Walter Sargent

Course of Study in Art in the High School, School of Education, the University of Chicago

The enrolment of the University Elementary School is limited to 375 pupils, that of the High School is limited to 400. Since so large a proportion of the High School pupils must therefore have received their training in other schools, and since the course in the High School is an elective open to pupils from all classes in the School, it is impossible at present to build absolutely upon the foundation of the elementary courses in planning the High School work.

Art Courses in High Schools

Courses which deal with art in some way or other are now to be found in practically all high schools of any recognized standing. School boards realize that unless a study of art is included in the curriculum most of the pupils will probably develop no systematic acquaintance with this field of historical material. Their enjoyment of art will depend upon accidental influence, while the building up of aesthetic standards, so necessary to industrial and artistic progress, will be neglected. Works of art present, at first hand or through the medium of reproductions, actual material which has been worked upon by people of different lands and times. If rightly directed, the study of this material gives a peculiarly intimate contact, by a means other than and supplementary to that of language, with the aesthetic ideals embodied in works of art. It discovers also the way in which styles have developed, and the manner in which the work of one period or country has influenced that of another. Art material is of genuine value for all courses, from the classical to the industrial. Its influence is equally strong in the realm of academic culture and in the field of commercial industry. Theoretically, few high schools are willing to permit a neglect of this field. In practice, however, superintendents and principals do not always find it easy to decide upon the nature and program of the courses in art. In almost every instance the following difficulties present themselves: i. Seldom are there any accepted standards of attainment in drawing or design in elementary schools, which can serve as a dependable basis for high-school work in art. High-school instructors very frequently find it necessary to proceed on the assumption that the entering classes know little or nothing of the subject. 2. The majority of high-school instructors have been trained in art-school customs of teaching, and these studio customs, even

The Place of Manual Arts in the Secondary Schools

The place of the manual arts in secondary schools is the subject for discussion in many educational meetings at present. It presents two phases, either of which is sufficiently important for a single discussion, but in a gathering so significant as this it seems to me that it would be better toi touch briefly upon both phases, rather than to omit either. The two phases are these: the industrial arts, which relate to the shaping of material into forms that are to be of use, and the fine arts, which relate to the producing of things of beauty, either to be of use or created for the sake of aesthetic contemplation. I wish to speak first of the industrial arts as a cultural subject. I think no one can watch the progress of this work in the schools without feeling that the skill and knowledge and foresight and persistence of effort and command of powers necessary to shape raw material into predetermined forms cannot but be valuable for every person, no matter what his future occupation is to be. The industrial arts offer a sort of training that cannot be omitted from general education without a loss for which there is no adequate compensation. It is not unlikely that development of ability to bring order out of materials previously unrelated, to shape them so that they embody a plan, is the best training for ability to bring order out of chaos of ideas and to think clearly. The increase of mental power that comes from shaping material to express ones ideas has been sometimes overlooked, and we need to consider it carefully in formulating a course for high schools. I suggest here1An address delivered at the Twenty-second Educational Conference of the Academies and High Schools in Relations with the University of Chicago, November 19, I909.