College Teaching Part 49

Inst.i.tutions which exclude the agencies which act directly to enhance "the joy and the worth of existence" are universities only in name.

Equally imperfect are they if, while nominally accepting these agencies, they recognize only those elements in them which are susceptible to scientific a.n.a.lysis, whose effects upon the student can be tested by examinations and be marked and graded--elements which are only means, and not final ends. The college forever needs the humanizing, socializing power of music, the drama, the arts of design, and it must use them not as confined to the cla.s.sroom or to any single section of the inst.i.tution, but as the effluence of spiritual life, permeating and invigorating the whole. In the mental life of the college there have always ruled investigation, comparison, a.n.a.lysis, and the temper fostered is that of reflection and didacticism. Into this world of deliberation, routine, mechanical calculation, there has come the warm breath of music, art, and poetry, stirring a new fire of rapture amid the embers of speculation. The instincts of youth spring to inhale it; youth feels affiliation with it, for art and poesy, like nature, are ever self-renewing and never grow old. It works to unify the life of the college whose tendency is to divide into sealed compartments of special intellectual interests. It introduces a life that all may share, because men divide when led by their intellects, they unite when led by their emotions. Among the fine arts music is perhaps supreme in its power to refine the sense of beauty, to soften the heart at the touch of high thought and tender sentiment, to bring the individual soul into sympathy with the over-soul of humanity. It is this that gives music its supreme claim to an honored place in the halls of learning, as it is its crowning glory.

The whole argument, then, is reduced to this: that with all the scientific aspects of the art with respect to material, structure, psychological action, historical origins and developments and relations, of which the college, as an inst.i.tution of exact learning, may take cognizance, music must be accepted and taught just because it is beautiful and promotes the joy of life, and the development of the higher sense of beauty and the spiritual quickening that issues therefrom must be the final reason for its use. At the same time it must be so cultivated and taught that it will unite its forces for a common end with all those factors which, within the college and without the college, are now working with an energy never known before in American history for a social life animated by a zeal for ideal rather than material ends, and inspired by n.o.bler visions of the true meaning of national progress.

Among the worthy functions of our colleges there is none more needful than that of inspiring ardent young crusaders who shall go forth to contend against the hosts of mediocrity, ugliness, and vulgarity. One encouragement to this warfare is in the fact that these hosts, although legion, are dull as well as gross, and may easily be bewildered and put to rout by the organized a.s.saults of the children of light. So may it be said of our inst.i.tutions of culture, as Matthew Arnold said of Oxford, that they "keep ever calling us nearer to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection--to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from another side."

EDWARD d.i.c.kINSON _Oberlin College_

Footnotes:

[94] Arthur L. Manchester: "Music Education in the United States; Schools and Departments of Music." United States Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1908, No. 4.

[95] Papers and Proceedings of the Music Teachers' National a.s.sociation, 1907; report by Leonard B. McWhood.

[96] _The Spirit of Learning_, Woodrow Wilson: in _Representative Phi Beta Kappa Orations_, edited by Northup, Lane and Schwab. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1915.

[97] I wish to safeguard this statement by saying that I have in mind not the more conservative universities of the East, but the state inst.i.tutions of the Middle and Western commonwealths. In speaking of universities as compared with colleges I am also considering the graduate and professional departments. It is difficult to make general a.s.sertions, on such a subject that do not meet with exceptions.

[98] Papers and Proceedings of the Music Teachers' National a.s.sociation, 1906.

[99] There is an interesting statistical article on the college graduate in the musical profession by W. J. Baltzell in the _Musical Quarterly_, October, 1915.

[100] _Music; its Laws and Evolution_: Introduction. Translation in Appleton's International Scientific Series.

[101] _The Nature and Elements of Poetry_, page 5.

XXIV

THE TEACHING OF ART

=Art instruction defined=

In this chapter an attempt is made to set forth the aims, content, and methods of art instruction in the college. In this discussion the word "college" will be regarded in the usual sense of the College of Liberal Arts, and art instruction as one of the courses which lead to the degree of bachelor of arts.

