in detail, but to indicate the principles on which all method must be based, if children are really to learn to sing.

It must be remembered that teaching singing in school is not merely or chiefly to give children a knowledge of the principles of the art. It is rather to introduce into the school life, and thence into the after life, a new element of joy. This involves cultivating not only a love for music, but a love for good music, appreciation, musical taste. This is the principal reason why the music used in instruction should be good music. Mere exercises, musical phrases composed to illustrate some principle of technic, will not do.

It is as great a sin to keep children, in the earlier period of learning to sing, drilling on meaningless mechanical phrases and scales, as it is to make the early reading lessons of meaningless combinations of letters or of words. The "do re me do " first lessons in singing are on the same plane with the "See the ox go up first lessons in reading, or those even worse, in which sounds are put before sense.

In the one, as in the other, the emphasis should be upon the content from the very start. The cultivation of taste should move with equal step with learning the principles of the art. The earliest music used should appeal to the feelings, both for the joy it yields in the present, and for the fuller joy it may be expected to yield with growing taste. Music enriches chiefly the æsthetic side of life. Hence to the æsthetic nature it should appeal during the process of learning.

Moreover, the pupil should learn through his music lesson to appreciate the music of others. But this will be treated in a later chapter.

CHAPTER XXV

THE PLASTIC AND GRAPHIC ARTS

THE same principles that apply to singing apply with equal force to drawing and painting and modeling. There are the same limitations of environment, of untrained or meagerly trained teachers, of pupils without previous preparation, without taste, without desire.

As with singing, the methods must be adapted to these conditions. The first efforts must be to represent truthfully real things which the children desire to represent. They must see from the first that they are getting possession of a new language, through which they may express the results of their observations and their feelings.

Create Appreciation. Furthermore the lessons in drawing and painting and modeling must open their eyes to the meanings and the beauties of what others have done with these arts. The child who has not learned through his drawing lessons to enjoy the fine drawing of a great artist has missed one of the chief possible values of his lesson.

To this end good models of drawings of subjects. similar to those he is to draw should be presented to the children. I am aware that this is heretical. We are told continually that the child must see for himself. Of course he must. But he must learn to see with the eyes of the artist, to distinguish the essential from the

unessential, and in particular to see the beauty of what he is trying to represent. Studying the work of a real artist will open the eyes of the student so that he can see more for himself.

f Value of Copying.There is much to be said for the old custom of requiring students of drawing and painting to copy the works of masters. I am aware that a suggestion of copying in school would meet with extreme disfavor in the eyes of drawing teachers and supervisors. Still I am rash enough to suggest it as a very valuable exercise. The great masters of English have generally acquired facility and style through copying the styles of admired masters. Stevenson, for example, confesses himself a copyist in his earlier attempts, changing his master repeatedly. The great painters have all either begun in that way or have supplemented their earlier attempts at self-expression by sedulous copying. How else is a style to be acquired? A student who carefully copies the works of a master learns to see as the master saw, and thus has his eyes. opened to beauties before concealed. I am convinced that it would be an excellent exercise to introduce into the elementary drawing lessons as well as into those more advanced.

Copying Not All.Of course, this is by no means the whole story. Constant copying would weaken originality. The pupil must learn to see with his own eyes the beauties of what he is to draw, and to select the salient features and group his objects so as to bring out these features. Therefore, after the close study, line by line, of some master's drawing or painting, such as is required for copying, he should attempt to draw simi

lar objects and groups of objects, using what he has learned in his copying.

Drawing a Language. The drawing lesson has another function also. It should not only feed the æsthetic nature of the child, but it also should give him a new language, a fresh medium through which he may express his thoughts. This he will acquire mainly through use, but also through studying the successful attempts of others to express their thoughts.

The young child begins crudely to represent what he sees, and these crude drawings are often very interesting. But the interest is mainly psychological rather than artistic. Through these untutored efforts we get insight into the workings of a child's mind. But if this kind of drawing is continued too long, there results retardation and a clogging of the mental machinery, arrested development, and here is where the child's drawing often breaks down. His work in the intermediate grades loses the freedom that it had in the primary school. He becomes self-conscious, ashamed of the crudity of his efforts, and, lacking the help that an elementary knowledge of technic would give him, loses his interest in drawing. Correct graphic expression can no more be evolved from his inner consciousness than correct language or music. Before he can use the art effectively, he must know something of its laws. These he should be led to discover in the work of one who has obeyed them. In other words, freedom may be carried so far as to destroy itself. There is first the freedom of infancy, untrammeled by any limitations except those of the child's own power. But very soon this must be succeeded by the freedom of law, the conscious power of one who knows how.

It must not be forgotten that the great aim of teaching any of the fine arts is to develop power to see and to reproduce beauty, and to this end it is necessary to understand, to a limited extent at least, the laws of beauty.

Too much of the drawing in schools is barren and mechanical, resulting either in a vain self-satisfaction or in a lack of interest.

Begin with Pictures.-The principles suggested for the teaching of music apply with equal force to drawing. As the former should begin with music, so this should begin with pictures, many pictures, good pictures. Naturally these pictures should be of a sort interesting to children. If possible they should be in color. It is much more important to have in a primary school a stock of good pictures than a set of drawing books or of type-form models. Photographs, copies in black and white and in sepia tints, and reproductions well done in color, are easily obtained and inexpensive. Among the best of the various classes of pictures available for schoolroom use are the large colored posters now offered by all school art dealers.

Must fit Children. It is most important that the pictures used be of subjects adapted to children. Much good art, especially classic art, fails to excite interest in children. Well-meaning committees often err in this regard. Even classical madonnas generally do not appeal to children. Pictures of animals, of other children, of domestic scenes, preferably modern, are the most suitable for use in primary schools. Large pictures with only a few details are the best. These should be changed from time to time and should be studied, that