ART KDUCATION. - I 33 



recorded and compared only in drawings or the like, so that 

 even the untrained try to explain themselves by sketches or 

 diagrams, knowing practically that for some things the poor- 

 est sketch is better than the best of words. Drawings, 

 models, and constructions of all sorts, including sculpture 

 and architecture, appeal directly to the eye in this way, but as 

 all of the latter, except perhaps the slightest of clay sketches, 

 are projected or visualized as drawings before they are made, 

 it is clear that drawing of some kind, whether with brush, 

 pencil or pen, is the language of unrivaled usefulness in the 

 communication of those impressions and ideas that reach us 

 through the eyes. The drawings that we make are the test 

 and expression of the accuracy of our observation, just as 

 our words measure us to the ideas that may be expressed in 

 words. Nor is drawing anything more than a language. In 

 itself it is not an art, but the means of an art; a language 

 that may be the medium of an art as the spoken language 

 may, but, like it also, may be used for a simple record of fact. 

 To develop the observing power and to learn to draw well 

 enough for ordinary purposes is as easy as to learn to read. 

 To develop an art-sense is much more difficult and less cer- 

 tain. Poets are born, and the poetic sense is hardly to be 

 made by rule. One thing, at least, is sure, that no one can 

 hope to design beautiful things nor even appreciate the char- 

 acter of such who cannot draw or copy a shape when it is 

 set before him. How could one hope to choose or arrange 

 forms whose fundamental properties are lost on him ? We 

 cannot become an artistic race by an act of will. Even bet- 

 tered observation will not alone accomplish it. It is by 

 exposure to definite impressjions that we may hope to become 

 discriminating, to see that some shapes and lines express 

 vigor, grace, directness, dignity, or on the other hand weak- 

 ness, frivolity, vanity, falsity, confusion. However, we must 

 V)e exposed to definite impressions and be of patience in wait- 

 ing for a reaction. Much as we may wish to make our 

 children sensitive to the expressive character of shape at one 



