FREE-HAND DRAWING IN EDUCATION. 759 



judgment, character, and will. . . . An education which will im- 

 prove the faculty will be the education par excellence" * 



Whether any one, in the ordinary lay interpretation of the act, 

 is ever able to draw or not is of very little educational impor- 

 tance. But, since we see that the ability of the telegraph opera- 

 tor to attend by ear gives him also the power to attend by eye, 

 we 'may infer that training to conscious and effective effort by 

 one sense trains all others to some extent. The inference seems 

 rational that training one to attend by eye will strengthen the 

 power of observation in all directions. 



The above- quoted opinions all seem to point to the ability to 

 set aside the things that clamor for attention and attend to those 

 that ordinarily escape our observation, as the foundation of 

 success. 



Line No. 2 (on chart) differs from line No. 1, because the sub- 

 ject must, before an attempt to locate is possible, determine which 

 of the points will be taken first. This having been selected from 

 the seven and located, six remain. The choice must be made six 

 times, the location seven, each of which is the result of a distinct 

 conscious effort of the will in " bringing back a wandering atten- 

 tion," which, if left free, would be like Huldy's feelin's described 



by Lowell : 



All ways to once her feelin's flew 

 Like sparks in burnt- up paper." 



To arrest those sparks, bring them back, and hold them for a 

 fraction of a second, means a considerable conscious mental 

 effort, each of which brings nearer the state where fatigue pre- 

 vents further effort and the sparks are followed instead of driven ; 

 hence the curve. 



The very young child has a good conception of the vertical 

 and horizontal positions and of their conventional representatives 

 in lines. But when the line is oblique, the concept of it, as 

 oblique, is altogether insufficient for representation. It slants 

 right or left. This or that end is high, how much ? f 



The composite drawing of fifty-three pupils, average age 



* Psychology, William James, p. 228. 



| In the tests for line 2 no lines were horizontal, none vertical, none parallel to each 

 other cr the margin of the paper, no line prolonged would hit an angle. On the nine-by- 

 six-inch paper the triangle sides were 3'4 inches, 3'05 inches, T55 inches. The longer 

 diagonal of the trapezium measured 4'1 inches; the sides, 3 inches, 2'87 inches, 2'90 

 inches, and 2'86 inches. The measurements for the chart were obtained by placing a test 

 sheet over the drawn one, matching the edges with care, and making with a point holes for 

 the true positions of corners, as mechanically located on test sheet. The errors were ag- 

 gregated on a slip of paper and divided by the number of points (7). The greatest angle 

 error was then selected and divided by 24 (because that figure seemed to make the angle 

 error coeffective with the distance error). The result is added to the average of the first, 