There is no term that is used more freely and with less precision than the word "art." In some usages it is given a very broad and comprehensive meaning, in others a very narrow and exclusive one. The term is sometimes applied to a human activity, at other times to the products of but a small part of that activity--for example, paintings and statuary.

In this chapter the term will be used in accordance with the definition evolved by Tolstoi, who says: "Art is a human activity, consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are affected by these feelings, and also experience them."[102] The external signs by which the feelings are handed on are movements, as in dancing and pantomime; lines, ma.s.ses, colors, as in architecture, painting and sculpture; sounds, as in music; or forms expressed in words, as in poetry and other forms of literature. The external signs with which art instruction in the college deals are lines, ma.s.ses, and colors. This discussion, therefore, treats of instruction in the formative or visual arts, which include architecture, painting, sculpture, decoration, and the various crafts, in so far as they come within the meaning of the definition given above.

=Instruction in art should be an integral part of a liberal education=

Concerning the nature of art and the purpose of art instruction in the college, there is so much misunderstanding that it will be well to make an attempt at clarification. Art is too commonly regarded as a luxury--a superfluity that may serve to occupy the leisure of the well-to-do--a kind of embroidery upon the edge of life that may be affixed or discarded at will. Whereas, art is a factor that is fundamental in human life and development, a factor that has entered into the being of the race from the dawn of reason. Its products, which antedate written history by thousands of years, form the most reliable source of information we possess of the habits and thoughts of prehistoric man. It has been the medium of expression of many of the choicest products of human thought throughout the ages. These products have been embodied in forms other than that of writing. Its functions are limited neither to the citizen, the community, nor the country; they extend beyond national bounds to the world at large. Art belongs to the brotherhood of man. It is no respecter of nationalities. It is obvious that in a general college course, a study of the religious, social, and political factors in civilization that does not include art among these factors is incomplete.

The question under discussion concerns the teaching of art to the candidate for the bachelor of arts degree, and this question will be solely kept in view. Since, however, graduates in science, engineering, law, medicine, etc., are not exempt from the needs of artistic culture, they too should have at least an effective minimum of art instruction.

=Art a social activity=

Art is recognized as a social activity. It enters largely into such practical and utilitarian problems of the community as town planning and other forms of civic improvement. As workers in such activities, college graduates are frequently called to serve on boards of directors and committees which have such work in charge. To most of such persons, education in art comes as a post-collegiate activity.

Surely the interests of the community would be promoted if the men and women into whose hands these interests are committed had had some formal instruction in art during their college years.

If by practical education we mean training which prepares the individual for living, then the study of an activity that so pervades human life should be included in the curriculum of even a so-called practical college course. Art education has a more important function than to promote the love of the beautiful, to purify and elevate public taste, to awaken intellectual and spiritual desires, to create a permanent means of investing leisure. Important as all these purposes are, they are merely a part of a larger one--that of revealing to the student the relationship of art to living.

=Flexibility of art expression determines flexibility of art instruction=

Art expression has the quality of utmost flexibility. This flexibility appears also in art instruction, and it is for this reason that in no two inst.i.tutions of higher learning is the problem of art instruction attacked in the same way. There is, consequently, a great diversity in the types of art courses, even in the college.

The flexibility of art instruction is both advantageous and embarra.s.sing. It is an advantage in that it can be adapted to almost any requirement. It can be applied to the occupations of the kindergarten, or it can be made an intensive study suitable for the graduate school. But this very breadth is also a source of weakness in that it tends to divert the attention from that precision of purpose which all formal instruction should have, however elementary or advanced. It is apt to be too scattering in its aims. It is not easy to determine exact values either in the subject studied or in the accomplishment of the student. Estimates in art are, and should be, largely a matter of personal taste and opinion. They are not infrequently colored by prejudice, especially where the judgment of producing artists is invoked. This, again, is as it should be. An artist who a.s.sumes toward all works of art a catholic att.i.tude, weakens that intensity of view and of purpose which animates his enthusiasm. It can easily be understood that to a larger extent than in other subjects the nature and scope of art instruction depends upon the personality of the instructor.

=Values of art instruction=

The flexibility to which we have adverted adapts art instruction to diverse educational aims.

