children how to draw. The following "leading questions," for example, are used in Salt Lake City to increase appreciation of pictures and make it more intelligent. The thought the artist aimed to present-the soul of the picture; the artist's ideal; wherein does the beauty of the picture consist; how far is the scene real, how far is it idealized; setting of the picture, city or country, indoors or outdoors; center of interest or main point, composition; source of light-what is told of natural phenomena, storm, wind, sunshine, temperature, etc. What have you to bring to the picture from your own knowledge of what others have said or written or painted or sung? Title, interpretation. Technique; how was the original picture made; by what process is the reproduction made? .. Is there a something about the picture that cannot be expressed in words? quality that made it necessary to express it as the artist did? etc. THE TECHNICAL ANALYSIS OF PICTURES Is that the Unlike a masterpiece of literature, which loses its emotional appeal as a whole, if in its first impression attention is called to details of technique, a picture continues to be seen as a whole even when attention is directed to its parts and its characteristics. The picture is still there, each new beauty increasing the impression made by the whole. The story or poem is lost as a whole as soon as analysis begins. Hence while technical characteristics of a literary or musical masterpiece must be matter of course and therefore habitual before they can add to its emotional appeal, the technique of a painting may be studied in detail, during its initial presentation, without distracting attention from the impression as a whole. If so, the only objection to such questions as the following taken from the Denver course lies in their complexity: What locality is represented; point of view; extent of realism, idealism. How expressed? By real or imaginary subjects, bearing in mind such principles as the following: simplicity; breadth; repose; unity; harmony; proportion; equilibrium; lines; relative tone values; variety; how secured; repetition; perspective, gradation, subordination, concentration, definiteness, contrast, color-dominant, analogous or complimentary harmony, warmth, coldness. One thing is sure. Much that Mr. Farnum includes under the general head of "Application and Correlation" is an end in itself that should be realized and can be realized, whether drawing is taught or not. Home decoration, the selection of furniture, rugs, pictures and ornaments, tasteful in themselves, appropriate to the kind of room and in harmony with each other, is taught in some schools through model homes and color schemes, in others through the actual fitting up of rooms. The fact that a schoolhouse has beautiful and appropriate pictures upon its walls, or beautiful grounds and school gardens which the pupils help to maintain does not necessarily affect home life. In addition to such admirable lists of plants appropriate for the school grounds and pictures suitable for schoolí rooms as have been made by the Public School Art League of Worcester, Massachusetts, there should be lists of plants appropriate for particular parts of home gardens, and pictures suitable for different sorts and sizes of rooms, particular colors of wall paper and special nooks and niches. The planting of trees on the home grounds of pupils, selected by vote of the school and approved by parents, has been successfully tried by a teacher in Baltimore County, Maryland, in place of the ordinary arbor day exercises. When parents can be led to coöperate with the school authorities, such arbor days may lead the way to the making of rough drafts showing the harmonious arrangements of flowers, shrubbery and trees for individual front yards or lawns. By and by art teachers may visit homes to praise any artistic things they can discover and tactfully prepare the way for suggestions as to possible purchases and locations for the rooms of their pupils or for contributions made by the pupils to the home. Chicago school children are loaned picture frames appropriate to particular pictures, in much the same way that they are loaned good books. There is a sharp contrast between art work such as this and the actual making of all sorts of art objects, most of which become things of horror when given prominent and inappropriate space by admiring or selfsacrificing parents. EFFECT OF INDUSTRIAL ART WORK Indeed, the distinctly vocational or industrial trend, which applied art or drawing is taking in many high schools, is distinct from the development of appreciation, if not hostile to it. A few pupils are being taught to make jewelry, pottery and plaster casts, to bind books, to make dresses, hats, collars and bags, in place of all pupils being trained to select them. Where part of this work takes the form of domestic art and girls are taught to do their own hat-making and dressmaking, appropriateness and becomingness can be directly and effectively taught, but even here selection should not be ignored. More girls will buy their personal apparel than will make it. This fact has been strikingly illustrated lately in York, Pennsylvania, where girls in continuation school classes showed little interest when given the opportunity to study dressmaking and hat-trimming. In general the factory girl or the shop girl wishes her leisure time for recreation in which she wears the hats and the clothing she has earned the money to buy. Even from the standpoint of self-expression, which has become the chief aim of drawing and painting, selection is far more fundamental than skill. A glaring wall paper, a miscellany of brica-brac, lamps or vases embossed and painted into caricatures of the beautiful, hats that are fashionable but unbecoming, ostentatious and flashy jewelry, conspicuous shoes, clothing that cries aloud to attract the passerby-all that is intimately personal, is