NORMAL SCHOOLS.

(Trained teachers necessary.-Suitable objects for instruction required.)

VI.-DRAWING IN BELGIAN SCHOOLS.*

"

At the second conference a lecture on "the methods of teaching drawing in primary schools in Belgium" was delivered by Monsieur de Taeye, director of the Academy of Fine Arts, Louvain; Lord Reay again presided. The lecturer traced to the influence of the great exhibition of 1851 the change of opinion which had become general throughout Europe that the old method of teaching drawing by "the copy was radically bad. For the children of the working population, that formed the majority of those attending the primary schools, drawing was not only of equal but of superior importance to any other school subject. The national welfare of an industrial people was involved in it, and that the subject should be rightly taught was, therefore, a necessity in a system of elementary education. Governed by these ideas, the educational programme that came into force under the new Belgian régime, which dated from 1879, provided for the teaching of drawing to the youngest pupils in elementary schools. The lessons in drawing commenced, in fact, simultaneously with lessons in reading and writing with children of six years of age. The general principles of the method adopted are: (a) intuitive notions of form and color are first ascertained and developed; (b) concrete forms or objects in relief are presented before abstract forms or flat models; (c) everything must be understood before it is required to be reproduced or imitated. The instruction is given in four stages.

I. The first year's studies, for children aged from six to seven; (a) dots or points in lines, groups, and other combinations; prints cut out of paper and applied as ornaments; (b) depths of tone or shading produced by making the dots denser or sparser; (c) notions of color, experiments to ascertain the existence of Daltonism-distinctions and denominations of color; (d) imitations of common objects in relief; (e) straight lines, vertical, horizontal, and oblique-exercises to train the hand to trace straight lines; (f) parallel straight lines and their application to ornamentation. Towards the end of the course, when the exercises have become familiar, they are all repeated from memory. The blackboard, the slate, or the paper, respectively, upon which the exercises are worked in the first year, are ruled in squares. All exercises are done with a free hand, no instruments beyond the pen, pencil, or crayon being used.

II. The second year's course for children from seven to nine commences with a recapitulation of the preceding lessons, but the board, slate, or paper is marked with points in place of lines in squares. Curved lines are now introduced, and combinations of straight and curved lines, the object being to induce suppleness and firmness of hand by very copious exercises. Depth of tone and colors again follow in the order of the first year's studies. With the exercises upon common objects in relief, the applications of the curve to the profiles of vases are now explained, and then combinations in Gothic letters and Arabic and other figures are studied. The course finishes with combinations of interlaced bands of straight lines and curves, and, as before, the repetition of the whole of the exercises from memory.

III. The third year of study commences with children of eight years of age, when already the aid of squares and points on the exercise paper is dispensed with. This system of lines and points, called by the Germans stigmographie, continues for a year longer in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, their aid being only dispensed with in those countries at the age of nine. Under the Belgian system the exercise paper is at this stage quite plain, but it is figured on the margin with the divisions of the metrical scale. After the usual recapitulation, the simplest elements, lines, again form the subject of study. Lines in all directions are bisected, trisected, and divided in a given number of equal parts, and the exercises are very numerous. The chief object here is the formation of the coup d'œil. The eye is trained to seize accurately at a glance the various relations of lines to each other. Curves are next introduced, firmness of hand, as well as accuracy of glance being developed by the second step. Then follow in the same order as in the previous years tones or shading

*From the report in The Schoolmaster of August 2, 1884, of the proceedings of the International Conference on Education held in connection with the Health Exhibition in London.

and color and other ornamentation, and the reproduction of common objects, and, lastly, drawing from memory.

IV. The last year of studies carries children of ten, eleven, twelve, and sometimes up to fourteen years, on to the study of geometrical drawing and perspective, and it includes both free hand and the use of instruments, but no help is given in aid of measurement by marks on the exercise paper. Solid figures and natural objects of the most complicated forms are now taken, and the finest models of antique art are set before the pupils.

THE SYSTEM IS ECLECTIC.

The system, throughout logical, is a complete negation of the old and vicious system of drawing from "the copy.' In its various stages it might be said to be the work of several nations. In England Herbert Spencer had enunciated the principle that intuition should precede instruction. In France Guillaume declared that "the teaching of drawing should be based upon science;" the principles on which the method should be constructed were indicated by a minister of Prussia; to an Austrian, Herr Hillart, was due the credit of formulating the details of such a method; and, finally, to a Belgian, Mons. Germain, was due the honor of practically carrying the system out, with certain modifications, as a portion of the national system of primary education in Belgium.

It is in harmony with the spirit of the instructions given by Herr von Müller, the Prussian minister of instruction, the following passages from which were quoted by the lecturer: "The teaching of drawing has not for its object to produce artists, but to exercise the pupil in the elementary practice of art, to enable him to acquire a knowledge of the laws of form, to give him a quick and sure eye and a firm but light and accurate hand. It is less important that the pupil should draw picturesque objects than that what he draws should be exact." The minister adds that the method ought to be devised in such a manner as to admit of its being carried out successfully by every capable teacher, and from it should be rejected all copies lacking in idea, and especially those productions of mechanically-executed images known to everybody." "The aim was not to give a child a special education (they had special professional schools for that purpose), but so to train him that his hand would be apt to whatever it was put. The success attained had been very encouraging, for, although the system was only initiated in 1879, they already found their pupils apt in applying their knowledge to the required practical purposes, and they commonly found that after the fourth year of study a decided bias towards a particular vocation had been implanted, and that when this bias was followed it was rare to find that a mistake had been made in the choice of a profession.

The lecturer was loudly applauded on concluding, and a vote of thanks was accorded on the proposition of Sir P. Cunliffe Owen, who addressed the assembly in French, advocating the establishment in foreign countries of museums on the model of South Kensington, which he strongly urged should be open in the evenings.

APPENDIX F.

GOVERNMENTAL AID TO EDUCATION IN THE INDUSTRIAL AND FINE ARTS, IN GREAT BRITAIN.

I. Introduction.

II.-Extracts from the thirtieth report (for 1882) of the Science and Art Department. III.-List of officials.

IV.-History of the Science and Art Department.

V.-National Art Training School, South Kensington.

VI.-The South Kensington Museum.

VII.-The National Art Library.

VIII.-Extracts from the Art Directory; regulations for extending aid to elementary

day schools, etc.

IX.-List of Art examples and books, etc.

X.-List of casts.

XI.—Abstract of the thirty-second report (for 1884) of the Science and Art Depart

ment.

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