the child. In other 
 words, we must take the child at his own 
 terms; we must estimate the work of a 
 child, and render suggestion and direction, on 
 a psychological basis, on the basis of the 
 psychological evolution of the child-soul. 
 The child's power to see things, to under- 
 stand things, and to reproduce things, is 
 limited, and his ability to control his finest 
 adjustments of muscles and nerves so as to 
 produce exact results is growing at a very 
 slow rate. But my second caution means a 
 great many other things of which I can men- 
 tion only a few salient points. 
 
 85 
 
IV 
 
 Interpretation and Symbolism in Art Expres- 
 
 sion 
 
 Let us compare a photograph with our 
 mind-picture of the same scenery. To pro- 
 duce a photographic picture which has 
 something of the quality of a mental image, 
 is in itself an art. Ordinary photographs 
 are as a rule disappointing; they contain 
 many details of whose presence we were 
 hardly aware and which disturb the har- 
 mony of our impression; and the very things 
 that we are interested in, look much smaller 
 and more insignificant than they live in our 
 memory. The reason is this: a photo- 
 graphic camera is a mechanical eye which 
 records in a mechanical way. But the hu- 
 man eye is the organ of our mind. What 
 is of no interest to us we hardly see at all, 
 while those objects on which our interest is 
 focused stand out boldly, and really out of 
 natural proportions. And then, a very in- 
 distinct visual image may call up very dis- 
 tinct mental images, or memories. Thus we 
 supply from our memory many details which 
 as a matter of fact we do not see at all. Let 
 us imagine ourselves watching a passing 
 86 . 
 
Interpretation and Symbolism in Art 
 
 procession: now and then, out of the cur- 
 rent of faces streaming by, some familiar 
 feature strikes us — the color of somebody's 
 hair, a Roman nose, a full beard of familiar 
 cut. We recognize these as belonging to 
 some of our friends whom we expected to 
 see in the procession, and in our mind we 
 single out these individuals, supply from 
 our memory the rest of the face and figure, 
 and imagine we saw it all. But if we had 
 taken an instantaneous photograph of the 
 same scene, the probability is that the plate 
 would record only a crowd with details quite 
 indistinguishable, and we would look for the 
 figures of our friends in vain.* 
 
 Or suppose we sail on the high sea. In 
 the distance there appears a small dark spot; 
 the object comes nearer: we recognize a 
 steamer crossing our path. We see the 
 smoke stack and the bridge; we even imag- 
 ine we see the people moving about, and 
 a great many details. If we take a photo- 
 graph of the steamer, ever so large and dis- 
 
 *Cf. in this connection the two illustrations on pages 
 519 and 520 in 'The Open Court", September, 1897; 
 the first representing the Papal procession in the Basilica, 
 during the ceremony of canonisation, from an actual 
 photograph ; the second, the same scene, drawn from the 
 preceding photograph by E. Limmer for the Illustrirte 
 Zeitung. 
 
 87 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 tinct, the chances are that we shall recognize 
 few of these details. We had supplied 
 them from our stock of previous experi- 
 ences; we had seen them with our mind's 
 eye, because we knew they were there. But 
 to our physical eye, these details were really 
 indistinguishable. 
 
 This means that we interpret what we see 
 according to our greater or lesser stock of 
 previous experiences; that we magnify ob- 
 jects which are familiar or of interest to us; 
 that we single them out; while unfamiliar or 
 uninteresting objects remain in the back- 
 ground. In primitive art, important ob- 
 jects or personages are invariably repre- 
 sented in larger proportion than the rest of 
 the picture. 
 
