Unless the craftsman is brought under good art influence, his work will have an inferiority in style and character that will prevent its reaching the highest value.

It is gratifying to find that, in many of the schools, there is a general movement in the direction of strengthening the equipment necessary for efficient instruction.

I have endeavored to give you some general outline of the history of the Science and Art Department of the British government, and some general ideas as to the aim of the work, and I will now, having brought you up to the present day, ask your kind forbearance while I venture to state a few statistical notes on the work that has been done.

We spent £76,721 in 1902 on art education in England and Wales, being 13s. 10d. per student (110,852 students). Of these, 54,085 were in 232 schools of art, and 56,788 were in 2,123 art classes. We pay 19s. 4d. per student in art classes. We gave ten royal exhibitions (25s. a week for forty weeks for two years); twenty local scholarships (£20 a year for three years); five local exhibitions of £50, of which the Board of Education provides £25; 467 free studentships; 148 summer courses, with £3 allowance and return railway fare.

The national competition has been and is a powerful influence upon art instruction. It keeps up a condition of emulation and of wholesome rivalry between the various schools and classes, and causes the advanced students to put forth their utmost endeavors to distinguish themselves in the contest for medals and prizes. On the other hand, it may give rise to a dangerous tendency toward working in a set groove in various branches of work, e. g., when a certain type of composition, such as in decorative design, has received the approval of the examiners. In the last national competition, 5,422 works were selected; to these 5 gold, 80 silver, and 212 bronze medals, and 442 book prizes were awarded. A selection from the accepted works was sent to Belfast, Edinburgh, Newcastle, and Salford for public exhibition.

The Council of Advice for Art appointed by the government has expressed the opinion that facilities should be given to students in schools of art to carry out, or to see carried out, some of their own designs in the material for which they were designed, as this would show whether or not they were suitable. The council felt that nothing but harm could come from encouraging students to make designs, on paper or in plaster, without any knowledge of their suitability for execution in the material employed. The regulations have now been altered so that practice by students in design classes of craft methods for executing work in actual materials is recognized as a constituent part of a. student's art training.

Endeavors are made to simplify and consolidate school work by making instruction in subjects of science and art (of a kind and amount to be determined by the general aims of the school) an integral part of the general education given to all pupils, rather than to encourage the teaching of a multitude of subjects to special sets of pupils.

As I have already indicated, it is felt that art, if properly taught, has a great educational value, altogether apart from the subject learned. It develops accuracy of observation, reasoning from effect to cause, a power of analysis, a love of the beautiful, a tenderness and susceptibility of mind, habits of neatness, an accurate workmanlike use of the hand; and, in addition, is of value in the teaching of science and other subjects.

I must express to you my thanks for having been permitted to address these few remarks on this very large educational question as we view it in England.

THE EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCE OF PUBLIC

OUTDOOR ART

GEORGE E. GAY, DIRECTOR, EDUCATIONAL EXHIBIT OF MASSACHUSETTS AT THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION, ST. LOUIS, MO.

My theme concerns the architecture of public building and sculpture in public parks and streets in the single aspect of their educational influence. I am asked to say what part public outdoor art plays in public education.

In a general way, we may say, of course, that in many particulars it sets a standard for private art; that it creates ideals; that private dwellings will be in better form and will be ornamented in better taste because public buildings are more stately or more dignified or more beautiful, and because parks, lawns, and roadways contain the best specimens of the sculptor's art. The real in art and conduct is always the child of the ideal, and ideals are begotten of noble deeds and high achievement.

Architecture has a high moral significance that is reflected in public life. The tower that rises toward the skies is a perpetual call to high living.

Grace and beauty appeal to the best that is within us. Stateliness and dignity rebuke meanness and strife. "Let us build our lives as well," is the answer of the soul to hall and temple. The edifice that is adapted to its purpose calls to truth and honor. Repose in architecture provokes dignity in pose and bearing. Height shouts courage and hope. One cannot look downward in a cathedral. The mind refuses to dwell on the dust beneath the flags, and rises like the music from the choir to the towering arches above.

