NATURE 



97 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1886 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION IN AMERICA 

 Industrial and High Art Education in the United States- 



Part I. " Drawing in Public Schools." By J. Edwards 



Clarke, A.M. (Washington : Government Printing 



Ofifice, 1885.) 

 r^ RANGES required in school training, in the substance 

 — as well as in the method of it, are now felt to be a 

 vital question to the political economist and the law- 

 maker, as well as to the moralist. While the old appren- 

 ticeship system was in its vigour, the youth was taught at 

 school the three R's and whatever other branches of a 

 liberal education his parents could afford, and for seven 

 years after that technical instruction was given to him in 

 all the branches of the trade he had chosen by his master, 

 the best teacher that could be found in those days. But 

 under the influence of machinery that system has com- 

 pletely collapsed, and the feeling is rising everywhere that 

 something must be done at school to replace instruction 

 given of old by the master. Theorists insist that nothing 

 short of a technical school, where each trade is taught 

 from beginning to end, will sufficiently replace the care 

 and the interest of the latter, and they hold up the Russian 

 Strogonofl" school as an example of their being taught in 

 this complete way and triumphantly compare its work 

 with that of the best manufacturing countries. They 

 urge that in a system of public education like that of the 

 United States it is a serious fault that, while a classical or 

 professional education is provided free for the youth who 

 desires it, technical instruction is denied to a far larger 

 body of mechanics who have as perfect a claim to the 

 education they require. In Stockholm the experiment of 

 every elementary school having a carpenter's and joiner's 

 shop attached is being tried, but the impracticability of 

 carrying on in every town schools where instruction in 

 each art can be efficiently given to the labouring classes 

 has left the teaching of theorists little else but theory, and 

 a technical school giving instruction in the one or two 

 principal trades of a district is all that can be looked 

 for. 



One item of education, however, has made its way in 

 most European countries, as being a help to all technical 

 work, encouraging observation and correctness, and 

 enabling such observation to be registered and expressed. 

 It is here asserted to be a qualification for nine-tenths of 

 the occupations into which all labour is divided, and is 

 welcomed by the most advanced supporters of technical 

 schools as the first step. Reading, writing, arithmetic, 

 and drawing are now to be the four fundamental studies. 

 A knowledge of it is essential in many of the studies in 

 the schools of science, and especially useful to all engaged 

 in the profession of teaching. More doubtful assertions 

 are that like other technical teaching it does not neces- 

 sarily interfere with or hinder other work, and that it 

 positively assists in learning to write ; this latter having 

 the authority of the London School Board, as well as that 

 of an American writer quoted in this volume. The rise 

 in value also in the labour-market of each mechanic who 

 has the power to draw or even understand a drawing of a 

 mechanical arrangement is often insisted upon ; but when 

 Vol. XXXV.— No. 802 



such an accomplishment has become common to all, and 

 therefore gives its possessor no superiority, this is rather 

 doubtful, though the raising of a whole class to the capa- 

 cities of artists and engineers will very likely add to 

 republican equality. 



While England has for years encouraged the teaching 

 of drawing, and, the year before last, made it a part of the 

 education of all boys in elementary schools, in the United 

 States a sense of its importance has been only slowly 

 making its way. Recently, however, the Senate requested 

 all information on the subject of industrial and high art 

 education in the United States to be laid before it by the 

 Education Bureau. This work was committed to Mr. J. 

 Edwards Clarke, already the author of a Circular on the 

 subject published in 1874, which excited so much interest 

 and drew so much further information that it is repro- 

 duced at p. 487 of this volume, having now, the author 

 claims, some little historical interest, the meagre list 

 which it contains of art institutions in the country at that 

 date contrasting with the changes already brought about. 

 The Bureau had already decided to prepare a much more 

 comprehensive work, which should combine a history of 

 the earliest efforts of writers of all views in all parts of 

 the United States and in England ; an account of their 

 failures and successes, and especially of the Massa- 

 chusetts success ; with information as to planning 

 schools of high art and public art-museuins ; lists of 

 art-publications and materials ; extracts from foreign 

 official reports as well as from other foreign material. 

 This, even before the Senate's Commission enlarged its 

 scope, was sufficient to make a tolerably voluminous work. 

 But a source of disorder and much repetition has been a 

 series of delays in its publication. It was complete for 

 publication in 1877, and while in one article of that date 

 criticising the few artistic buildings which New York 

 could show in 1875, it rejoices in a later one at the im- 

 provement there in 1883, and the artistic taste displayed 

 by its architects ; it was ready again in 18S0; corrected 

 again for 1882, and statistical tables down to 1881-82 

 printed, which again it is promised shall be supplemented 

 by tables reaching down to June 30, 1885, at the end of 

 the fourth volume to which this work is to reach. It was 

 printed in 1885, and inserts publications of that year, yet 

 quotes from an " unpublished " report of the National 

 Educational Association held in 1884 ; and it is still only 

 promised to the public at this year's end. Since this one 

 volume extends to 1 100 pages of, for the niost part, small- 

 printed matter, the whole work may be looked upon as 

 an encyclopaedia of information bearirig upon the drawing 

 question, of value chiefly to two classes of men, viz. 

 school teachers, who will find nothing wanting, and earnest 

 advancers of art education. For unless the general public 

 in America be far different from our own they will not be 

 led into the study of the subject by such a publication as 

 this, and in its present form it must quite fail of the 

 general effect upon them aspired to on p. xxx. The 

 fourteen papers by the compiler with which the work 

 opens would be appropriate for rousing attention if dis- 

 persed over the country in the most handy form ; in their 

 present position their inflated and impetuous style is 

 inconsistent with the idea of exactness to be expected in 

 this class of publication. 



As late as 1876 the introduction of drawing into the 



