make them love their childish work: and, were there no other reason for the introduction of such subjects into our common schools than that, it seems to me that would be reason sufficient.

The new cry for industrial schools is but a phase of the belief that, before a child leaves school for work, it is possible to teach him something that will be of use in his working-life; and, in a country where apprenticeships can hardly be said to exist at all, the industrial school, either as a separate institution or by the introduction of industrial classes into common schools, becomes a practical necessity. We want the schools extended in two directions-downwards into the Kindergarten, and upwards into the Polytechnic; and the influence of these two additions will eventually be felt throughout the whole scheme of public education, until their name as representing any distinct methods will be no longer applicable.

Meanwhile, without waiting for any complete changes in or additions to our school-system, the elements of industrial art and science are being introduced into our schools, and among them the subject upon which I am to address you; viz., Drawing.

It is, perhaps, not without its advantages, that in this subject America has not been a pioneer. Experiments have been tried, and methods of art-education tested, by other nations as though it had been mainly to economize and save our time; crotchets have been indulged in, and delusions exploded, apparently to guard us from making mistakes.

Now that drawing is being taken up in earnest in this country, it is a matter of some consequence that we should begin right, and, rejecting those methods of teaching it which have failed elsewhere, adopt some rational system which is simple enough to be understood by all teachers, and by which all children may learn without difficulty.

It seems to me fair to proceed on the hypothesis that, whatever children may be expected to learn, teachers may be expected to learn and to teach. By practical experiments on large classes throughout entire schools and cities, it has been demonstrated that physical or mental incapacity is the only obstacle which prevents children from learning to draw; and the capacity of teachers both to learn drawing and to teach it has thus been proved beyond all question, being both physically and mentally capable.

To succeed in drawing requires the cultivation, in a particular direction, of the understanding and the taste, and development of manual skill.

In this process the adult has immense advantages over the child in that half of the faculty which is based on the understanding; and is at a disadvantage, comparatively, in all that depends upon manual dexterity, with the child. They are, therefore, equally capable of learning, so far as capacity goes; and with both it is a question of willingness and diligence whether they shall draw well or badly.

The matter of executive or manual skill need not trouble us much, unless we have arrived at such extreme old age that our senses are failing us, and our tendons are becoming bony. Our hands will no more refuse to express what the eye sees and the mind understands, than they will refuse to handle a knife and fork at dinner-time,—a catastrophe which does not frequently occur.

This is a mere question of training; and the hand will always train faster

than the mind. I some times hear this sort of statement from adults whom I am teaching: "I know and see exactly how it ought to be; but I can not do it." Now, we may take it for granted that any part of a drawing which depends on manual power will be equal to the knowledge displayed; and therefore a remark such as I have quoted is usually an unconscious misrepresentation of the facts.

For, to pursue the conversation, I shall say, "Your lines are good enough for all practical purposes; but why reverse their positions? The broadest part of this vase is near the top, and you have made it broadest at the bottom." The answer will probably be, "Why, so it is! now, I had not noticed that before." Which means that the poor hand had had nothing to do with the mistake. The eye had been accustomed to look, but not trained to see; and the understanding, which should have been leading the van, was far away in the rear; the general complaining that the battle was lost "because of the inefficiency of that confounded little drummer-boy."

The first thing to do in the teaching of drawing is so to arrange its exercises that they shall all be comparatively easy, and each be a preparation for the next. That brings us to the question of grading; what the children in each grade of school are able to do, and how it can be made a consistent part of a general plan, having definite objects to obtain, requiring nothing to be unlearned as the student progresses, and leaving nothing unlearned that may be necessary for his advancement.

I take it that the object of teaching drawing primarily is, that every person shall have accurate ideas on all matters involving a knowledge of form or color, and be able to express them by drawing the shapes of objects, or their tints, as readily as he can give their names, or distinguish one from another; secondly, that this power may be so generally acquired, that all trades, occupations, or professions, which, to succeed in, necessitate the ability to draw, shall be prepared for at school by every one, either to practice or to understand, just as learning to read and write prepares all of us for our elementary duties and callings, whatever they may be, so far as reading and writing are concerned; that we know enough of them to make all that depends upon them possible to us, if we are capable of attaining it.

