gress as it may be, is an acquired interest (see p. 38, above), and cannot take the place of wider, human interests. (3) Finally, teachers who are indifferent to correlation often find it difficult to undertake a satisfactory analysis of their pupils' technical pro gress in an art. There is a general progress in taste, judgment, choice of materials, precision, arrangement, which eludes classification, and which nevertheless is quite observable when the work of a pupil in one year is compared with his work a year hence. For example, a school with six successive school years learns French. How will you divide off the work of each year from the next? You may, indeed, prescribe a certain vocabulary for each year, and set certain limits to Grammar; but these limits are vague. If you attempt precisely to indicate the relative amounts of skill to be attained in each School Year, you will fail. : Hence the task of dividing a Course of Study into Sections is not one for which rigid canons can here be laid down. Each Section should, as a rule, in the first years of study, contain some new item of technique in a language, the use of some new modes of speech or style; in painting, the imitation and practice of some new method. But this cannot be always required, for Content needs to be considered as much as Form. Thus in painting it may be that, for the ensuing term, we may think it well for our class to learn no new technique, but simply to exercise the power they have acquired, in representing a series of flowers which they are studying in Botany, and in applying their skill in Design (acquired in a previous term) for decorating the walls of their class-room with frescoes. During this term, then, the Course of Study might, if we paid regard only to technique, be considered simply as a revision (Step IV., Practice, see below), of earlier work, not a new Section at all. But, if we value Content, and are as much concerned with the "what" as with the "how" of painting, we may divide the term's work into Sections, solely considering the order in the selection of the flowers. As we proceed to consider the nature of the "Steps " involved in a complete Section, we shall see that this latter mode of treatment would not involve all the elements which make up a complete Section. Nevertheless, for the convenience of arranging Notes of Lessons, it may be best to employ the term, although, psychologically, it will not involve all the Steps. (This is analogous to our arrangement of Sections in the acquirement of knowledge. We noticed that at times no Third Step would be possible (especially in teaching young children) nevertheless, it is necessary to divide the Course of Study into a series of topics, each complete in itself.) Generally speaking, therefore, what is said in Chapter XIII, § 1, as to Sections in Instruction, will apply here also, substituting for "new idea or group of ideas" " new habit or group of habits," and qualifying this requirement as it is there qualified. § 2. The First Step: Preparation.-We cannot do better than retain the term employed at the corresponding place in Chapter XIII, for the purpose then is the same as our purpose now, except that the statement of Aim is couched in different language. There we agreed with our pupils that we were about to learn some new knowledge: here we agree that we are about to do something. But in this First : Step nothing is actually done. The process is solely an intellectual one. Plead, as we must, for the supremacy of volitional activities in this sphere, we have to recognise that, in schools at least, all the arts are to be treated as liberal," i. e. as connected with the life of thinking man-springing from humanistic motives, serving humanistic ends.1 The succeeding Steps will treat of technique of "Form": at present we begin with "Content." Thus, at the outset of our German lessons, we struck the note of human interest: "these foreign folk were once our kith and kin: they are a 'great' nation— we know of some of their great deeds-they have produced a great literature-hence our reasons for learning their art of speech." This note of intellectual and moral interest will be sustained and renewed in the First Step of many succeeding Sections. Teachers of Music and Drawing too often treat this part of their work with contempt, and hence their work is too often despised by school teachers. Among recent artists, John Farmer,2 of Harrow and Balliol, ought never to be forgotten-side by side with his poet colleague, Edward Bowen-for the service they rendered both to the schools and to the musical profession. They, more than any teachers of recent days, insisted that the songs of school should possess worthy "content" as well as worthy music. (a) The Aim of a Section in an Art should therefore spring, wherever possible, out of some correlated school pursuit; or, if that is impossible, out of some 1 "Invention, in Painting, does not imply the invention of the subject, for that is commonly supplied by the Poet or Historian. With respect to the choice, no subject can be proper that is not generally interesting. It ought to be either some eminent instance of heroic action or heroic suffering. There must be something, either in the action or in the object, in which men are universally concerned, and which strikes powerfully upon the public sympathy."-Reynolds's Discourses, p. 40. 2 Editor of Gaudeamus, Dulce Domum, etc., etc. (Cassell and Co.). genuine human interest. In Reading-Lessons, why should the class be compelled to feed on the dreary fare of a Miscellaneous Reader-a kind of literary Tit-Bits. Let them read books, as we adults do, for the purpose of learning more about things which interest us. True, when the Reader is commenced, it will be undertaken with a technical care and method appropriate to the art, but the "Content" of this piece of art work should be such as corresponds rationally to the pupil's general circle of ideas. The importance of this argument will be recognised when it is observed how many varieties of artespecially of Manual Occupations-press themselves now upon the school. Many of them in themselves are "interesting"; for children, as we have seen, like to "do things," and most of these arts offer useful opportunities for physical training; but their value for culture will depend wholly upon the possibilities they offer of correlation with other parts of the curriculum. If, then, a choice is about to be made of a Manual Occupation to take up some portion of the weekly Time Table, the preference should be given—(1) to a branch which the teacher can effectively teach; (2) to a branch which can be treated, not only with systematic attention to technique, but in intimate association with other branches. The most striking example of this in Great Britain just now is the adaptation of Sloyd, which formerly was treated. almost solely as technique, to the needs of the Physical Laboratory. (b) But this "Content Aim is not the only feature of the First Step on which the attention of the class should be fixed. We have seen that, as a rule, each Section will seek to impart some new item of technical skill, and the pupils should anticipate this with the same interest that we have demanded in Chapter XIII for the anticipation of intellectual work. Thus, in Section II of the German Lessons, the class are to acquire some useful lesson-words : in Section V, they are to learn how to read a connected passage. Here we look for the pupil's intellectual interest in the mastery of technique. This interest cannot be relied upon with young children, and hence the importance, in their case, of a careful fostering of interest in Content: but, as soon as a child is old enough to observe his own progress, he can be trained to this acquired interest in the art for the sake of the art itself.1 When this is once created, the art becomes something more than a mere employment for school hours. The exercise of new powers becomes a delight to their possessor: a boy conscious of progressive power over French will begin to talk it at home if he realises his progress in Drawing, he will take a sketch-book with him in the holidays. An art pursued with awakened artistic instinct becomes converted from a schoolroom bore into a home "hobby." § 3. The Second Step: Presentation.-It seems best to employ the same term 2 as is employed in Chapter XIII, although the mental acts are of a wholly different character. There the Presentation consists in the reception of new individual notions: here it is concerned with the contemplation of some new exercise in the art, followed by copying of the same. In the one, the process is apperceptive, in the other, imitative: the former lays the foundation of new concepts, the latter of new habits. There are two distinct parts of every such 1 W. James, Talks to Teachers, p. 94. 2 See p. 355, above, for criticism of these technical terms. |