50 51
RIVER BASINS. COASTS.
Do not copy the sketches given in these lessons. They are but suggestions to you, who will be able to express your own thoughts and represent your own mental pictures better than you can another’s. They are given to show you that simple sketches will help a child to a clearer understanding of the subject under consideration. As has been said elsewhere, all such illustrations should be drawn as they are needed to illustrate a given point in the development of a lesson; for they carry more weight than if sketched beforehand, that is, outside of the class exercise.
To merely locate in your sketch a house, spring, tree or man, will often be of great value to the pupil, though you may feel timid about trying to draw it, or think you have not the time. The experience of many teachers in this respect may be illustrated by supposing a case.
A sketch is to be drawn, including the figure of a man, animal or any object which has been considered difficult and therefore somewhat avoided.
The teacher, by one or two rapid strokes in the right direction, indicates the location and movement of this figure, and proceeds with the lesson without any hesitation or laborious attempts to really sketch it. The next time it is necessary to represent it (perhaps in the second or third lesson), sufficient confidence and skill have been gained to encourage additional strokes in the development of form, and every succeeding attempt has resulted in the addition of details of structure, until almost without knowing it, the necessary skill has been acquired to make an adequate sketch. How? By doing, the teacher has been forced to form the mental picture, which, once acquired, can be represented, though it may be more or less crudely at first.
