Study of Child Life Part 10

Drawing, painting, cutting and pasting are excellent occupations for children. A large black-board is a useful addition to the nursery furnis.h.i.+ngs, but the children should be required to wash it off with a damp cloth, instead of using the eraser furnished for the purpose, as the chalk dust gets into the room and fills the children's lungs.

Plenty of soft pencils and crayons, also large sheets of inexpensive drawing paper, should be at hand upon a low table so that they can draw the large free outlines which best develop their skill, whenever the impulse moves them. If they have also blunt scissors for cutting all sorts of colored papers and a bottle of innocuous library paste, they will be able to amuse themselves at almost any time.

[Sidenote: Painting]

Some water colors are now made which are harmless for children so young that they are likely to put the paints in their mouths. Paints are on the whole less objectionable than colored chalks, because the crayons drop upon the floor and get trodden into the carpet. If children are properly clothed as they should be in simple washable garments, there is practically no difficulty connected with the free use of paints, and their educational value is, of course, very high.

TEST QUESTIONS

The following questions const.i.tute the "written recitation" which the regular members of the A.S.H.E. answer in writing and send in for the correction and comment of the instructor. They are intended to emphasize and fix in the memory the most important points in the lesson.

STUDY OF CHILD LIFE PART II

Read Carefully. In answering these questions you are earnestly requested _not_ to answer according to the text-book where opinions are asked for, but to answer according to conviction. In all cases credit will be given for thought and original observation. Place your name and full address at the head of the paper; use your own words so that your instructor may be sure that you understand the subject.

1. State Fichte's doctrine of rights and show how it applies to child training. If possible, give an example from your own experience.

2. What is the aim of moral training?

3. What two sayings of Froebel most characteristically sum up his philosophy?

4. What is the value of play in education?

5. What are the natural playthings? Tell what, in your childhood, you got out of these things, or if you were kept away from them, what the prohibition meant to you.

6. What do you think about children's dancing? And acting?

7. Do you agree with those who think that the Kindergarten makes right doing too easy? State the reasons for your opinion.

8. What can you say of commands, reproofs, and rules?

9. Should you let the children help you about the house, even when they are so little as to be troublesome? Why? If they are unwilling to help, how do you induce them to help?

10. What would you suggest as regular duties for children of 4 to 5 years? Of 7 to 8 years?

11. Which do you consider the more important, the housework or the child?

12. Wherein may the mother learn from the child?

13. What is the difference between amusing children and playing with them? What is the proper method?

14. Mention some good rules in character building.

15. From your own experience as a child what can you say of teaching the mysteries of s.e.x?

16. Are there any questions you would like to ask, or subjects which you wish to discuss in connection with this lesson?

Note.--After completing the test sign your full name.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MADONNA AND CHILD

By Murillo, Spanish painter of the seventeenth century]

STUDY OF CHILD LIFE

PART III

ART AND LITERATURE IN CHILD LIFE

The influence of art upon the life of a young child is difficult of measurement. It may freely be said, however, that there is little or no danger in exaggerating its influence, and considerable danger in underrating it. It is difficult of measurement because the influence is largely an unconscious one. Indeed, it may be questioned whether that form of art which gives him the most conscious and outspoken pleasure is the form that in reality is the most beneficial; for, unquestionably, he will get great satisfaction from circus posters, and the poorly printed, abominably ill.u.s.trated cheap picture-books afford him undeniable joy. He is far less likely to be expressive of his pleasure in a sun-s.h.i.+ny nursery, whose walls, rugs, white beds, and sun-s.h.i.+ny windows are all well designed and well adapted to his needs. Nevertheless, in the end the influence of this room is likely to be the greater influence and to permanently shape his ideas of the beautiful; while he is entirely certain, if allowed to develop artistically at all, to grow past the circus poster period.

This fact--the fact that the highest influence of art is a secret influence, exercised not only by those decorations and pictures which flaunt themselves for the purpose, but also by those quiet, necessary, every-day things, which nevertheless may most truly express the art spirit--this fact makes it difficult to tell what art and what kind of art is really influencing the child, and whether it is influencing him in the right directions.

[Sidenote: Color]

Until he is three years old, for example, and often until he is past that age, he is unable to distinguish clearly between green, gray and blue; and hence these cool colors in the decorations around him, or in his pictures, have practically no meaning for him. He has a right, one might suppose, to the gratification of his love for clear reds and yellows, for the sharp, well-defined lines and flat surfaces, whose meaning is plain to his groping little mind. Some of the best ill.u.s.trators of children's books have seemed to recognize this. For example, Boutet de Monvil in his admirable ill.u.s.trations of Joan of Arc meets these requirements perfectly, and yet in a manner which must satisfy any adult lover of good art. The Caldecott picture books, and Walter Crane's are also good in this respect, and the Perkins pictures issued by the Prang Educational Co. have gained a just recognition as excellent pictures for hanging on the nursery wall. Many of the ill.u.s.trations in color in the standard magazines are well worth cutting out, mounting and framing. This is especially true of Howard Pyle's work and that of Elizabeth s.h.i.+ppen Green.

[Sidenote: Cla.s.sic Art]

Since photogravures and photographs of the masterpieces can be had in this country very inexpensively, there is no reason why children should not be made acquainted at an early age with the art cla.s.sics, but there is danger in giving too much s.p.a.ce to black and white, especially in the nursery where the children live. Their natural love of color should be appealed to do deepen their interest in really good pictures.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "My Mary"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Blow, Wind Blow"

PERKINS' PICTURES]

Nevertheless, it is a matter of considerable difficulty still to find colored pictures which are inexpensive and yet really good. The Detaille prints, while not yet cheap, are not expensive either, and are excellent for this purpose; but the insipid little pictures of fairies, flowers, and birds may be really harmful, as helping to form in the young child's mind too low an ideal of beauty--of cultivating in him what someone has called "the l.u.s.t of the eye."

[Sidenote: Plastic Art]