 As in oral descriptions, different persons 
 will give very different accounts of the same 
 scene or occurrence, so artists will produce 
 very different representations of the same 
 scenery. The reason is, they were different- 
 ly impressed; with their minds' eye they 
 saw different things in different relations. 
 Here again, we have a corroboration of the 
 truth previously emphasized, viz., that art 
 is not a mere recording of facts, but the ex- 
 pression of an individual attitude. 
 88 
 
Interpretation and Symbolism in Art 
 
 It seems very plain, then, that children 
 will represent things quite differently from 
 what adults might expect. They will see 
 with the minds of children, not with that of 
 an adult. Things that interest them most, 
 tho they may not seem very essential to 
 us, will appear most prominent, even magni- 
 fied, in their drawings; and their know- 
 ledge of the quality and structure of objects 
 differing from ours, their pictures will dif- 
 fer. But they will often record all they 
 know of an object, even tho, at the time 
 of drawing, they did not see these details, 
 and by the laws of perspective could not 
 possibly have seen them from where they 
 sat. They will sometimes draw in a manner 
 as if they could see around, or thru, an 
 object. Fragmentary and unharmonized, 
 unconscious of law and logical order as their 
 thinking is, so their pictures will be a conglom- 
 eration of unharmonized representations 
 which to our cultivated and trained minds 
 may appear as very bungling attempts at 
 art. And yet, we ought to judge them on 
 their own merit, and understand the child's 
 standpoint and stage of development. 
 
 Then, after all, art expression is in its 
 very nature symbolical. If we look at a 
 
 8 9 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 bold pencil drawing where a very few tell- 
 ing lines indicate a hill with trees, a cottage 
 on top and the sea in the background: we 
 admire the sketch, and it means something 
 to us, not because it is an exact copy of na- 
 ture, but because the art of the designer con- 
 jures up in our mind memory images of hills 
 and trees and the sea. We clothe the poor 
 sketch with all the colors of life from our 
 own previous impressions. Or rather, the 
 drawing opens up an avenue of thought to 
 us; thru it, as it were, we view distant 
 scenes as once they have been present to our 
 enraptured eyes. No matter whether the 
 artist would add color to his sketch: the 
 most ingenious painting falls far short of 
 nature and is but a symbol of what it repre- 
 sents. By a skillful arrangement of color 
 effects we are reminded of actual sense im- 
 pressions, and our memory supplies what a 
 picture can never exhibit. We interpret 
 pictures as we interpret the image of real 
 things on our retina, by what we see with 
 our inner eye. 
 
 Symbols are all more or less conven- 
 tional; and if art is symbolical in character, 
 it must use conventional ways which only the 
 initiated will fully appreciate. It may be 
 90 
 
Interpretation and Symbolism in Art 
 
 difficult for us to realize that our master- 
 pieces of art employ conventional symbols 
 needful of interpretation. And yet, this is 
 a fact, tho we may admit that art has 
 reached a perfection which makes it a much 
 more ready vehicle of thought than it was 
 on any previous stage. Egyptian paintings 
 look very awkward to us, but to the ancients 
 they meant as much as a modern painting 
 does to us. 
 
 Conventional symbols in art will corre- 
 spond very closely to the ability of the mind 
 to interpret the world around it, even tho 
 the mind will often outgrow one set of sym- 
 bols more quickly than it is able to construct 
 a new, progressive set. Our modern pic- 
 tures, however, are not readily intelligible 
 to a savage, or a young child. And further- 
 more, the difference in artistic taste may in 
 the last instance be explained by the as- 
 sumption that there are individual differ- 
 ences of interpretation — that the symbols of 
 one are not the symbols of another — that 
 one way of painting a picture may not as 
 readily call up mental images in the minds 
 of certain individuals as another. A visit to 
 one of the larger galleries where different 
 schools of painting and sculpture are repre- 
 91 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 sented, if some attention is paid to the re- 
 marks of the people looking at the pictures 
 and statues, will soon convince everyone of 
 the truth of this observation. 
 
 All this simply proves that there are in- 
 dividual attitudes in art expression as well 
 as in art appreciation. Applied to children's 
 work, it means that we must often respect 
 their individual form of expression when it 
 may be difficult for us to understand it. And 
 there is a deeper reason for judging of chil- 
 dren's productions in this sense, on their own 
 merits. 
 
