The Arts Round Table Report, 1908-1909 THIS The Arts Round Table HIS round table was organized for the purpose of studying the relations between the arts and the several other subjects of the curriculum, both as to the respective subjectmatters and as to their uses in education. Owing to limitations of time only three subjects were treated; but, at the close of the sessions, the suggestion was made, within the round table, that the other subjects of the curriculum be studied in the same way at some future time. The reports printed below are more or less condensed from those which were handed in by the committees. Report on Literature Literature as a fine art has, in common with other fine arts, these points: It is an embodiment of an ideal, is infused with imagination, is an organic whole with central idea and detailed working out in variety, truth and beauty, and explains itself without the aid of other arts. Great masterpieces are great in the central idea, the general conception, and the execution. All artists, composers, painters, poets are one and the same in essential nature, differences between them being due to the fact that the character of the idea to be embodied by each calls for the use of different media and is more or less influenced by them. In Education we consider literature from the standpoint of (1) the finished work, (2) the technique, (3) the adaptafion of the work to educational needs. The appreciation of literature depends upon the mental and emotional equipment of the student. Pictures and other art forms may be used to recall past experiences; pictures and other art forms may be used to aid the children in building up or gaining experience, or to correct wrongly formed impressions. No idea in the mind is rounded out until there has been an expression in activity; therefore the equipment of the children should include training in all forms of expression. Training in expression in all the arts should keep pace with the con tent in the children's minds. Children may appreciate the feeling which actuates the various forms of expression as well as the fitness of the form to its use. The study of any principle, quality, or feeling in one art will reinforce the study of a like principle or feeling in another art. A constant recalling and comparison of such elements in the several arts makes for the better understanding and appreciation of each. From Committee's Report. One of the most valuable discussions in connection with the report developed some suggestions as to the use of illustrative materials: With the idea that any form of graphic representation will be helpful to the pupil in literature in the forming of his images, inferior pictures are sometimes employed to illustrate the text, "for lack of anything better." Not only from the standpoint of art education is the use of such illustrations a positive evil, but from the standpoint of literature study as well. A poor or inadequate picture restricts the imagery by giving it a specific object of little suggestiveness to dwell upon. Great illustrations tend to stimulate, set free, and expand the imagery. Pictures used in connection with the study of literature should, in justice to the work being studied, be of high artistic quality, with particularly rich imaginative suggestion. Report on Mathematics (a) The committee made a presentation of the nature of the subject and its place in education as now understood. This was done through the reading of a paper entitled "Arithmetic in Public Education." (G. W. Myers, published in pamphlet form by Scott, Foresman & Co., Chicago, 1909.) (b) Aim of Mathematics: Preparation for efficient citizenship, intelligent pleasure, love of right. Its direct aim to teach how to master quantitative experiences; its indirect aim to develop the faculties which make for effectiveness in life: thought-memory, judgment, independence, veracity, originality. How mathematics develops the creative talents: by method of attack, viz., it follows method of life; its learning procedure, characterized by reason and naturalness, is as follows: preliminary reconnoitering; informal use; formal process study (inductive, analytic, diagrammatic, memoriter, appeal to reason); drill and application to make mechanics facile, to deepen and strengthen underlying reasoning power, to give mastery and pleasure. (c) How to correlate mathematics with art: by stressing ideas of form, proportion, order, neatness, symmetry whenever they appear and by representing ideas graphically whenever possible, such as fractions, products, quotients, sums, differences, mensuration of planes and solids.-From Committee's Report. Objection was raised to the last point in that relations of subject matters are not in the hands of the teachers and cannot be produced by school-room manipulation, as that point might seem to suggest, but are either basic or nonexistent. The discussion which followed on the subject of the interrelations of mathematics and the arts touched the points enumerated below: All art is based on order and mathematics is inevitably found underlying it, but the mathematical ideal is not the ideal of the artist. In even a formal art such as Greek architecture there is always a manifest avoidance of obvious mathematical relations. The front of the Parthenon is as 4:9 and not as 4:8 in its relations of height to width, and every supposedly straight line in it, as well as in other examples of Greek architecture, is slightly modified from the straight, a slight but intentional curvature appearing. This avoidance of the mathematical is even more apparent in the Byzantine and Gothic architectures and its degree almost measures the increase in vitality which these latter arts exhibit over the former. (See Ruskin "Seven Lamps of Architecture; Lamp of Life," for specific illustrations). The use of and deviation from mathematical relations in arts-products can be studied comparatively in Wilton and Persian rugs, the former, made by machinery, achieving a mathematical ideal, the latter, made by hand, while no less perfect in workmanship, showing always more or less intention in the placing of apparently accidental variations of tone and pattern (see Mumford, "Oriental Rugs," Scribner's). The fine domes of the world's architecture are none of them perfect hemispheres as they might have been had the ideal been strictly geometric. After this discussion the development of accuracy. through art education was called into question. The discussion of this matter touched the following points: The development of accuracy is not a fundamental aim of art education: There are, however, certain accepted artforms, such as borders and all-overs, which call for more or less exact mathematical repeats. Perspective is a science deeply involved with both plane and solid geometry. All constructive work involves mathematics and may give opportunity for following the very "method of life" referred to in the mathematics report (Report on Mathematics, b). Report on Geography [This report, because of time limitations, was made in the form of an outline for a series of topics, the more complete investigation of which should result in an understanding of the relations between geography and the arts.] A definition of the study of geography in its broadest sense. The necessity for the knowledge of other subjects, such as history and civics, to a complete understanding of the relation of a region to the present condition of its inhabitants. I. (a) Use of pictures in teaching geography. (b) Art in the coloring and shading of maps. II. The value of teaching the art of a region or a peo ple per se. III. The effect of natural conditions on the character, thought, and occupations of a people; and, through these, upon the art of the people* (including effect of mountains, pastoral regions, plains, deserts, oceans, forests, temperature, humidity, seismic disturbances, effect of age of civilization, industries, and previous conditions of race).—From the Report on Geography. Chicago Normal School. GEORGE W. EGGERS. *For a fuller discussion of this topic see THE EDUCATIONAL BIMONTHLY, Vol. III, No. 5. The Bulletin Beautiful T HAS been the custom for some time in the library of the Chicago Normal School to give special attention to the presentation of artistically arranged bulletin boards. These have aroused much interest and inquiry, thus it seems worth while to give the matter special consideration, that through this development others, interested, may profit. The making of artistic bulletins for children has grown to be, in many libraries, a successful means of interesting children in good books. It was originally begun with the idea of interesting the child or the public in certain books on definite subjects, in other words, to guide the reading of those who came to the library. The bulletins can be made in several ways. A thin pine backing on the wall, covered with burlap or denim of a good color in harmony with the wood work of the room, put in a conspicuous place, is one idea. Corticene or cork carpet is also a good foundation for a board but is more expensive than the burlap. Ingrain paper in soft coloring is usually a good background for the mounts. There should always be harmony between the subject, the color, and the pictures to be mounted. A great deal of artistic skill can be shown in the placing of a picture or in grouping. The point should not be the number of pictures that can be displayed but a definite idea presented. The title of the bulletin must be interesting and suggestive, and great cleverness may be shown in getting the right quotation, paragraph, or verse to express the meaning of the whole. The favorite subjects for these bulletins have been authors' birthdays, national holidays, famous men and women, historical events, King Arthur legends, sports, birds and animals, child-life, gardens and gardening, forests and forestry, the seasons, the months, with a reading list of books suited to the theme. Some remarkably artistic and beautiful bulletin posters have been made at the children's room of Pratt Institute Library, Brooklyn, N. Y., at the training school |