so obviously expressive of the aesthetic self that whether or not one has personally made it is immaterial, unless lack of skill in making it is accepted. as a partial apology for wearing it. CONCLUSION In short, whether in literature, music or art, the mass of individuals will always be consumers rather than producers. The creation of the beautiful and skill in its manifestation belong to the realm of specialization. Art is social only as it contributes to the happiness of society rather than of an esoteric cult, and democratic only where opportunity to acquire it is open to all who have more than common ability. It is only when aesthetic education seeks appreciation rather than skill and manifests itself in tasteful selection rather than artistic production that the fine arts can become part of a culture that is social and democratic because it is not only open to all, but possible for all and required of all. Examples of schools which emphasize various forms of appreciation have been more or less haphazardly chosen. Only a complete aesthetic survey of American schools can show the extent to which each community is contributing to these ends and give just credit for leadership and conspicuous achievement. Only scientific investigation can determine what materials and methods are most effective. But even a superficial glimpse at existing conditions and tendencies shows that education is so adjusting itself to its new aesthetic responsibilities that a democracy of culture made possible by cheap literature, the phonograph and the moving picture may soon come to play its part in the evolution of a truly democratic republic. SOCIAL TRAINING THROUGH SCHOOL GROUP ACTIVITIES BY IRVING KING, PH.D., Assistant Professor of Education, University of Iowa. Current educational practice is marked in very many localities by much attention to the social relations incident to the work of the school. More and more are teachers appreciating the educational possibilities of these social relationships. The major part of this paper is to be devoted to a presentation of some of the more important and suggestive attempts to secure really valuable results from school group activities. It may be proper, however, to state briefly, by way of introduction to what is to follow, the general principles on which the social values depend. THE INFLUENCE OF THE GROUP UPON THE INDIVIDUAL It is a truism of social psychology that the individual is controlled to a certain extent by the group to which he belongs. This tendency to be influenced by the group pattern, or ideal, occurs not merely with adults but in an especially striking manner with children as they approach the teen period. This control of the group, while not always an unmixed blessing, may easily become a valuable educative agency. The evil of it would appear of course in those cases in which the group pattern chances to be a bad one, and also when, if ever, the youth is simply impressed with the social, pattern with the result of suppressing his own individuality. Thus, while it may be a good thing for the boy or girl to be restrained from undesirable behavior by belonging to a group which does not approve of such a mode of action, it is good mainly in the proportion in which the youngster grasps the approved line of conduct as an ideal and, instead of merely obeying the mandate of the group, actively embraces the attitude expressed by his companions and finds in it genuine self-expression. In other words, group control, to be really educative, must prove to be a stimulus to the self-activity of the individual, some thing that really arouses the individual to fruitful action where he would otherwise have been inactive. If the group control is exerted along broadening and profitable lines it will have much real educational value for every person who participates. This educative value obtains wherever worthwhile groups are formed, outside of school as well as within. With the activities of children outside of the school we shall not here attempt to deal. It is sufficient to say that the literature describing the doings of gangs, clubs, etc., is replete with illustrations of the educative values of group activities.1 We shall here pass at once to the problems of this sort presented by the school. All school life, with its classes, its study-room groups, its playground, its school spirit and its class spirit, is a continuous process of social education through group action. The educational values of these more informal school activities we may also pass over. It has been partly from a recognition of the power of the group, even though exerted quite without premeditation, to shape the character of the individual that many constructive thinkers and practical workers in the fields of both secondary and elementary education have sought to make more definite use of this social force. Another motive has undoubtedly been largely present in all such efforts, namely, the purely practical desire to hold within reasonable bounds the insistent social tendencies of young people. Social activities there will be, whether the teacher plans for them or not, and the impulse for much of the constructive development which has recently occurred is doubtless due to the need of facing the practical situation of a lot of embryonic social groups and directing their expression so there may be a minimum of undesirable consequences. However, be the causes what they may, the present-day school is rapidly coming to an appreciation of the educational significance of school activities of the social type. TYPES OF ORGANIZATION FOR SOCIAL TRAINING There is a wide range in the variety of efforts that are now being made to promote a valuable social life in the school. Many principals have been giving much patient attention to feasible ways 1 See Gunckel, Boyville; Buck, Boys' Self-governing Clubs; Burkheimer and Cohen, Boys' Clubs; Puffer, The Boy and his Gang. |