There are three ways of looking at the subject of drawing,-1st, as a language; 2d, as an art; 3d, as a science.

In the primary and grammar schools, drawing is to be regarded as a language for the expression of form with accuracy; and its acquisition should be as much a matter of method or a matter of course as learning a written or spoken language, and by a very similar process.

Drawing has, for instance, its alphabet,-the straight line and the curve,— varieties and combinations of which compose the vowels and consonants of the language. Then, it has its grammar, which controls, or rather explains, the art of representation; true drawing being in art precisely the same thing as grammatical expression in language.

In the high schools, after a good foundation has been laid in the primary and grammar schools, the pupils may arrive at the practice of drawing as an art, in its most elementary stages; though it will be some time before sufficiently sys

tematic training has been secured in the lower schools to make art-work possible in the high schools.

We may, therefore, consider that the educational aspect of the subject of drawing in the graded public schools is that of a language, the speech of the eye expressed by the hand; and the experience we have in teaching a language will not only indicate to us what to teach, but how to teach drawing.

If we wished to convey the idea of a square to another person, we must either pronounce the name, write the word, or draw the form.

In each case we use our senses as a medium of interpretation; the spoken name appealing through the ear and memory, the written word through the eye and memory, the drawing through the eye alone, direct to the understanding.

What is true of this symbol is true of all degrees of complexity in drawing, until we arrive at works of the imagination, so that the parallelism between drawing and language is direct enough to guide us in codifying the exercises of the former upon our experience in the latter.

This being recognized, every teacher becomes a possible teacher of drawing, and not only a possible one, but the best; for no one less systematically taught, or with less experience in the art of teaching, can teach drawing so well, whatever may be their own art-powers. Though this ought to be the case theoretically, I should hesitate to make such a statement, were it not for the fact that a long experience in the training of art-teachers has proved that theory and practice tell the same story; and the most accomplished of art-masters hitherto produced in England have been those who left the field of general education to devote themselves entirely to the special department of art-instruction. This will doubtless be the case also in America; and it both indicates the practical unity of the processes of education in all subjects, and should give to teachers the confidence in their own abilities to teach drawing which is necessary to their success.

It is requisite for the general introduction of drawing into the common schools that all teachers should become competent to teach drawing by practicing it themselves; and, as it is now becoming required in many states, it will be well to prepare for the duty. Special teachers of the subject, in any appreciable number, can not here be found; and, if they could, they can not teach elementary drawing so well as the regular teachers.

The moral effect of sending special teachers into the public schools to teach an elementary subject seems to me to be positively evil. Children who can not draw lines very well are apt to draw conclusions which are often not wide of the mark; and the effect of their seeing a special teacher come to give them their drawing-lessons makes them fancy that the subject must be very difficult; so much so, that their own teacher can not learn it; and then they go on wondering why they should be expected to learn what so wise and great a person as their teacher can not learn.

So that two false impressions are made: the first, that drawing is difficult; and the second, that the regular teacher is incapable of learning and teaching drawing to the scholars, impressions which are demoralizing to both scholars and teachers. Drawing is an elementary subject; and I would ask, How many

of the elementary subjects could any teacher allow to be taken out of her hands and maintain the respect of the scholars?

Not many, I should think; and there is no reason whatever why drawing should be one of them. Even music and singing are now being taught by the regular school-teachers, who were never before supposed to have any ears, until a surgical examination made for musical purposes disclosed the fact that the majority of them, either by accident or design, had been so provided with the organs of hearing by a beneficent Providence.

The question of grading the subject of drawing so as to bring it into a consistent relationship to the graded schools becomes of much importance in view of the regular teachers' being the instructors; and it is not without influence if the work be carried on by special instructors.

I shall suppose, then, that we have four classes of schools representing the school periods,—viz., (1) Primary, (2) Grammar, (3) High, and (4) Normal Schools; and the question to be solved is to make the study of drawing in each school a preparation for the next, so that it shall hang together like a chain, or be like the stories of a house, resting upon and supporting each other; and I will therefore proceed to describe what is attainable in each.