 92 
 
Artistic Culture Epochs 
 
 Symbolism in artistic expression is mani- 
 festly not an arbitrary thing; it is not man- 
 ufactured, or invented, by some artist, or 
 clique of artists. It represents a mode of 
 thinking; it corresponds to an attitude of 
 the mind, to its degree of ability, as said be- 
 fore, to apperceive and interpret the world 
 around us. The form in which the artistic 
 idea expresses itself, is a growth, as is lan- 
 guage which is thoroly symbolical. Look- 
 ing up the words of the English lan- 
 guage in an etymological dictionary will 
 soon convince us of this fact. Growth, how- 
 ever, is subject to biological laws, and its 
 subsequent stages are determined by the 
 working of these laws. It is exceedingly in- 
 teresting to study the stages thru which 
 our race has passed, in art expression. 
 There is a long way from the art of the 
 savages, thru Assyrian and Egyptian, to 
 Greek and Roman art, and from there to 
 our own time. And there are detached 
 branches, or separate saplings, that had 
 their own growth, such as Chinese and Jap- 
 anese art. The true significance of the con- 
 ception of art expression as a growth, sub- 
 
 93 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 ject to biological laws, will reveal itself to 
 us if we remember that there is a close par- 
 allelism between the development of the 
 soul of the individual and that of the race. 
 A child passes from birth to maturity 
 thru a continuous series of stages, or 
 periods, each of which is a revival of an 
 epoch in the history of culture. He passes 
 thru the same stages of mental develop- 
 ment thru which the race has passed. 
 Observations of children have established 
 this fact beyond a doubt. And this sequence 
 of mental culture epochs is but the spiritual 
 side of a well-known biological phenom- 
 enon, viz., the evolution of the human body 
 from its incipient embryonic stage thru 
 a series of forms which broadly correspond 
 to the characteristics of lower forms of life, 
 until finally the mature human form is per- 
 fected. And as even the adult body con- 
 tains a number of so-called rudimentary or- 
 gans which are of no apparent service in the 
 present stage of human development, but 
 are relics of past stages : so there are in our 
 mind many rudimentary traits, or atavistic 
 peculiarities, which remind us that we owe 
 our present civilization to a process of long 
 evolution from savage conditions. In chil- 
 94 
 
Artistic Culture Epochs 
 
 dren, these traits are easily distinguishable 
 by the psychologist. 
 
 In the development of art expression, we 
 can clearly discriminate these mental culture 
 epochs, from childhood to adult age, and 
 this very fact proves, as said before, that 
 the deeper cause of difference in the form 
 of artistic expression, between the child and 
 the adult, is due to biological laws even 
 tho we may not yet understand the psy- 
 chological process. Some experiments which 
 I had occasion to make have given some de- 
 gree of certainty to this view. 
 
 These experiments were made at the 
 "Ethical Culture School" in 1894, for the 
 purpose of ascertaining in what measure 
 children's drawings would correspond to 
 savage and Egyptian drawings of the same 
 kind and of kindred themes. In Egyptian 
 work, all objects are so drawn as to expose 
 their characteristic side to view. The ground, 
 roads, meadows, ponds, are drawn as they 
 would appear from above; a man standing 
 on the opposite side of an oval pond looks 
 as if he were placed on a blue bag. Let us 
 look at Fig. 22, a pond with palms.* The 
 
 *From Dr. K. Oppel, "Das alte Wunderland der Pyra- 
 mid 'en" ', Leipzig, 1881, p. 148. 
 
 95 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 Figure 22 
 
 artist paints the pond rectangular in shape, 
 lined in with yellow sandstone, just as if he 
 were drawing a diagram or plan, or work- 
 ing drawing of it. On the side of the pond 
 towards the observer there stand three palm 
 trees; on the opposite side only two. Con- 
 sequently, three of them are drawn in front 
 of the diagram, the other two behind it, as 
 it were. As the trees are of about equal 
 height in nature, they are drawn equally 
 high. 
 