When sculptured ornament is added to architectural strength and repose, they become still more eloquent. Their voice is made sweet, and its carrying power becomes greater. The veriest clown takes off his cap and stands. agape before a Corinthian column. As a discord in music adds beauty to the succeeding harmony, so ugliness in ornament may sometimes emphasize the beauty of a structure. The griffins in the cornice, bark they never so loud, are silenced by the voice of wall and roof.

Mural sculpture which portrays great historic events and the achievements of heroes is a challenge to noble endeavor; incites to patriotism, it may be, or to defense of home or honor, or even to martyrdom in a righteous cause.

Mural sculpture of another sort excites the poetic nature of the observer, for it gives pulse and rhythm to the currents which flow from wall and tower and column and pilaster. Hector bidding wife and boy farewell has sent many a man to the defense of his country; a dancing satyr has given new breath to thousands of weary men.

In Boston we spread the history of our Pilgrim ancestors on the walls of our buildings. Chicago places the life of Marquette in bold relief in the center of its busiest mart. St. Louis records in stone the generous deeds of its patron saint. We are better because the lives of these men are ever before us. Statuary in parks and public squares has great value as an educator. It teaches history and biography. French's minute man tells the story of Concord and Lexington to a thousand pilgrims every year. DeSoto tells to every resident of the Mississippi valley the story of his march. Washington in scores of cities in America, Washington in the center of Paris, tells the story of successful rebellion against unrighteous power. Longfellow in a dark corner of Westminister Abbey is a beacon telling the story of America growing in culture and grace as well as in stature and power.

Sculpture teaches good government also; for it emphasizes statesmanship and civic progress. Webster still proclaims that the Union must be preserved. Lincoln still breaks the shackles from bondmen, white and black. And he who regretted that he had but one life to give his country while he lived has given a thousand lives to that country since his death. For sculpture embodies ideas. The lion of Venice, the eagle of Rome, the lily of France—what are they but the very hearts of nations? The Column of July, the Statue of Liberty, the Triumphal Arch-what are they but the prolonged shouts of victory over prostrate foes?

Some sculpture teaches only beauty; and beauty is sufficient excuse for being. What man but walks more erect as he sees in marble or bronze an artist's conception of Apollo? What woman but has more respect for the "human form divine," and tries to possess it, when she looks upon a sculptor's Venus or Juno?

It is well, therefore, that every city and hamlet in the land should place in its public places these instructors in history and good government, these models of beauty, these preachers of righteousness.

It is well that this beautiful park, as it gathers the nations from the corners of the world, should erect noble buildings for their use, should beautify and enrich them with the sculptor's chisel, and should place on buildings, on bridges, and on plazas their triumphs of representative art. Let us learn their lessons and gain inspiration and strength from their words.

In Boston we have just erected a noble monument to a noble man. On its base we have carved a noble motto: "A soldier in the army that kept the Union whole."

Teachers, we too are soldiers in an army. Let us labor to keep the Union

whole.

EDUCATION FOR ARTISTIC HANDICRAFT IN SWEDEN

MR. CARL LIDMAN, EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, SWEDISH COMMISSION, LOUISIANA PURCHASE EXPOSITION, ST. LOUIS, MO.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I have not considered it proper to decline the honor of the invitation to speak on the subject in question on this occasion, and this because I am of the same opinion as the esteemed president, Mr. Hopkins, that education for artistic handicraft not only takes place at the institutions of which such education is a special aim, but that it constitutes, or ought to constitute, a part of education in general. I beg to remark that, being myself a teacher in the public schools of Stockholm, I intend to speak only of two subjects taught there, namely, sloyd and drawing, which I consider to be of special importance with regard to education for artistic handicraft.

