Of course, he has some instruction and sees some examples. He then decides, first, what he will make; next, its size and shape; then, what parts are to be ornamented. Knowing the size of the space to be ornamented, he proceeds to make the design, and later to work it out. The casting in plaster is done by the boys by making molds in sand from patterns made in the pattern-making course, and by the girls from objects modeled in clay. In high school work there need hardly ever be two models alike. The course should depend, not upon models, but upon exercises. The pupil may make any model he chooses, provided it involves the exercise which we wish him to learn. The idea is not entertained that such a course in manual training is equal to that given in manual-training high schools. It furnishes, however, an amount that will, together with other subjects studied, give a fairly well-balanced development. It does not include work in iron with machines. That may well be reserved for the separate manual-training high school. It cannot include chipping and filing, or forging, without giving more prominence to the subject than its importance, merely as a factor in general education, warrants. To do more would require more time than can be had in connection with a four-year high-school course which includes the ordinary subjects. The above amount is gladly taken in excess of regular work. Such work can be carried on in a school of 400 or 500 pupils, with an equipment costing not to exceed $2,500. If a city has several high schools, the problem is simply one of repetition. If one of these is a manual-training high school, it may still continue to serve the purpose for which it was established by educating in a more strictly technical way those pupils whose tastes lie strongly in that direction. By eliminating pupils not possessing special tastes in technical lines the manual-training high school would be able to advance its standard and reduce the time usually consumed in such schools by at least a year, thus saving the time of the pupil and giving him a more vigorous habit of work. The final or fourth year, possibly part of the third, might then be devoted to such work as is given in the early years of institutes of technology. Then any boy could, in his home city, fit himself to enter, with advance credits, such an institution, or to enter at once upon a remunerative calling. At present we give him a broad foundation from which to specialize, but there we leave him. If he can get a chance to do just a little more for himself, his services will be in demand. I am in favor of this higher work, but the opportunity to take it should be based upon manifest aptitude. From a social point of view the making of manual training the exclusive function of one school, classical education of another, and commercial education of another, is open to criticism. It fosters the caste spirit. It is undemocratic. It trains up a generation divided into groups less capable than former generations of entering into sympathetic relations outside of the group. It fosters in those not manually trained contempt for labor with the hands. The girl who has learned the theory and practice of cooking, and who can make her own garments, will be a better woman, more sympathetic, more tolerant, because of such knowledge and skill. From a social standpoint all should have equal opportunities for manual training. The boy who studies Greek and who is going to college has as much need, physiologically and psychologically, of this training as has the boy who must early earn his own living, and society is equally concerned with both cases. Those not manually trained cannot appreciate the thought and skill that enter into the material things contributing to our comfort. On the frontier there are no class distinctions. It is possible to know one's neighbor. There the cowboy and the millionaire are not far apart. To know is to sympathize and to appreciate. The Rough Riders had not all the arts and graces of social circles, but they knew their leaders. Wood and Roosevelt knew and respected them, tho in many particulars they had little in common. The nearer we get to the centers of population, the greater is the distance between man and man. It is greater in Chicago than in Denver, greater still in New York, still greater in the crowded cities of the Old World. When this barrier between rich and poor becomes high the result is misunderstanding and suffering. When people give you up you feel like giving up too. The rich lose as much as the poor. They lose the finer life of sympathy. Personal intercourse is at the foundation of all successful charity movements. There must be direct contact with problems before there can be any solution. The best architects have had carpenter's training. Physicians must know the work in the hospitals. Theological students are now sent to study the slums. Present social conditions are aptly illustrated in the following paragraph from the pen of Edward Everett Hale : A strong and pathetic article in the London Times, some thirty years ago, represented a lady of high social rank from one of the fashionable squares at the West End of London, as she would appear at the day of judgment, as it is described in the gospel of Matthew. It depicted her as bravely replying to her Judge when he said: "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me." She said to him in reply that he was quite mistaken if he thought she had ever seen such people as he described. She explained to him that poor people, hungry and thirsty, strangers, naked or sick, did not live in the part of London she lived in. She explained to him that she neither walked nor drove in the region of the Seven Dials or Whitechapel. She told him that the police of London were quite too well regulated to permit such people to show themselves as beggars in Belgravia or Grosvenor Square. And he was quite wrong, she said, if he thought she had refused to minister to them, for the truth was that she had never seen any of them, and had had no such opportunity as he supposed. The separation into classes has gone far. The public school should not encourage this separation. It should be a unifying force. DEPARTMENT OF ART EDUCATION SECRETARY'S MINUTES FIRST SESSION.-WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 1900 The meeting was opened in South Carolina Hall, at 3:30 P. M., with the president, Miss Frances E. Ransom, of New York, in the chair. Miss Azalea Willis, of the Charleston Art Club, received the Art Department with an address of welcome, which was responded to by the president in a few remarks introducing her presidential address. Colonel Francis W. Parker was then introduced, and gave an address on "Art in Everything." Miss Estelle Potter, of Boston, not being present, Mr. Fred J. Orr, of Athens, Ga., read his paper on "Picture Study, Its Relation to Culture and General Education," which was discussed by Miss Gertrude M. Edmund, of Lowell, Mass. The discussion was then thrown open to the house, and Miss Bonnie Snow, of Minneapolis, Minn., and Mr. Henry T. Bailey, of Massachusetts, took part. SECOND SESSION.