 In the experiment, the pupils of all classes 
 were requested to draw a pond with trees in 
 front and on the opposite side; the rectan- 
 
 96 
 
Artistic Culture Epochs 
 
 gular form was mentioned only to the pri- 
 mary and grammar classes. No child drew 
 the picture exactly in the Egyptian style. 
 Five groups could be distinguished. The 
 most immature method showed a radial ar- 
 rangement of the trees {Fig. 23) . This meth- 
 
 Figure 23 
 
 od was characteristic of 43 per cent, of the 
 kindergarten pupils; some pupils were found 
 in every class up to 12 years of age who 
 had not advanced beyond this primitive, or 
 rudimentary, form of representation. The 
 same method is recognized in the Egyptian 
 picture of the brickmakers' pond, in Fig. 28. 
 It is parallel to the one employed in Fig. 24, 
 
 97 
 
Artistic Culture Epochs 
 
 ^ffff 
 
 Figure 28 
 representing a Shaman's Lodge (Alaska) ; 
 the figures, arranged radially along the four 
 sides, are meant to designate people seated 
 around the walls of the Lodge.* In the 
 second and third groups, the pond was 
 drawn strictly rectangular, as in the Egyp- 
 tian drawing. About 50 per cent, of all 
 drawings were of this class. Group II had 
 the trees arranged in various symbolical 
 ways of which Fig. 25 is a fair example. 
 With this may be compared Fig. 26, a sym- 
 bol taken from an Ojibwa Chant, meaning 
 "It is growing, the tree". The symbol rep- 
 resents "Mide wigan (the Medicine Lodge) 
 with trees growing around it at the four cor- 
 
 ners. 
 
 »* 
 
 ♦Taken from the Annual Report of the Bureau of 
 Ethnology, 1888-89. P- 507- 
 ♦Report of Bur. of Ethn., 1888-89, P- 245. 
 
 99 
 
Trees i and 3 are meant to stand on the 
 opposite side; 2 and 4, on the near side 
 
 Figures 25 {upper), 26 {lower) 
 100 
 
Artistic Culture Epochs 
 
 Group in is represented by Fig. 27 where 
 the trees are drawn in natural position. An- 
 other group shows the rectangle of the pond 
 drawn more or less in perspective; and the 
 fifth, represented only by the maturest chil- 
 dren of the highest classes, drew a perfect 
 landscape. 
 
 Another set of drawings was based upon 
 Figs. 28 and 29. Fig. 28 shows Egyptian 
 prisoners of war making bricks;* the bricks 
 
 Figure 29 
 
 are arranged in rows on the ground, and 
 not in piles as it may seem. The five groups 
 in Fig. 29, Coffin-makers,* tho drawn one 
 above the other, each on a separate base, 
 
 *Oppel, loc. cit, p. 144. 
 *Oppel, loc. cit., p. 143. 
 
 IOI 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 must be considered as being really on the 
 same plane, so that, e. g., the glue pot is 
 on the left of the resting man, and the two 
 vases are standing behind the coffin, and 
 would have been partly hidden from view 
 had the artist drawn the picture in perspec- 
 tive. The two pictures illustrate the prin- 
 ciple in Egyptian drawing that objects 
 whose real position is behind one another, 
 are drawn above one another; whatever the 
 artist knows is there and is exposed to view 
 according to this principle. 
 
 In the experiment at the "Ethical Culture 
 School", the pupils were invited to draw a 
 picture, representing a shoemaker on this 
 side of a road, working in the open air, and 
 a carpenter at work on the opposite side. 
 Fig. 30 is a specimen of the manner in which 
 a majority of the children solved the prob- 
 lem. It requires no comment. 
 
 In order to prove, by way of parenthesis, 
 that we are here dealing with actual develop- 
 mental periods in the life of the individual 
 child, the following three sketches are 
 presented (Figs. 31, a, b, and c). All three 
 are the work of the same individual who is 
 now a well-known landscape painter of orig- 
 inal powers. Fig. 31a exhibits his response 
 102 
 
Artistic Culture Epochs 
 
 
 Figure 30 
 
 to the problem described, when he was a 
 boy of 13 in the Fifth Grade of the Ethical 
 Culture School. The interesting still-life 
 (Fig. 31b) was sketched by him in water 
 color when he graduated from the school, at 
 the age of 16 or 17. Fig. 31c is a five-min- 
 ute sketch of the author of this volume, 
 drawn by the same artist a few years ago. 
 The progress in conception and perspective 
 103 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 is most instructive. It must be remembered 
 that the man's power is now in landscape 
 painting. 
 