In the countries of the North the light nights of the short summers are soon succeeded by long, dark winter evenings. The agricultural population cannot then work in the fields and meadows, but, in accordance with the custom of their forefathers, these people are obliged at such times to find employment within the four walls of their cottages. Here, in olden times, the members of each family-among this number the servants were also included-gathered readily around the stone hearth, upon which a warm bright fire of large logs blazed merrily, and, to the strains of a ballad or a hymn, or while listening to one of the many northern legends, their fingers were busied with some useful occupation. The men, for example, made spoons, ladles, benches, tables, and other articles necessary for farm work or for home, often ornamenting each object with simple and tasteful designs; while the women tended the spinning-wheel and the loom, or stitched some article of dress intended for their own use or that of the men. Such work, executed with simple aids of persons not belonging to any guild has, in Sweden for long ages, gone by the name of "sloyd" (Swedish slöjd).

But, in consequence of many co-operating causes, this skill in sloyd had by degrees begun to diminish, and, in some places, even to die out and disappear. Much of the work which in former ages had been executed in the homes of the peasantry was now taken up by the rising manufacturing industries. About thirty-five years ago the Swedish people began to see the danger of this, and that was the reason why they tried to take such measures as should reinstate the sloyd of their forefathers in the honorable position which is its proper due, and which it had formerly held.

Whether it be a question of spreading any new knowledge, any new kind of work, or of reviving that which is on the verge of extinction, we can, as is well known, go to work for the most part in two different ways. We can endeavor to influence either that part of the population which is already come to adult age, or that part which is still growing up; to influence either the generation that is, or the generation that will be,

The latter way will probably prove to be the surer one on the whole; for the mind of the child is, as we know, always more receptive than that of the mature man. Good schools, therefore, is the best gift any period can give

to a future one.

At the same time that those who are striving for the revival of sloyd came to see that it was the child in its school age that they should endeavor to influence, the friends of an improved system of popular education began to have their eyes opened to the fact that sloyd was an educational means of the greatest value, well worth incorporating with the theoretical and practical subjects of instruction already adopted.

Resigned to, and received by, the schools, the sloyd question remained no longer a politico-economical one, but became rather a pedagogical one, and one of ever-increasing scope. The attempt to use the school in order to train sloyders was changed to the endeavor to use sloyd in order to educate the men and women of the future. The school in the service of sloyd was changed to sloyd in the service of the school. But this thought was by no means new. The history of pedagogy can show that, for centuries back, almost every pedagog who stood a head higher than the multitude endeavored to maintain the importance of bodily labor as a mighty means of education. Comenius, Francke, Locke, Rousseau, Basedow, Salzmann, Pestalozzi, Fröbel, are, as we know, stars of the first magnitude in the art of education, and all of them have given expression to the opinion that the training of the hand should proceed simultaneously with that of the head and the heart. But, as is well known, it was only in our own times that this thought was understood and realized to any very great extent.

Among the sloyd schools established during the period we have mentioned, that at Nääs was one of the earliest. Nääs is an estate situated about eighteen miles east of Gothenburg. This old property was thirty-five years ago in the possession of August Abrahamson, who had retired to the place in order to enjoy the fruits of an industrious life. Here, assisted by his nephew, the present administrator and director of the institution, Otto Salomon, he established in 1872 the Nääs sloyd school for boys, later on reorganized to Nääs Manual Training College, which is now a state institution, its main object being to educate teachers in pedagogic sloyd.

The courses in sloyd given at Nääs have been pursued with a special interest. At the close of 1903 the total number of students amounted to about five thousand, but a good many students have taken part in two or several courses. The actual number of individual students amounted to four thousand from thirty-five different countries; seventy-three of these students have come from the United States.

The instruction, at which attendance is compulsory, given during the courses is partly theoretical, partly practical. While the former includes lectures and discussions, the latter is chiefly represented by sloyd and drawing. The theoretical instruction during different courses has been concentrated