in the drawing of children as there are in their thoughts.

There must be no artificial difficulties made for children by arbitrary rules; such as that the slate or book must always be kept in one position, or that the accuracy of leading lines must never be tested by measurement. These old-fashioned rules do no good, but much harm, and are based upon ignorance of what the human frame is capable of doing without dislocating some of its most useful extremities.

I attach less value to great accuracy in the drawing of little children than I do to readiness and facility, and fair ability to draw any simple thing, either from copies, from memory, or from dictation. The accuracy will come as the understanding develops; the hand and eye will not be allowed to do their work badly when the understanding is always over them, and requiring to be obeyed. But even a poor drawing will have taught the child something; and it is not so much the perfect style with which we take one step in a journey which advances us to the end of it, as the persistence with which we go on repeating the steps, some of which will be inferior to others both in results and style as the ground traveled is rough or smooth, level or inclined, and the pedestrian fresh or fatigued.

GRAMMAR SCHOOLS.

The number of classes in grammar schools may be assumed to be six, as in the primary schools; and

the same grouping may be adhered to; viz., lower classes, 6, 5, 4; higher classes, 3, 2, 1.

Taking classes 6, 5, 4, to begin with, we may suppose that they have arrived at a fair basis of knowledge, and some little skill, in the primary schools, and may, therefore, be advanced to more difficult work, requiring one degree more care in the execution, and in which quite a new feature of representation is introduced.

In the primary schools, the drawings of objects are treated geometrically, so as to avoid the great difficulties of perspective effects. In the lower classes of the grammar schools, objects may be drawn on the blackboard, showing the roundness of forms, as well as their outlines or contours.

This enables the teacher to explain the elementary principles of perspective in general terms, and will give him the opportunity to vary his lessons by including familiar forms seen every day by the pupils, many of which cannot be represented geometrically. The geometric solids will be treated now in the same way as the plane geometric forms were in the primary schools. Thus cones, cylinders, cubes, pyramids, prisms, spheres, and all the varieties of forms resulting from them, will be given as definitions in words, and be illustrated by drawings from the blackboard, carrying the pupil from flat to round, plane to solid, by a natural gradation.

In these classes a text-book or class-book may be used with efficiency, giving examples of more elaborate free-hand outline and object drawing than the

teacher will have time to put on the board. The exercises may be copied the same size, enlarged, or reduced, according to the ability of each pupil, or the directions of the book.

Map-drawing is another phase of the application of drawing, which should be also practiced in the grammar schools, and take its place alternately with other subjects.

Problems in plane geometry, the accurate construction of geometrical figures with rulers and compass, worked from the large blackboard diagrams made by the teacher, can be introduced in the lower classes of the grammar schools; the whole course of from a hundred to a hundred and fifty problems being divided so as to give each of the six classes about one-third of the course. The repetition of a few problems as a pupil is advanced from one class to another will be an advantage.

The memory-drawing will now include a comparatively wide range of subjects; viz., free-hand outline of ornament, of objects, of geometric solids, of plane geometrical problems, and of maps; and the dictation-lessons will be correspondingly advanced.

In the higher classes,—3, 2, 1,—drawing from the actual object takes the place of drawing from the blackboard of the same forms. The cylinder, which has before been drawn from the flat, in order to learn the principle of drawing it, is now placed before the eyes of the pupils; and objects also which are available, and that can be so placed in ordinary class

rooms that the children can see them, will form an important part of the course.

The more advanced problems in plane geometry will also be worked, and should now be very accurately drawn.

In model-drawing, single objects should first be given as subjects; and, when each of the elementary solids have been so often drawn that something like a fair understanding of it is perceptible, two may be placed together in a group, the combination being a rectangular solid, as a cube or oblong block, and a solid having a curved surface, as a sphere, cone, or cylinder; and so on to three or more objects grouped together, as the classes advance. So also with the geometrical drawing; the constructional problems having been worked in the lower classes, exercises on them, and deductions from the problems, should be given in the higher.

The free-hand outline work, instead of being copies of other work, may also be advanced into the region of elementary design. Geometric forms being given, such as a square or triangle of stated dimensions, some element of form may be given, as a leaf and flower, or a leaf and berry; and the exercise to be, that each pupil is to fill the geometric form by an adaptation of the material to the space given. The elementary form of which the design is to be made should be one which the pupils have drawn several times before, so that drawing it again will be quite an easy matter, and all the attention be given

to making an ornamental arrangement of it that will be pleasing and original.

This may at first sight appear a difficult exercise for children; but it is, on the contrary, both simple and extremely popular. Those who have seen the beautiful little designs and arrangements made by children of five years and under, in the Kindergarten schools, will be able to see, that, if a child be taught to draw from five years of age to fifteen in a sensible way upon a progressive method, it ought to be able to do at fifteen something in the way of original design. From twelve years of age to fifteen, every child ought to originate or design some form every week, no matter how simple at first, if only a repetition on a straight line of a plain leaf; and we should then soon see about us an artistic population, who would both create and appreciate good art and good design. The faculty of design has been left dormant in the majority of human beings, as though it were some sacred, priestly office, that it would be sacrilegious to touch. But I want to see every child leaving school capable of designing the form of an object, its ornamentation if required, and be able, when called upon, to show us how the Greeks treated that kind of thing, and in what essential features the Greek and Gothic artists differed in their design and spirit.

Unless drawing, besides performing many other useful functions in education, has taught a scholar who graduates from a grammar school at least as much as that, it has been a useless plaything.