There are then three possible plans for including art instruction in the vocational program in homemaking, namely:
1. By presenting the course in art related to the home as a separate semester or year course that parallels the homemaking course. When it is a semester course, it is well to offer art the first half of the year in order that it may be of greatest value to the first units in clothing.
2. By giving the course in art related to the home as a separate unit in the homemaking course. Such an art unit should precede that homemaking unit in which there is greatest need as well as opportunity for many applications of the principles of art which are being developed. This will usually be the unit in clothing or home furnishing.
3. By giving short series of art lessons as needs arise in the homemaking course. Certain dangers have been pointed out in this plan. If used, it should include a definite time for unifying and summarizing the art work at the end of the course.
OBJECTIVES FOR THE TEACHING OF ART
In the vocational program in which the teaching is specifically designed to train for homemaking, it is obvious that the major objective in the related art units should be to train for the consumption of art objects rather than for their production. Bobbitt[ 5] elaborates on this objective as follows:
* * * the curriculum maker will discern that the men and women of the community dwell within the midst of innumerable art forms. Our garments, articles of furniture, lamps, clocks, book covers, automobiles, the exterior and interior of our houses, even the billboards by the roadside are shaped and colored to comply in some degree, small or large, with the principles of aesthetic design. Even the most utilitarian things are shaped and painted so as to please the eye. * * *
It would seem then that individuals should be sensitive to and appreciative of the better forms of art in the things of their environment. As consumers they should be prepared to choose things of good design and reject those of poor design: and thus gradually create through their choices a world in which beauty prevails and ugliness is reduced to a minimum.
This does not require skill in drawing or in other form of visual art. It calls rather for sensitiveness of appreciation and powers of judgment. * * * The major objectives must be the ability to choose and use those things which embody the higher and better art motives. Education is to aim at power to judge the relative aesthetic qualities of different forms, designs, tones, and colors. Skill in drawing and design does not find a place as one of the objectives.