In that it can be made to conduce to accurate observation of artistic manifestations, and to logical deduction therefrom, it may be given a disciplinary purpose. In its highest development, to which only the specially gifted can attain, the ability to observe accurately and to deduce logically demands the most exacting training of the eye, of the visual memory, and of the judgment. As an example of the exercise of this sort of discipline we may cite Professor Waldstein's recognition of a marble fragment in the form of a head in the Louvre as belonging to a metope of the Parthenon. When, after Professor Waldstein's suggestion of the probable connection, a plaster cast of the head was taken to the British Museum and placed upon the headless figure of one of the metopes, the surfaces of fracture were found to correspond.[103]

The most useful application of this ability lies in the correct attribution of works of art to their proper schools and authorship.

Signor Morelli in his method of identification used a system that is almost mechanical, yet the evidence supplied by concurrence or discrepancy of form in the delineation of anatomical details was supplemented by a highly cultivated sense for style, for craftsmanship, and for color as well as by an extensive historical knowledge.

In that art instruction cultivates taste and the appreciation of works of art, it has a cultural purpose. By many persons it is a.s.sumed that this is its sole value.

In that it serves to illuminate the study of the progress of civilization, it has an informative purpose.

In that it enables the technical student to correlate his work with that of past and present workers, it aids in the preparation for professional studies.

=Difference between technical and lay courses in art one of emphasis=

Art has been defined as "the harmonic expression of the emotions."[104]

Accepting this definition as a modified condensation of Tolstoi's definition, it is clear that in a work of art two separate personalities are involved--that which makes the expression, and the other to whom the expression is addressed; thus, there are artists on the one hand, and the public on the other. Since we shall have to speak of two distinct cla.s.ses of students,--namely, those who are in training as future artists (as architects, painters, sculptors, designers, etc.), and those who are taking courses in the understanding or appreciation of art,--it will be convenient in this discussion to refer to the former as art students and to the latter as lay students.

Formal art instruction has been offered by colleges to both these groups. It is evident that for the training of the art student emphasis must be placed upon the technique of creative work, whereas for the lay student emphasis must be placed upon the study of the theory and the history of art. It would seem, however, that these two methods are not mutually exclusive; nor should they be, for the art student would surely gain by a study of the principles of art and its history, while the lay student would profit by a certain amount of practice directed by an observance of the principles.

Mr. Duncan Phillips, in an article ent.i.tled "What Instruction in Art Should the College A.B. Course Offer to the Future Writer on Art?"

proposes a hypothetical course in which "the ultimate intention would be to awaken the aesthetic sensibilities of the youthful mind, to encourage the emergence of the artists and art critics, and the establishment of a residue of well-instructed appreciators."[105]

This proposal a.s.sumes the desirability of the completion of a general course designed for college students, before beginning the special courses designed for those individuals whose apt.i.tudes seem to fit them for successful careers as artists on the one hand, or as successful writers on art, or art instructors on the other.

In this place the question of professional training will not be discussed. The courses under consideration are designed to serve the group of lay students from which specialists may, from time to time, emerge. It is of the utmost importance that provision for the further training of such specialists should be made in the college, in the postgraduate school, or in an allied professional school of art.

In view of the great diversity in the treatment of the subject in different colleges, it will be impossible to present a series of courses that might, under other conditions, be representative of a general practice throughout the country. On the other hand, the attempt to make an epitome of the various methods in use at the more important colleges would result in the presentation of a succession of unrelated statements drawn from catalogues which would be hardly less exasperating to the reader than it would be for him to follow, successively, the outlines as presented in the catalogues themselves.

Various summaries of these outlines have been made, and to these the reader is referred.[106]

=A general course of study--Must be adjusted to local conditions=

An attempt is here made to set forth a programme which is offered as a suggestion, upon which actual courses may be based, with such modifications as are demanded by local conditions, the number and personal training of the teaching staff, and the physical equipment available.

The task before the college art instructor is to cultivate the lay student's understanding and appreciation of the works of art and to develop an ardent enthusiasm for his subject, tempered by good taste.

This understanding will be based upon a workable body of principles which the student can use in making his artistic estimates and choices. Such a body of principles will const.i.tute his theory of art.