DOES ART STUDY CONCERN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS? 487 
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DOLLS ART STUDY CONCERN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS? 
BY MRS. MARY DANA HICKS, BOSTON, MASS. 
‘“ All art study should aim first to familiarize the pupil with the chief types of the 
rreat works of art. with a view to cultivating the artistic taste.” 
WHAT I have to present on this topic will be mainly from the side of 
she public school. To all who are teachers in the public schools, or who 
are interested in the work of the public schools,.this topic must have a 
great and abounding interest at this time. It brings us face to face with 
far-reaching questions. Does art study in any way concern the public 
schools ? If so, into whose hands should the study come. and under whose 
direction should it be carried out ? 
In endeavoring to contribute something toward answering these ques- 
sons, I would take this position : Art education is a legitimate subject 
for the public schools ; the supervisor of drawing should stand not merely 
for the promotion of drawing, whether industrial, educational, or esthetic, 
out rather for the promotion of art. I wish to make at the outset a clear 
distinction between mere drawing and art, which in its great content is 
the subject of which drawing stands as a language. 
Art (I am speaking of formative art)—art has stood in the general mind 
as something quite transcending ordinary life, as something belonging 
only to the few, something to be purchased. 
The great and intrinsic value of art has in one way kept the masses 
apart from it. Those who have produced works of art have too often 
struggled against indifference and contempt ; too. often they have given 
all that constituted the ordinary life, to attain art which is dearer than 
life. Thus art came to be considered as not belonging to the ordinary 
life, as something quite outside of and apart from the ordinary life, some- 
‘hing into which ordinary souls could not enter, something to which 
ordinary souls had no right. 
By slow degrees there arose in the minds of some a realization that as 
art productions had a money value, it might be that art could have a 
practical application ; industrial art was recognized, and industrial draw- 
‘ng was introduced into the schools of this broad land, on the industrial 
basis. Everywhere the work of supervisors of drawing was to direct the 
drawing, mainly toward industrial design, as a means of improving the 
industrial products of the country, increasing the wage-earning power of 
its people, and adding to its material prosperity. 
Then came the idea that drawing was a mode of expressing thought, 
and that hence it should be cultivated as a means of mental development. 
This was a great advance from the purely industrial view. The educa- 
sonal value of drawing became a subject of earnest discussion, and finally