THE INFLUENCE OF PICTURES. 



J. P. M CASKEY, 



IF IT is a very good thing to hang 

 attractive pictures on the walls of the 

 home, then it is doubly so thus to 

 ornament the walls of the school 

 room. "In the emptiest room," says 

 Ruskin, "the mind wanders most, for it 

 gets restless like a bird for want of a 

 perch, and casts about for any possible 

 means of getting out and away. Bare 

 walls are not a proper part of the 

 means of education; blank plaster about 

 and above them is not suggestive to 

 pupils." The landscape makes a bright 

 opening through the dead wall like a 

 window; flowers and ferns are suggest 

 ive of the garden, the lane, the field, the 

 woods, the purling stream; of song 

 birds in the air or among the branches, 

 and blue sky overhead. Animals sug 

 gest a life with which we should be 

 more or less familiar. The portrait 

 speaks the man, what we know of him, 

 suggesting trains of thought that may 

 be most interesting and profitable. 



A mother wondered why her three 

 brave lads had all gone to sea from an 

 inland home. She was speaking, in her 

 loneliness, with a friend who had called 

 upon her, and she could not suggest 

 any reason why they should all have 

 adopted the sea-faring life when none 

 of their friends or relatives had been 

 sailors. The man observed a picture of 

 a full-rigged ship hanging above the 

 mantel. It was perhaps the only pic 

 ture in the room, at least the only one 

 at all conspicuous. A thought struck 

 him. "How long has that picture been 

 hanging there?" he asked. "Oh, it has 

 been there ever since the boys were 

 little children." "It was that," he said, 

 " that sent your boys away. The sea 

 grew upon their imagination until they 

 longed for it, and sought it, and so they 

 are gone." 



So a striking or attractive picture, in 

 the schoolroom as in the home, may 



sink deep into the heart of the child, 

 and mean far more to him than much 

 of the work which the school program 

 usually imposes. He may forget the 

 name and lose all recollection of the 

 personality of the teacher and of most 

 of his schoolmates, but the striking 

 picture is a picture still. That he will 

 always remember. In our experience, 

 as we grow older, if we are at all ob 

 servant, we know more and more the 

 value of these things how great a fac 

 tor in education they may become! 



Men wonder sometimes how they 

 can expend a modest sum of money to 

 good purpose in giving pleasure and 

 profit to others. Get some pictures of 

 good faces,*and flowers, and landscapes, 

 and other proper subjects, and put them 

 upon the walls of your nearest school- 

 house, or of some other in which you 

 may be interested. When you have 

 done this for one school you may want 

 to do it for a second, or you will sug 

 gest to some other generous heart the 

 like gift of enduring value. What 

 chance have boys and girls with a dead- 

 alive teacher in a school-house whose 

 blank walls are eloquent of poverty? 

 Oh, the weariness of it! 



Real, genuine, helpful, beautiful art 

 is now brought within reach of the mil 

 lion. The arts of chromo-lithography 

 and half-tone engraving are putting 

 exquisite pictures, at low cost, wher 

 ever there is taste to appreciate and 

 enjoy them. In our homes they are 

 everywhere. Why not everywhere also 

 upon school-room walls bare of these 

 choice educational influences? To 

 many a child good pictures come like 

 the ministrations of the angels. We 

 feel this, we know it; and for the years 

 remaining to us shall do what we can 

 to make school-life better for the pic 

 tures on the wall. 



