This was Emerson's
doctrine more than sixty years ago. It is only ten years since the
Mechanic Arts High School was opened in Boston.
We are all of us aware that within the last twenty years there has been
a determined movement of the American people toward the cultivation of
art, and toward the public provision of objects which open the sense of
beauty and increase public enjoyment. It is curious to see how literally
Emerson prophesied the actual direction of these efforts:--
"On the city's paved street
Plant gardens lined with lilac sweet;
Let spouting fountains cool the air,
Singing in the sun-baked square;
Let statue, picture, park, and hall,
Ballad, flag, and festival
The past restore, the day adorn,
And make to-morrow a new morn!"
We have introduced into our schools, of late years, lessons in drawing,
modelling, and designing,--not sufficiently, but in a promising and
hopeful way. Emerson taught that it is the office of art to educate the
perception of beauty; and he precisely describes one of the most recent
of the new tendencies in American education and social life, when he
says: "Beauty must come back to the useful arts, and the distinction
between the fine and the useful arts be forgotten." That sentence is the
inspiration of one of the most recent of the efforts to improve the arts
and crafts, and to restore to society the artistic craftsman. But how
slow is the institutional realization of this ideal of art education! We
are still struggling in our elementary and secondary schools to get a
reasonable amount of instruction in drawing and music, and to transfer
from other subjects a fair allotment of time to these invaluable
elements of true culture, which speak a universal language.
Pages:
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55