 It may be added that the statuettes made 
 by the younger and the less artistic children 
 (cf. Figs. 3-7) remind one very strongly of 
 Assyrian statuettes of which there may be 
 found a large and instructive collection at 
 the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New 
 York. 
 
 The parallelism between the work of chil- 
 dren and that of savages and ancients, as 
 demonstrated by the experiments of which 
 there has been here given a brief account, is 
 certainly very striking. It can be observed 
 that the same biological laws that deter- 
 mined the working of the human mind in the 
 race, are still at work in the evolution of the 
 child-soul from infancy up to adult age, and 
 shape the children's artistic expression. All 
 children pass thru a sequence of epochs altho 
 perhaps not everyone thru all, or not all thru 
 the different periods in exactly the same way. 
 The difference is determined by different sets 
 of hereditary and environmental influences. 
 Some may, in this form of expression, never 
 develop beyond the savage stage, tho 
 representing modern culture in other forms 
 104 
 
Artistic Culture Epochs 
 
 of expression. With others, it may be just 
 the other way. But we learn from this at 
 least that we must take children on their 
 own terms, and judge their work from the 
 standpoint of psychological evolution. Al- 
 so, that art instruction can well be correlated 
 with history, and that the teaching of his- 
 tory, which is a record of these culture 
 epochs in the development of the race and 
 of individual nations, might perhaps be so 
 adjusted that these epochs be represented in 
 an order which would coincide with the cor- 
 responding stages in the child's mental ad- 
 vancement. This, of course, is a topic by it- 
 self. It has been demonstrated, however, 
 that children will take great interest in the 
 creations of savage art; and that they will, 
 with genuine enthusiasm, work in ancient or 
 primitive fashion. 
 
 This work may consist in direct reproduc- 
 tions of primitive creations; and in inven- 
 tive and imaginative models and drawings 
 of new themes, after studying samples of 
 primitive art treating of parallel subjects 
 or intended for similar purposes. Especial- 
 ly in modeling and designing, children will 
 imitate savage and ancient patterns, or work 
 
 105 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 inventively in primitive style, with surpris- 
 ingly good results. Teachers are aware of 
 the ease with which children reproduce In- 
 dian pottery. Model 5 in Fig. 38 is the re- 
 production from memory of a Grecian capi- 
 tal; the upper model in Fig. 32 represents 
 the Finding of the Child Moses, modeled af- 
 ter studying Assyrian bas-reliefs; the mid- 
 dle figure on the same plate is a frieze for 
 a temple of Ceres, composed by a child af- 
 ter studying Greek models; and Figs. 33- 
 35 are colored drawings of an Indian vase 
 from the object, with original decorations 
 designed in savage fashion. 
 
 Showing them samples of primitive art 
 has also this advantage that the children, 
 seeing art work to whose standard they can 
 attain, will take courage to apply them- 
 selves, while the holding up of modern 
 standards may sometimes produce a very 
 disheartening effect upon youthful students. 
 Indeed, it requires much discretion to create 
 the proper environment for young children; 
 and tho I am heartily in sympathy with 
 those who desire to introduce reproductions 
 of the masterpieces of art into every school- 
 room, I feel that in the selection of typical 
 representations, samples of primitive art 
 106 
 
Artistic Culture Epochs 
 
 must not be omitted. And we would do a 
 great injustice to primitive artists if we 
 would suppose their work to be altogether 
 crude. It is, in many respects, very crude 
 indeed; but there are, especially in decora- 
 tive effects, pieces of exquisite beauty among 
 the productions of savage art. 
 
