NA TURE 



{_Dc 



public schools was looked upon as a novel project in the 

 United States ; for while Mr. Clarke considers that Eng- 

 land has spent " an enormous aggregate of money in the 

 work " the Americans, so profuse in other educational 

 expenditure, have been strangely apathetic in the matter. 

 One explanation given is that during the Middle Ages 

 the Church and the aristocracy were the great patrons of 

 high art, and this bred an instinctive dislike to its pursuit 

 in the minds of New England emigrants. But besides 

 the delineation of Nature and of all her forms of beauty, 

 the minister of cultivated wealth and luxury, there is 

 another branch of drawing of the highest importance to 

 nearly every mechanic in these days, viz. geometrical 

 drawing, the foundation of all industrial art, leading up 

 to the elaborate perspective of a complicated machine. 

 Both branches are of course required in many manu- 

 factures. Which shall be pursued with most energy in 

 any town must depend upon its staple trades ; in some 

 few businesses, as in watches and woven fabrics, the 

 mechanical and the ornamental have about equal claims. 

 The same idea, that drawing meant ornamental art alone, 

 and that its chief results would be the sort of things that 

 accomplished young ladies bring home after a few terms 

 of learning drawing, established itself in the minds of the 

 ratepayers. To meet this the general tone of quotations 

 through this report is that " industrial drawing is of the 

 most practical nature, and has nothing to do with pictures 

 of old ruins, landscapes, &c." Yet elsewhere Mr. Clarke 

 is most contemptuous towards any who wish to confine 

 the drawing taught in any school to " that part of it 

 directly related to industrial interests " ; and the teaching 

 of the self-willed Haydon, of whom he gives a long ac- 

 count as the victim of cruel and ignorant persecution of 

 " aristocratic connoisseurs " but as an apostle of art to the 

 common people, is just as confidently quoted with no 

 qualification. Haydon's teaching is that the study of the 

 nude human figure is the best qualification of an artist 

 for any manufacturing business, and every one holding a 

 different opinion is dismissed by Mr. Clarke with con- 

 tempt. This necessity for high art teaching is a hard 

 doctrine, and certainly discouraging to those who hope 

 to qualify a majority of the working classes for artistic 

 producers or intelligent machinists. Perhaps it only 

 resolves itself into the explanation given on p. 482 by 

 Mr. Sparkes, and supported also by the quotation from 

 Mr. William Morris, that the greater includes the less, 

 and that if an artist is well able to delineate the " subtle 

 lines" of the human figure in a complex attitude, he is 

 not likely to fail in working up a lily or a rose ; and this 

 is only in accordance with Mr. Stetson's teaching quoted 

 on p. 649. Still a superiority of French over German art 

 designs is attributed to the former making the human 

 figure their first study and then proceeding to flowers and 

 ornament, while the latter take what seems to us the 

 more natural course of the reverse order. 



In 1870 the State of Massachusetts after inviting various 

 experts to express their opinions (here reported) decided 

 that drawing should be taught in all its schools. The 

 larger part of this bulky volume is directly or indirectly 

 the history of the call of Mr. Walter Smith, head master 

 of the School of Art at Leeds, who was recommended by 

 Sir Henry Cole to be intrusted with the management of 

 the whole matter. There are 120 closely-printed pages 



devoted to his work in Massachusetts as Art Director 

 from 1 87 1. Every part of the subject was under his 

 guidance, and to impress upon the reader the amount of 

 work entailed upon him an additional chapter is added 

 to describe the unsatisfactory state of things in Boston 

 before his arrival. The whole of his first report for 1872 

 is given, and long extracts from each yearly report on 

 normal schools and every other department afterwards. 

 Plans of instruction for evening classes which he super- 

 intended, as well as of teaching in school hours, are 

 quoted in full. To advance his subject he took to the 

 principal towns in the State a travelling museum of 

 models and examples for study, many supplied from 

 South Kensington. In one appendix are given copious 

 extracts from an address delivered by him to the Penn- 

 sylvania Legislature in 1877 on behalf of the Museum 

 and School of Industrial Art of that State ; in another 

 practical papers on drawing, chiefly by him, of value of 

 course to managers who have just succeeded in intro- 

 ducing the teaching of drawing ; three lectures delivered 

 respectively to the teachers of the three grades of 

 elementary, grammar, and high schools ; followed by 

 extracts from similar addresses delivered, after his con- 

 nection with Massachusetts had ceased, at Montreal and 

 Quebec. 



The chief difficulty of course in setting such a work 

 going was the scarcity of teachers, and this remained a 

 difficulty up to the last. A paper accordingly by General 

 Francis A. Walker, describing drawing as the foundation 

 of all technical education, urges that the normal school 

 should in truth precede, not follow, the elementary school. 

 Another difficulty which an Association of Teachers found, 

 and which showed the state of things at that time, was 

 that there was so great a scarcity of art-books in the 

 country that the Association set itself to encourage the 

 reprinting, translation, and publication of such books. 



On the whole, the energy inspired and the method intro- 

 duced were so successful in Massachusetts that we are 

 told that its history will form a lasting monument alike 

 to the genius of Walter Smith and to the far-reaching 

 foresight of the school authorities and State Legislature in 

 1872-73- 



Appendix D is an account of the differences which rose 

 between the Committee of Education in Massachusetts 

 and Prof. W. Smith. The latter has now returned to 

 England and taken the head mastership of the Art De- 

 partment of the Technical College at Bradford, Great 

 regrets are expressed at the, to them, untimely event of 

 his resignation, and it is lamented that he should return 

 from leading the industrial education of a continent to an 

 English provincial college! The work now (1883) is 

 reported as in too few hands, though still progressing 

 from the impetus it had received. 



No other States have gone into art education with the 

 energy which Massachusetts displayed in 1S72. Two others 

 only. New York and Maine, have required that it shall 

 be taught in all schools. In the latter it is urged as the 

 more important, because every natural feature of the 

 country points it out as the seat of manufactures and not 

 of agriculture. But neither Maine nor New York has 

 provided a normal school for the training of teachers. 

 In various other States, however, individual cities have 

 adopted drawing and made it a regular part of the course. 