-THURSDAY, JULY 12 The second session met in the South Carolina Hall, at 3:30 P. M., Miss Ransom presiding. Miss Bonnie Snow, of Minneapolis, read the first paper of the afternoon. The subject was, “Relative Value of Pencil-Drawing and Water-Color Work in Public Art Instruction." A short discussion followed, in which Fred J. Orr and Henry T. Bailey took part. A paper on "The Relation of Nature Study to Drawing in the Public Schools" was then given by James M. Stone, of Worcester, Mass. A short discussion followed, in which several took part, and then the business meeting followed. The first committee to report was the Committee of Ten, represented by the chairman, Langdon S. Thompson. The report was still in an incomplete state, owing to the impracticability of convening the committee and of procuring necessary funds for expenses. Mr. Thompson thought another year would enable him to give a more complete and satisfactory report, and asked that another year be granted before giving the full report. A motion prevailed to extend the time to 1901. The next committee to report was the Committee on Resolutions, which submitted the following: Resolved, (1) That the hearty thanks of the Art Department of the National Educational Association are due to the Charleston Art Club for its interest in the work of the department and its preparation for the entertainment of visiting members. (2) Especially are thanks due to Miss Azalea Willis for her kind welcome; to the Misses Alice and Caroline Smith, and to Mrs. Robertson, for the decorations of the hall; and to Mr. Pinckney, of the Committee on Halls, for his kind attentions and preparations for the convenience of the department. (3) That the secretary express the most cordial thanks of the department to Mrs. Rogers and to Mrs. Robertson for the charming reception given to its members on Wednesday evening, July 11-a reception which has not been equaled in its cordiality and good-fellowship during the whole history of the department. (4) That the appreciation of the department is hereby expressed to Miss Ransom, the outgoing president, for her untiring efforts to arrange a helpful and inspiring program for the meeting. HENRY T. Bailey, FRED J. ORR, Committee on Resolutions. The election of officers then took place. The Committee on Nominations reported the following: For President-Miss Bonnie Snow, of Minneapolis, Minn. The report was unanimously adopted, and the meeting adjourned until 1901. M. W. WOODMANSEE, Secretary. PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS ADDRESS OF WELCOME MISS AZALEA HOWARD WILLIS, OF THE CHARLESTON ART CLUB Friends from the North, the South, the East, and the West, on behalf of the Charleston Art Club, I greet you. We are proud to meet and to know so able a body of art lovers and art instructors as is represented by you, the members of the Department of Art Education of the National Educational Association. Charleston opens wide her gates to receive you. This river-embraced, sea-swept city possesses many points of historic interest, and there are picturesque nooks and corners which will appeal to the eye artistic. Go down to our Battery — where good Charlestonians go when they die, it is said when the moon is flooding the bay, softening the stern outlines of Fort Sumter known in song and story; see how the forms of the outlying cotton islands have melted into the sea out on the dim horizon. The old buildings and the churches, the quaint narrow streets, the overhanging balconies, the fragrant shadowy gardens, are all transformed and mellowed by the wand of this enchantress. Truly "she poetizes everything!" Look at the tiled roofs of bygone days when the sunshine falls upon them and converts them into silver. Watch the swaying of a palmetto tree- the emblem of our state-and listen to the wind-melodies thru its emerald fans. Do not these form subjects enough to stir one's impulse to paint? Alfred Stevens declares that "painting is nature seen through the prism of an emotion." You who transfix upon your canvas a sunset of purple and gold, or the soft mystery of the silver haze of a gray day, can understand the full force of this. No great and good work is ever achieved unless the fibers of a man's being are moved to their very depths. "The hand that rounded Peter's dome, And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought with a sad sincerity; Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew; The conscious stone to beauty grew." Altho you come among us today, many for the first time, we do not think of you as strangers, but as friends. There is a strong bond of sympathy between us by the very nature of our work. You are striving to lift the thoughts of the youth of our land to an appreciation and love of the good, the true, and the beautiful. You are teaching them the ennobling and uplifting influences of art, and that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever." We, in a modest way, are pursuing the same lines in Charleston by the precepts of our art teachers and the semi-annual exhibitions of our Art Club. We can clasp hands in a friendly grasp, in full accord each with the other's aims and aspirations. We trust that your visit to us will be a happy one, and that you will never regret the cry that sounded at Los Angeles one year ago: “On to Charleston!" The days spent among us, we hope, will in after-years come to you as some sweet musical strain, or the delicate fragrance of some loved flower. When you have returned to your respective homes, after your sojourn in our quiet southern city, we pray you to paint our portraits to hang in memory's gallery with the brush of "A flattering painter who made it his care To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are." RESPONSE AND PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS MISS FRANCES E. RANSOM, DIRECTOR OF DRAWING, NEW YORK TRAINING SCHOOL FOR TEACHERS, NEW YORK CITY Miss Willis of the Charleston Art Club, Ladies and Gentlemen : It gives me the greatest pleasure to respond to the cordial welcome extended to us by Miss Willis on behalf of the Charleston Art Club. The southerners have always had the reputation of being the most hospitable entertainers in the world, and Charleston has lived up to this reputation, for she has opened wide her portals and bidden us enter and enjoy all things to the fullest extent. |