Set systems.

Traits of Childhood.

The Child's mind.

Preparatory Schoolmasters.

Value of Drawing in all other subjects.

How Teachers may best cultivate their own powers.

Need of careful preparation.

Demonstration. What to do and what not to de.

Description of lessons.

Time necessary for fair results.

What to aim at.

Design. Its great importance.

Lessons in Design.

Applied Design or Decoration.

Notes from Books.

Kindergarten Training.

Subjects to be taught.

Line Drawing.

Design.

Freehand from Objects.
Perspective.

Class Teaching from Objects.

Brushwork.

Three kinds of Brushwork.

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Memory Drawing.

How to teach Memory Drawing.

Elementary Shading.

Relief Shading.

Proportion.

Blackboard Exercises.

What is being done in Preparatory Schools.

Necessity for Organisation in Preparatory School Marks for Drawing.

Do not work mainly for show.

Do not "touch up" pupils' work.

Association of Art Classes with Workshop.

What might be done in Workshop.

How to treat specially gifted boys.

Lost opportunities.

A plea for more time.

Encourage gifted children.

How to correct faults of hand.

Furniture and Materials.

Materials for Pupils.

How to obtain Drawing Objects.

School Museums.

Avoid dulness in teaching

Boys should draw in learning any subject.

Advice to young Teachers.

Confidence in teaching.

Teaching on the Continent.

Art Teachers should form an Association.

ART TEACHING IN PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.

Though it is of the utmost importance that boys when young should be rightly grounded in the elements of Art, no branch of education in Preparatory Schools stands in greater need of systematic organisation and encouragement.

Most minds are to-day convinced of the beneficial effect which the training of eye and hand has upon the mental development of children, and that it is a positive duty to cultivate the powers of observation and invention, and to give the young a fair chance of expressing their delight in God's works, and their own natures in Art.

The very excellent Art training which is now being given to the children in many of our Public Elementary Schools, notably in the great towns-Birmingham and London for example-evidences the interest with which the Government views the subject. What is being done in Birmingham especially is most remarkable. Great simplicity, great beauty and thoroughness characterise the teaching of Art in the schools of that city. The London School Board is also doing wonderfully good work, but their design is not so simple, and the work is less clean and direct than that done in some other of our large towns. But, taking it all round, the School Board work throughout the country is very good, evincing energy and conscientiousness on the part of the teachers, and a splendid response from the pupils.

I have been deeply interested, and to some extent humiliated. as an Art Teacher in Preparatory Schools and in a Great Public School, by the altogether wonderful results which art-work in our Public Elementary Schools has already produced.

I say humiliated, because the pupils who have achieved such triumphs do not come as a rule, from cultured homes, where æsthetic surroundings exist, calculated to refine and cultivate artistic sense, but very often from environments where beauty, order, and external refinement, all three necessary to true art. are exceedingly rare or entirely unknown.

The principal cause of this success in our Public Elementary Schools is the enlightened character of the teaching which recog nises that children desire something in work which is entirely enjoyable and beautiful, a wise admixture of play with work, the two going happily together hand in hand. The wisdom which has secured lovely and interesting specimens of plants, flowers, and things of horticultural interest from our public parks, and sets the city children, delighted babies of six and seven years of age, to the happy task of expressing their enjoyment of nature through the media of brushes and bright colours, cannot be too highly commended, as it is altogether right and appreciative of child nature. I hope that large numbers of teachers of all subjects saw this work in the English Education Exhibition last January. Since those who

have done so cannot have failed to receive delight and inspiration from it, for it proves how responsive even babies are when encouraged to express their feeling about anything of beauty, their infant efforts mean much more than mere imitation, they imply happiness in the worker, and a love of the thing done, dignifying the work and begetting reverence, they show that the young eyes are opening to the beauty of the world, and they afford a sinless recreation for lives surrounded by ugliness and temptation; but, above all, they create refinement of mind and character.

Now, if this and much more can be and is being done under many adverse conditions amongst the uncultured classes, much more might be accomplished by right organisation and effective instruction amongst the more cultured classes who are found in Preparatory Schools. The instincts of children are much the same whatever their external conditions, and if their teachers possess patience, insight, and sympathy, they can easily interest children in the elements of art. But however well grounded a teacher may be in his subject, lacking these three virtues he will never evoke much response from children.