 We should be deceived if we would ex- 
 pect a daily, steady and regular progress in 
 the child. The development of a child is 
 in outward appearance a fitful process: 
 there are periods of rapid improvement al- 
 ternating with times of indolence and even 
 of seemingly retrogade movement. We 
 need not worry over this phenomenon. A 
 child does not grow in concentric spheres; 
 but his vital forces swell now in this, now in 
 another direction. Like the oak whose 
 branches spread to all points of the com- 
 pass, in irregular order, and which during 
 the winter only seems to sleep while the 
 forces within are preparing for a new bud- 
 ding time: so the child has his seasons.* 
 
 •Cf. p. 81, No. 3- 
 
 107 
 
VI 
 
 Suggestions as to a Course in Art Training 
 
 If I were to suggest a series of exercises 
 in art expression, I should recommend first 
 of all, conceptional work. By this I mean 
 representations from memory such as the 
 children are most interested in. All of their 
 spontaneous work is conceptional, that is 
 they represent from memory things, or 
 scenes, they have seen and witnessed. This 
 work can be made very interesting and help- 
 ful, in that it will encourage the children to 
 observe more carefully. It will also open 
 up to the teacher a new avenue for studying 
 the child— what the child likes best, what he 
 observes most closely, under what conditions 
 he lives, what he remembers most readily, 
 etc. 
 
 Another group of work is also concep- 
 tional, but with this difference, that the ob- 
 ject to be represented will be placed before 
 the children. This is what is commonly call- 
 ed objective work. But the child does not 
 really work from the object as this is usually 
 understood; he does not produce a copy of 
 the object, more or less perfect in propor- 
 tion to his greater or lesser skill. None of 
 108 
 
Suggestions as to a Course in Art Training 
 
 us draw from the object, or draw the object 
 itself. That is an elliptical way of putting 
 it. We draw what we see (and all of us see 
 with different eyes), and as we see it, that 
 is, as the object impresses us. In other 
 words, we draw from our mind, we draw 
 the mental image of an object. The pres- 
 ence of the object, while we reproduce it 
 artistically, will intensify the mental image; 
 it will re-enforce our concept. But tho 
 between every looking up at the object and 
 every looking down at our paper or lump 
 of clay there may pass only a moment of 
 time, our work itself is no less from memory 
 than when the object is not present at all. 
 This is the reason why individual differ- 
 ences assert themselves so plainly in the 
 drawings or models of a class of children 
 working from the same object. In each 
 one's mind, there is a different image of the 
 form from which they work. Hence this 
 method also deserves the name concep- 
 tional. A good way of procedure is to con- 
 nect the work with an observation lesson, 
 and sometimes to remove the object of study 
 before the children begin to draw or model 
 it. 
 
 Another exercise is imaginative work 
 109 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 which is practically artistic composition: 
 the putting together of conceptional ele- 
 ments into a new combination to form a new 
 whole. Illustrative work belongs here, il- 
 lustrations of stories, events in history and 
 the like. Children have a very lively imagi- 
 nation, and if given scope they will surprise 
 us by their ingenious compositions. The 
 Moses bas-relief in Fig 32 is a sample. 
 Fig 36 is an imaginative drawing, "Priam's 
 visit to the Tent of Achilles", by an eight 
 year old. Fig. 37 is a winter scene com- 
 posed by a little French girl whose nationality 
 is plainly discernible in her drawing. 
 
 The fourth and last exercise is decorative 
 work — designs of all kinds, in pencil and 
 color, in carving and weaving, in bas-relief 
 and sculptural ornament. This work, too, 
 calls for a great amount of invention, and 
 children will take great pride in it, as is seen 
 as low down as in the Kindergarten, if they 
 are given the proper incentive. In other 
 words, there must be the stimulus of a genu- 
 ine interest in the object of decoration. The 
 work must not be aimless, but always to a 
 certain purpose; that means we must give 
 the children some special thing in which they 
 have an interest, some surface, to decorate, 
 no 
 
