There really is no reason why drawing
should not be universally taught, and it is an admirable training for
both eye and hand. Artists are born, not made; but everybody may be
taught to draw elevations, plans, and sections; and pots and pans are
as good, indeed better, models for [221] this purpose than the Apollo
Belvedere. The plant is not expensive; and there is this excellent
quality about drawing of the kind indicated, that it can be tested
almost as easily and severely as arithmetic. Such drawings are either
right or wrong, and if they are wrong the pupil can be made to see
that they are wrong. From the industrial point of view, drawing has
the further merit that there is hardly any trade in which the power of
drawing is not of daily and hourly utility. In the next place, no
good reason, except the want of capable teachers, can be assigned why
elementary notions of science should not be an element in general
instruction. In this case, again, no expensive or elaborate apparatus
is necessary. The commonest thing--a candle, a boy's squirt, a piece
of chalk--in the hands of a teacher who knows his business, may be
made the starting-point whence children may be led into the regions of
science as far as their capacity permits, with efficient exercise of
their observational and reasoning faculties on the road.
Pages:
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311