ART KDUCATION. . 1 37 



ment, or in order to stimulate-or charm to better service the 

 communicating nerves. Such a work has never been made 

 from a formula, nor with the wish to be artistic leading us 

 backward from effect to cause. The great Renaissance is 

 proof of this, in that its product falls appreciably short of 

 that of the preceding Gothic period in sincerity and force, 

 except where, as in realistic painting and sculpture it was 

 really in no sense a rebirth or attempt to revive old ideas. 

 In these it was a spontaneous impulse, inspired indeed by a 

 sense of the greatness of the ancient examples, but doing 

 quite another thing according to laws and within limits 

 which were then to be discovered. To let the study of his- 

 toric ornament go hand in hand with elementary work in 

 design for construction, in association with "manual train- 

 ing" and with the arrangement of natural and geometric 

 forms for ornament, is easy enough. It is perhaps going too 

 far for public school work, the purpose of which is not to pre- 

 pare children to be craftsmen or designers, but to give onl}' 

 that which is certain to be of value to all. If it is to be done 

 at all it must be done with the principle clearly in view that 

 design begins with the constructive basis, and that to enrich a 

 bad form or to add ornament which is not coherent with the 

 form is an unmitigated evil. If on the one hand the public 

 school must not be expected to do the work of the vocational 

 school, it may justly be required to do nothing that the voca- 

 tional school will have to undo. This is a point at which it 

 may be tested fairly. Leaving to the decision of time the 

 points about which battle is being raged, there are several 

 things that are done in the pul)lic schools that are not toler- 

 able from any professional viewpoint. A child should not be 

 reciuired to do work for which neither he nor the teacher has 

 any standard, such as mussy landscapes in water color, or 

 illustrations of events in distant history. Neither should a 

 cliild, because he cannot draw well, be shown ill-drawn figures 

 as models, and then be called upon to draw similar figures 

 from memorv. Such a demand is outrageous if it means 



