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the language that it shall assist us in expressing the truth in a pleasant way. So with regard to nature study, (it should not be turned into a drawing lesson, except incidentally) we ask the drawing to help us express with truthfulness what we have observed, in a non-offensive way at least.

Question 6-Drawing drills.

Yes! The elements of form are spheres, spheroids, ovoids, and cones, for natural objects; and cubes, prisms, pyramids, etc., for artificial. From these we get linear elements, as dots, lines, straight and curved, light and shade and color. By varying these forms attractive exercises for drills are easily constructed.

A few minutes' practice at the beginning of a lesson, on some form that is the basis of the lesson, is of great practical advantage.

Question 7-Perspective.

Some of the simpler elements of perspective should be discovered and fixed in mind while drawing from models and objects, just as the simpler forms of language are learned in the so-called language lessons. But there is nevertheless a place for technical grammar, and so there is a place for scientific perspective. Its place is perhaps in the High School.

SHADING.

Shading is not so difficult but that it may be taught in the higher

grammar grades. But usually the classes are too large, the light is badly arranged, and the teachers are very timid about undertaking it, with all these difficulties confronting them. In teaching shading, (and in fact all M. and O. drawing) much individual help is needed. For first lessons and for the purpose of teaching principles, through actual observation, the light should come from one direction, either from the left or the right, not from the front or the back.

If all conditions are favorable, the elements of shading may be successfully taught in the Grammar grades.

Question 8-Inventional geome

try.

The union of inventional geometry and drawing is on the mechanical and decorative design side, where instruments are exclusively used. This union will not be specially useful in M. and O. drawing, or in nature study except that all exactness is useful.

MECHANICAL DRAWING.

Not much of it below the High School. Educationally it is valuable in training the faculty of spaceimagination, and so a little elementary work of this kind may be profitable in the eighth grade.

All other drawing except the drawing of original designs, should be free hand.

Question 9-Imagination. Drawing should certainly cultivate the imagination, both for its educational and æsthetic value.

1. Because the Sensibilities are the very doorway to all other knowledge, whether material or spiritual.

Because Esthetics is coordinate with Logic and Ethics, and is a fundamental part of human

nature.

3. Because Esthetics points out to us what we may safely admire and follow.

Question 10-Drawing for teach

ers.

Teachers should practice the free movement exercises before re

ferred to, on the blackboard,

from 18 inches to 24 in size. They should begin at once to illustrate some lessons, however simply, even if it be nothing more than to make a few marks. Drawing on the blackboard is much easier than drawing on paper and any persevering teacher can make great progress in one term.

There are a few books also that treat of illustrative blackboard drawing for teachers, which would afford good suggestions to all beginners in such work. After a teacher understands her subject, the most effective single device she can possess as a teacher, is the power to illustrate at the blackboard. If teachers knew its value

and that it is within their grasp by a reasonable amount of effort, there might be a revolution in one year.

NATURE STUDY.

BY F. M. WEBSTER.

[At a recent meeting of the Ohio State Horticultural Society held in Wooster, the main topic discussed at one of the evening sessions was "Nature Study". The following quotations are taken from the address made on that occasion by Dr. F. M. Webster of Wooster, Entomologist of the Ohio Experiment Station. In this connection special attention is called to the valuable Bulletins issued by the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station. Number 86-"The Story of the Lives of a Butterfly and a Moth" will be found very helpful to teachers. These bulletins will be sent free to any resident of Ohio who requests them. Address Experiment Station, WoosOhio. Ed.]