7 8 9 10 
 
 Figure j8. CLiy Modeling 
 
 Figure 2~J '. A Pond with Trees 
 
^ 
 
 
Si 
 
Figure 32. Clay Modeling 
 
. IF 
 
 
 ? * *^'' v/^' / 7 
 
 
 ( '.- 
 
 Figures JJ, jj, Jj. Colored Drawings of an 
 Indian Vase 
 


 S 
 Si 
 
Suggestions as to a Course in Art Training 
 
 Abstract designs call forth very little en- 
 thusiasm. But let them plan a design, and 
 execute it, by carving or painting, to beau- 
 tify a vase, or a workbox, or a baseball bat; 
 or design a cover for a book they have read, 
 or for a series of essays they have them- 
 selves written; or urge them to look 
 around for any objects of common use 
 which, by decoration, they may transform 
 into a thing of beauty: and the children will 
 at once become interested and exhibit an ar- 
 dor and zeal, and a fertility of invention 
 which it is a genuine pleasure to behold. The 
 decorative effect of the candlesticks (models 
 3 and 4 in Fig. 38) and inkwells (models 
 6-10 on same plate) is certainly striking. The 
 fish design in Fig. 32, invented by a girl of 
 fourteen, is also very interesting. 
 
 Much ornamental art consists of the repe- 
 tition of simple figures. It has been shown* 
 that this phenomenon is connected with a 
 peculiar tendency of the mind to count and 
 group objects automatically by resolving 
 large numbers into small groups of equal or 
 similar characteristics. This tendency has 
 much to do with the sense of rhythm which, 
 
 *"Some Mental Automatisms", by E. H. Lindley and 
 G. E. Partridge, Pedagogical Seminary V, 1. 
 Ill 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 in turn, is closely in accord with the circula- 
 tory and respiratory rhythm. The idea of 
 "symmetry enters largely into the products 
 of animal activity, e. g., the symmetrical 
 structures of ants and spiders, the circular 
 nests of fish and birds." This biological 
 condition is probably the source from which 
 our love of symmetry springs, and indicates 
 "the origin not only of all conventionalisms 
 in art, but also of the impulse which led to 
 an interest in geometrical science." I have 
 quoted the results of these interesting inves- 
 tigations because they corroborate my previ- 
 ous contention that there are biological 
 causes for many of the mental activities with 
 which we are here dealing, and that we must 
 appreciate children's work in the light of 
 manifestations of growth. 
 
 As to the form of execution, drawing is 
 evidently that form of artistic activity which, 
 tho practiced earliest, owing to the easy ac- 
 cessibility of paper and pencil, presents the 
 greatest difficulties to young children, as it 
 requires the greatest degree of artistic ab- 
 straction—representing, as it does, the three- 
 dimensional space on a two-dimensional sur- 
 face; and it is apt to tempt children into 
 scribbling, that is the making of aimless 
 112 
 
Suggestions as to a Course in Art Training 
 
 lines. The experiments reported in this 
 book seem to show that modeling offers the 
 easiest and most natural beginning of art ex- 
 pression. It deals with three-dimensional 
 masses, and allows of a more realistic repre- 
 sentation. Clay permits energetic handling 
 and is yet soft enough to offer the least pos- 
 sible resistance to the feeble fingers of the 
 youngest pupil. It appeals to the sense of 
 touch and produces tactile sensations of 
 smoothness which have so much to do with 
 the development of esthetic emotions. It 
 strengthens the judgment of form, and calls 
 forth that motor activity thru which the 
 mind acquires so many of its most precious 
 concepts. It is so easy to handle that even 
 tender tots can make wonderful things, and 
 yet it permits of the highest perfection and 
 mastership. 
 
 Leaving out, in this connection, such oc- 
 cupations as weaving (in paper, ribbon, and 
 thread), carving, needle-work and the like 
 which connect art work proper with manual 
 training, as these exercises have been re- 
 ferred to in the first part of this book, 
 I would suggest as the next step, paper 
 cutting. While here, the three-dimensional 
 space is reduced to a two-dimensional 
 
 "3 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 symbol, it still deals with tangible ob- 
 jects which are much more realistic than 
 the mere picture. Children will often play 
 with paper dolls as gladly as they do with 
 the creatures of sawdust and porcelain, and 
 will dress them, and put them to bed with 
 almost equal delight. And then, it deals 
 with outlines, with the silhouettes of objects, 
 with their shadow-pictures. Shadow-pic- 
 tures arouse the children's intensest interest, 
 as we all know; and it has been shown in 
 more than one way that children are most 
 concerned in outlines. Of course, drawing 
 may also be in outline; but paper cutting, 
 or tearing, has this advantage that it is 
 more direct and prevents scribbling. It also 
 strengthens the child's judgment as every 
 cut of the scissors tells. 
 
