T is always with a certain unwillingness that I use the term "Art Education," because it is well understood that art in its proper sense can not be taught. That mysterious impulse which lies at the basis of painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry and music, is wholly incommunicable, and all we can do to promote it is to provide conditions favorable to its development. But we can teach the practice of art, that is, the use of the instruments through which it finds expression. In the case of the graphic arts. this includes instruction in drawing, painting, modeling, composition.

The problem of modern art education, as of all other education, is to introduce more practical and stimulating methods without impairing the serious discipline

of the old methods. Two serious criticisms are made of the art schools of the present day: one, that the studies are not prosecuted with definite enough aim and do not sufficiently qualify the student for actual work; the other, that no system of education in the practice of art has ever been successful except the apprenticeship system of the old masters.

Concrete examples are examples are much more forcible than theoretical discussions and the purpose of the present article is to make a clear statement of how the endeavor is made to meet these difficulties in the schools of the Art Institute of Chicago. Here a body of serious and liberal educators, in close communication with Europe, has been at work for years endeavoring to establish the most practical and effective system of education in the practice of art. Space will not allow me to discuss methods and I must confine

in the opposite course, and those teachers and schools which decry this fundamental practice from the antique may be suspected of accommodating themselves to the inclination of the students rather than aiming to promote their real welfare. It is true, however, that a defect of American schools, and of the schools of Paris and Munich as well, is to be found in too great or rather too exclusive devotion to academic practice, that is, to the drawing of the human head and figure from

cises of the athlete which develop his general strength, while the special studies correspond to the boxing, rowing, running, which ning, which may form his specialty. There is no escape from this serious work, nor would any intelligent student desire to escape from it or even consider it drudgery. In the afternoon there are still academic classes in which the student may work, if he prefers, but it is in the afternoon that the special classes meet, in stilllife painting, modeling, illustration, com

antique or from life. Six or eight hours a day of hard drawing from the cast or even from life, as used to be the rule, is more than flesh and blood can endure without loss of interest. Our practice now is to require the whole school to spend one-half the day, the forenoon, in academic practice. During this period there is little else going on in the school. Promotion from one class to another and high standing and honors depend upon excellence in this kind of work. This academic practice is akin to the gymnastic exer

position, sketching, artistic anatomy, perspective, pen-and-ink, lettering, art history, color theory, etc. This division of the day gives opportunity for students who are aiming at a specialty, such as illustration, to begin at once (in the afternoon) the study bearing upon that specialty, such as wash-drawing, pen-and-ink, junior composition and figure sketching; and at the same time to lay a firm foundation (in the forenoon) of academic drawing. The change of occupation is in every way advantageous. All students are

means to an end. In the art school of In the art school of former years the student toiled incessantly, almost exclusively, upon academic drawing and painting. Little attention was given to memory drawing, to sketching (rapid studies from nature) or to applications of any kind. How greatly all this is changed will be seen from a mention of some of the special classes of a school which aims to be liberal and progressive: such as memory classes, in which the model poses but one minute and the student sketches the action from memory; memory classes, in which the students paint the whole figure from life one afternoon and reproduce it from memory the next afternoon; illustration classes, in which the student draws the figures from nature and fills in the accessories from memory or imagination; half-hour poses of the costumed model and of the nude model, the work to be completed within the half hour; the moving pose, in which the nude model performs repeatedly the same action, striking a ball, dancing, turning a crank, hammering an anvil, and the student selects for his study any moment of the action which may interest him; half-day studies for ele

tecture, decorative designing and normal instruction as a matter of course aim to produce and do in fact produce practicing architects, designers, and drawing teachers. Nobody can complain of any indefiniteness of aim here; but something similar is true of the departments of portrait painting, of sculpture, of mural painting and of illustration. All these students are definitely trained for actual work, and many of them produce professional work even before they leave the school. The landscape painter is about the only specialist whom, on account of the climate, we are not able to take during our school year beyond the academic practice and still-life painting which confessedly form a necessary part of his training, but he paints from nature in the summer vacation and competes for the prizes of the Art Students' League exhibition in the winter. It is common for students of illustration to compose and execute in the class-rooms illustrations for books and magazines and designs for posters and book-covers which are published and paid for. The advanced painting classes execute mural painting for actual buildings, of which examples may be