FREE-HAND DRAWING IN EDUCATION. 755 



beaten in upon the mind, and in most cases have been yielded 

 credence without question or reasoning. 



Finally, at the peril of tediousness, let me repeat, belief is a 

 vital function. Whatever arouses and stimulates the active na- 

 ture, looked at from the physiological or psychical point of view, 

 helps to awaken and further belief. The forces that we call life 

 make for belief. We all want to believe. Primitive credulity is 

 an experience for us all, and it is just this vital side of it that 

 accounts for our tendency to accept rather than to reject. So 

 long as belief remains an active function, and so long as life 

 remains a bundle of functions united to delight in their activity, 

 we shall have a healthy desire to believe rather than to doubt. 



FREE-HAND DRAWING IN EDUCATION. 



By H. G. FITZ. 



MR. CHARLES WHEELOCK, Head Inspector of the Regents 

 of New York State, voicing the opinion of fifty-five hun- 

 dred teachers in this State, says, that for the twenty years during 

 which drawing has been a part of the curriculum of the public 

 schools, "the results are not much of anything." * 



This statement, coming from such a source, is worthy the care- 

 ful attention not only of teachers, but of all taxpayers as well. 

 If true, it seems that for each child in the public schools of this 

 State about forty hours a year are wasted ; this means an aggre- 

 gate of years of time and thousands of dollars. 



The Art Students' League of New York city gathers pupils 

 from most of the States in the Union. It stands second to no art 

 school in America. Mr. Henry Prellwitz, a well-known artist of 

 this city, and instructor of the portrait class at the Pratt Insti- 

 tute, Brooklyn, N. Y., has for some time past been Director of 

 the League, and has had ample opportunity for studying the 

 work of those admitted to the classes. His opinion is that " ap- 

 plicants who have been trained in other than pure art schools 

 have received no benefit from their lessons in drawing ; their 

 efforts have been misguided, the undoing of which results in 

 loss of time, and their progress is less rapid than those who 

 have received no such previous training." Mr. Edward A. Bell, 

 a well-known figure painter, who was awarded the bronze medal 

 at the Paris International, also second Hallgarten prize at the 

 New York Academy of Design, who has had several years' expe- 



* School Journal, June 10, 1896, p. 728, 