ter,

"It seems to me that we shall get a better idea of what the term really means if we reverse it and say studies of nature. If the objection be raised that nature studies are for the young, and must be simple, I can only reply that nature is noted for simplicity, and we are all children, though some of us may be a bit overgrown. Nature is ever truthful, and if it had no other virtue this would suffice. Nature studies may be translated,

then, into true, simple studies of nature, not of books. Books are a means and not an end, and useful only so far as they are truthful. I hold in my hand a book treating on insects, and on the cover is represented an insect that almost anyone, even one not versed in entomology, would not fail to at once recognize as one of our larger katydids. It is an object lesson, and as true to nature as art can make it. Here is part of a "Nature Study", which may be aptly finished when the child has found and recognized a katydid in the fields. I have here another book, as truthful and reliable as the other, but the cover is illuminated with plant pictures no botanist could possibly recognize, brown instead of green, over which what was doubtless intended to represent insects are crawling. Some of these look like water beetles, while a big green stag beetle occupies a conspicuous place. Now stag beetles, in nature, are brown, and not green, and the child who looks for an object such as is represented on the cover of his book will never find it. The book is prefaced by a falsehood, and lacks the first element of a nature study. With such an unlimited wealth of form and color there is surely no need to draw upon the imagination for such hideous figures as these, and they are as much out of place on the cover of this book as would be

selections from Puck on the covers of a Bible.

"I have here a third book, on the front cover of which is the picture of a butterfly. There is here no attempt at natural coloration, the colors being black and blue, or those of the ink and the cover, yet no one would mistake our common mourning cloak butterfly. This is not only a study in nature, but in truth.

"I also have another book, put out by a firm of school-book publishers, and children are expected to learn and recite the truths contained therein. I am here told that the Lepidoptera is composed of butterflies, moths and hawkmoths! Just so. In America some of the household pets are cats, dogs and lapdogs. Or I might with almost equal propriety say that gardens were composed of flowers and cauliflowers. In the same work I am told that what is a pupa in the life of a moth is among butterflies termed a chrysalis, but on the same page we have the information that the caterpillar of the hawk-moth goes into the ground and transforms into a chrysalis. Such entomology as this is beyond my comprehension, and its production in text books seems to have been inspired by a love of gain rather than a love of truth.

"Only recently a firm manufacturing insecticides, chose for a trade mark a spider web on which was shown a spider of a red color accompanied by the legend, 'Kill it sure.' In some correspondence over the matter the excuse was made that most people did not know the difference between a spider of a red color and the common red spider, which is no spider at all and very destructive, while spiders proper are harmless and their death benefits no one, hence why kill them?

"If we are to have nature studies, and it is certainly very desirable that we should, then let them be truthful, and, while furnished for the young, let us not forget that those of more mature age are also in need of them.

"One of the essentials to a successful life in any profession or vocation is the ability to observe closely, to see an object as it is otherwise termed close observation; hence we see that nature studies are conducive to a successful business life. Again, it is but a step from the study of a butterfly or a flower to the study of men and life in general.

"There is one other feature of nature studies to which I wish to call attention, and that is to the desirability of having plain, simple, but exact articles on various natural phenomena published in the daily papers, and introduce these, occasionally, into the schoolroom for a single recitation, instead of the customary readers now so continuously in use.

"This will do as much as anything to prevent pupils from becoming bookish and the daily reading lesson a treadmill. At present, if a pupil reads correctly it is not necessary for him to understand the nature or teachings of the lesson. A change as above indicated will be to the mind of the child what relishes are to his dinner. Give part of a story in nature, and send them out to find the remainder. Tell them of the birds, and ask them to see if the sparrow hops or runs, or whether the fly on the wall alighted with head upward or downward. Thus the habit of close, careful observation will be formed in youth, and form the basis of a successful life, be it business or professional, it does not matter."

130

THE

OHIO EDUCATIONAL MONTHLY.

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COLUMBUS, OHIO.

O. T. CORSON, EDITOR. MARGARET W. SUTHERLAND, ASSOCIATE EDITOR.

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- Mr. Langdon S. Thompson of Jersey City, N. J., whose article on "The Teaching of Drawing" appears in this issue was formerly a For fourteen resident of Ohio. years he taught at Sandusky where he made a reputation as a very successful teacher of writing and draw

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