It is the purpose of this article to suggest, for the consideration of Preparatory School masters, some simple and systematic course of instruction in Art adapted to the conditions and limitations which exist in Preparatory Schools.

The Art-teaching of to-day in Europe, America, and even in, England, is a very different and much more important factor in education than it has been since the days of the Renaissance. People are protesting against external ugliness in their surroundings. Towns are again growing beautiful. Parks are laid out with lovely arrangements of form and colour by true floral artists. The handicrafts are everywhere, in the palace and the cottage. Painting and sculpture no longer arrogate to themselves the whole of the kingdom of Art. Design, which underlies all really great Art, is re-asserting its supremacy, and pictorial illustration teems with brilliant originality. The many marvellous processes of artistic reproduction give a beauty and variety to illustration beyond anything the world has ever seen, and through their agency Art permeates civilised life. Now-a-days the term Artteaching covers a wide field. Teachers are more capable, and begin to realise that the power of doing a thing does not necessarily imply the gift of imparting that power to others, and, what is still more important and significant, students of all ages and classes are producing better results, and show in their work more freedom of thought and greater individualism.

Art-teaching to-day means more than training the eye to perceive, and the hand to delineate form and colour. Primarily it means the educing from, or leading out of, the pupil his special and individual power of expressing his own feeling about Nature, not merely the mechanical power of portraying the facts falling on the retina, but suggesting the emotions which those facts create in his soul.

We teachers of the young should be specially glad of our calling, because it is our good fortune to have, as it were, new unspoiled, untrained, impressionable minds in their most receptive period of growth, to deal with, it should, I say, be a joy to us, but balanced by the sense of heavy responsibility, for plastic matter can be easily shaped to beauty or ugliness, and the hardening of time fixes its form for ever.

Personally I believe that the most important part of our work is the sympathetic study of our pupils' minds, in order that we may bring out from them that which is peculiar to themselves, and impart to them that sense of delight which accompanies the expression of their own individuality.

This may seem at first sight to be no easy task, and I admit there are many difficulties. For instance, in class-teaching, when in three-quarters of an hour a lesson has to be given to twenty or thirty boys of different ages and ability, the minority perhaps tolerant of work, the majority intent on evasion or play, nothing but the power of attracting and interesting them on the part of the teacher can avail, and here comes in the absolute need of a wise and effective method of teaching, which in its initial stages is nearly all play and which throughout its whole course never quite loses this delightful characteristic. A teacher must take for granted that all young creatures, higher in the scale of being than earth-worms, love play, and only an abnormal

adult-infant can do without it.

I have seen many a good lesson wasted, and many a responsive pupil spoilt for the time, by the worrying iteration all through the lesson of such reminders as this, "Jones hold your head up; Briggs, turn your toes out, and don't sniff; Smith, keep your fingers still, and don't make such silly grimaces." Very excellent and moral training in its way, necessary in a gymnasium or a drawing-room, but very disturbing and irritating to boys who are trying to follow vulgar fractions or who are absorbed in the prowess of Warwick the Kingmaker, still more so to those who are fascinated by some seductive demonstration of form and colour, which by its spell has raised them for the moment above the consideration of what their young unruly limbs are doing. To establish a feeling of reasonable human sympathy between one's self and one's pupils is the first step towards obtaining good results. I have heard boys say, "We can learn from old so-andso, he's more like a friend than a master."

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I am convinced that all normal and natural children possess undeveloped powers and possibilities, and not least amongst them is the power of appreciating beauty, and the delight in producing it. These may be latent germs, but they must be developed, and the question is, how? For they may quite easily be nipped and killed by want of insight, patience, or power on the part of the teacher. Hitherto we have been prone to try and impose upon the child's mind our own adult ideas and standards, thereby producing mental indigestion and discouragement. We are apt to be too serious, and eliminate from our teaching the saving salt of play, rendering it tasteless to the youthful palate. Moreover this craving for