Before doing so, I should remark that the subjects suitable for each class of school are progressive; the grammar-school work presupposing that the pupil has passed through the primary school, and the high-school student through both.

It will be seen, therefore, that, where drawing has not been practiced at all in any of the schools, the only grade which can adopt the following arrangement as it stands would be the primary schools. Where no drawing has been done in the higher schools, I should begin in them as in the primary schools, and work up to the specialties of each as prepared pupils came up from the lower schools. That is a difficulty which will right itself in time; and meanwhile it is well to have a standard to work to, so that, in the course of a few years, a sequential method may exist in them all. I come first, then, to the

PRIMARY SCHOOLS.-Dividing the scholars into six classes for convenience (the lowest being the sixth class), two groups, consisting of the sixth, fifth and fourth, and the third, second and first, will give us a sufficiently marked difference in the powers of the pupils. What should be the character of the work done in each group of classes? First to take classes 6, 5, and 4.

I regard the learning of names, sizes, and elementary shapes, and their relation to one another, as the chief work of the primary school, the drawing being done to illustrate what is being learned. For this reason, every exercise in the lower classes should appeal to the memory through the ear by a distinct name, and to the eye by a definite shape, and thus there will be two influences brought into play, helping forward the subject studied.

The definitions of lines, angles, triangles, quadrilaterals, polygons, and the simpler forms of curves, will both teach these names, sizes, and shapes, and give us the easiest examples with which to begin to teach drawing.

But little children weary with hard names, and tire of mere geometric shapes; and therefore, though they must be taught the difference between a square and a triangle, and between the length of two inches and six inches, as

it appears to the eye, the lessons which teach these necessary facts may be varied by others which are no tax at all upon any thing but the point of a slatepencil.

We must get rid once and for ever of the notion that the reason why drawing should be learned and taught is to enable us to make pretty drawings. Neither nice-looking drawings nor accurate ones are possible to ordinary children; but the making of even passable drawings will teach them what they can learn in no other way.

Lessons to little children should be short, frequent, and sparkling; giving them no time to get tired, no time to forget, and no chance of going to sleep. They should be various, so that even those who like no lessons can not say, "Here is that tiresome thing again!" They should have a clear relationship to what the eye sees, and display what any young animal may discover for itself by using its senses of sight and touch.

Then, as memory plays so important a part in our usefulness and our happiness, every drawing-lesson must be impressed upon the pupils' memories by having it drawn again without the copy,-twice, if necessary to fix it in their minds; for a little learned and remembered is better than much learned and forgotten. Drawing from memory is essentially the process by which efficient draughtsmen are made; and therefore I want to see it begun in the primary schools.

Another phase of memory-drawing is called dictation-drawing, in which the teacher simply describes by word of mouth the subject to be produced, and does not illustrate it on the blackboard. This can only be carried out when the pupils have learnt the meaning of terms or expressions used in drawing. Thus in a dictation-lesson the teacher will use but few words (slowly given); the pupils knowing the meaning of each, and translating their meaning into form, such as this. Supposing the teacher to address the class as follows:

"In the centre of your slates draw a vertical line six inches in length." This is order No. 1. And its execution will entirely depend on the pupils' knowing what a vertical line is, and how long six inches are when placed in one straight line: so that the dictation-lesson is necessarily subsequent to other lessons which taught the meaning of these terms,-direction, size, position. Then the second order is:

"Through the centre of the vertical line draw a horizontal line of the same length as the vertical line."

Only one bit of knowledge is here required, viz., What is a horizontal line? which will have been drawn many times before, the length of the line having been determined on the vertical line.

The third order is,—

"These two lines are the diagonals of a square: draw the square."

In this the pupils must know the difference between diagonals and diameters; for the distinction affects the size of the square in this exercise.

Not to follow out the exercise to its minor details, it will be seen how such a lesson will educate both the imagination and the hand of the pupil, and teach the meaning of words without any great strain on the thinking-powers.

The material used by the pupils should be slates and slate-pencils, the teach