I
LINEAR GEOMETRIC DESIGN DECORATION
I already have mentioned the fact that the material of the geometric insets may be applied also to design.
It is through design that the child may be led to ponder on the geometric figures which he has handled, taken out, combined in numerous ways, and replaced. In doing this he completes an exercise necessitating much use of the reasoning faculties. Indeed, he reproduces all of the figures by linear design, learning to handle many instruments—the centimeter ruler, the double decimeter, the square, the protractor, the compass, and the steel pen used for line ruling. For this work we have included in the geometric material a large portfolio where, together with the pages reproducing the figures, there are also some illustrative sheets with brief explanations of the figures and containing the relative nomenclature. Aside from copying designs the child may copy also the explanatory notes and thus reproduce the whole geometry portfolio. These explanatory notes are very simple. Here, for example, is the one which refers to the square:
"Square: The side or base is divided into 10 cm. All the other sides are equal, hence each measures 10 cm. The square has four equal sides and four equal angles which are always right angles. The number 4 and the identity of the sides and angles are the distinguishing characteristics of the square."
The children measure paper and construct the figure with attention and application that are truly remarkable. They love to handle the compasses and are very proud of possessing a pair.
One child asked her mother for a Christmas gift of "one last doll and a box of compasses," as if she were ending one epoch of her life and beginning another. One little boy begged his mother to let him accompany her when she went to buy the compass for him. When they were in the store the salesman was surprised to find that so young a child was to use the compass and gave them a box of the simplest kind. "Not those," protested the little fellow; "I want an engineer's compass;" and he picked out one of the most complicated ones. This was the very reason why he was so anxious to go with his mother.
As the children draw, they learn many particulars concerning the geometric figures: the sides, angles, bases, centers, median lines, radii, diameters, sectors, segments, diagonals, hypotenuses, circumferences, perimeters, etc. They do not, however, learn all this as so much dry information nor do they limit themselves to reproducing the designs in the geometry portfolio. Each child adds to his own portfolio other designs which he chooses and sometimes originates. The designs reproduced in the portfolio are drawn on plain white drawing paper with China inks, but the children's special designs are drawn on colored paper with different colored inks and with gildings (silver, gold). The children reproduce the geometric figures and then they fill them in with decorations made either with pen or water-colors. These decorations serve especially to emphasize, in a geometric analysis, the various parts of the figure, such as center, angles, circumference, medians, diagonals, etc.