134 BARKKR : 



step, it must necessarily be by many steps while the eyes are 

 being opened. Then, if at last we do not need to be told that 

 some vase embodies the Greek clarity of thought and the Gieek 

 restraint, but the sight of the vase carries the conviction more 

 directly than words, then perhaps when we build our houses 

 and furniture, and make our pictures and jewels, it maj^ be 

 that these works will take their shape from the actual motives 

 of our lives, and not be an inexpressive compound of misun- 

 derstood borrowing and blundering invention. Our tools, 

 our things of use, are up to the present time much more intel- 

 ligible than our art, and much more sincere. Thus it is that 

 while the direct benefits of the disciplinary work of art educa- 

 tion are bettered observation and a useful familiarity with the 

 language of the pencil, the disciplinary exercise is also the 

 necessary preliminary to cultural study and the evolution of 

 latent creative impulses. To recognize that the subject as 

 taught in the public schools should be restricted to those 

 methods and elements that are of immediate and universal 

 value, is to ensure its value as a preparation for professional 

 education also. 



Of the published systems of art education now in general 

 use, there is not one that does not afford a sufficient variety of 

 lessons that are entirely suited to this purpose, but unfortun- 

 ately there is not one in which all the lessons are good or even 

 harmless, as generally given in practice. The question of the 

 value of such a system, or of any possible system, must of 

 course depend on its interpretation — on what to lay stress and 

 spend time, over what to pass lightly. Since it is often in the 

 hands of teachers without enough special training to give 

 them confidence in their own judgment as against the author- 

 ity of the system, this interpretation is often quite literal and 

 tempered only by convenience. Yet the test would be easy 

 enough. 



To set definite standards before the child and hold him to 

 definite statements is our clear duty. To set before him 

 objects of obvious shape or color and to require a reasonable 