 Last of all come painting and drawing — 
 with brush and water colors, colored cray- 
 ons, pencil and what not, at the discretion of 
 the teacher who will adapt himself to the 
 varying needs of the different ages and in- 
 dividuals. It is not intended to imply that 
 there should be at first only modeling, then 
 freehand cutting, and last drawing. Rather 
 will the three forms of expression go hand 
 in hand. But the work should be so directed 
 as to produce in the child's mind a true con- 
 114 
 
Suggestions as to a Course in Art Training 
 
 ception of the world around him, and to 
 strengthen his power of self-expression. In 
 particular, it may be said that in any special 
 series of exercises the sequence should be first 
 modeling, then cutting, then painting, and 
 finally drawing. But do not tie the children 
 down to minute representations, to a scale 
 which requires great exactness and fine work. 
 Grant them ample space, the blackboard, 
 large sheets of paper, large crayons; encour- 
 age bold lines, bold strokes ; the character and 
 swing of the whole rather than a painstaking 
 recording of details. 
 
 Alongside with exercises in expression, 
 there should go a study of great models, of 
 the masterpieces of art, of painting and 
 sculpture. This should be done not so much 
 for the purpose of searching into the details 
 of their technique (tho it is well to study 
 the master touch, and to learn from the 
 manner in which great minds have expressed 
 themselves) as to derive inspiration. Art 
 is a record of the development of our con- 
 ception of the beautiful — a record of the 
 great thought development of the race. For 
 in their art, the succeeding generations em- 
 bodied their ideals. The history of art is the 
 history of ideals. 
 
 115 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 Conclusion 
 
 In closing, my plea is once more for free- 
 dom and individuality. It is not for so-call- 
 ed results, that is showy products, for which 
 we must strive, but we must make this work 
 an instrument to develop the child-soul in its 
 integrity and fulness. The perfection of 
 the child must be the aim, not a finished piece 
 of work that will arouse the enthusiasm of 
 an unpedagogical multitude. If we would 
 once begin to understand that the real pro- 
 duct of education cannot be exhibited and 
 made a show of, but that it will reveal itself 
 in the life and character of the child when 
 he has reached maturity: we shall learn to 
 apply the right measure to school instruc- 
 tion, and in particular to elementary art 
 work. This must be so conducted that it 
 may reveal the best and the noblest of which 
 the child's soul is capable, that it may be- 
 come a stimulus and inspiration for a genu- 
 ine striving for the ideal. But unless the 
 child is given latitude to be himself, to ex- 
 press himself, and unless his ideas and their 
 expression are judged from a child's stand- 
 point, however crude that may be; or if the 
 child's natural instincts are repressed to 
 116 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 make way for artificial methods and con- 
 ventional systems : art, as well as any other 
 branch that deals with emotions and ideals, 
 will become a demoralizing element, tempt- 
 ing the child into mere outward conformity, 
 affectation and cant. Art, to be a moral in- 
 fluence, must also make for truth; it must 
 lead forth from the deep recesses of our 
 heart a revelation of our most individual 
 feelings; it must be an expression of all that 
 is dear to our mind, and sacred, and noble, 
 and exalted. Art must serve to establish the 
 right relation between our inner self and our 
 outer self, between what we are and what we 
 seem. The right kind of art work will awak- 
 en in our children that love of harmony and 
 order, that enthusiasm for genuineness and 
 sincerity, that respect for the rights and 
 characters of others, as well as for their 
 own true nature which struggles for exist- 
 ence and expression; in short, that spiritual 
 attitude which alone will render their lives 
 a revelation of goodness, a blessing to the 
 world they live in, a factor in divine regen- 
 eration. The truth alone will make us free. 
 Polonius' oft quoted words find a ready ap- 
 plication to all forms of self-expression, but 
 notably to that of manifestation thru art ; 
 117 
 
Some Fundamental Verities in Education 
 
 "To thine own self be true, 
 And it must follow as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man." 
 
 118 
 
DEC 11 I 911 
 
One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
 DEC 1* w