Elementary Color

by Milton Bradley

When the subject of color was introduced into the curriculum of the common schools of this country, the use of paints was a novelty. So little was known regarding the possibilities of water colors as a means of education, that the teachers may be excused for having had grave doubts about the practicability of the scheme. Very few teachers in the lower grades of schools had received at that time any definite instruction in the harmonies of colors or the manipulation of pigments; and what little thought had been given to the subject was based on the three-color theory of Brewster, which was the only one available at that time.

During the intervening years much has been done to make entirely feasible the introduction into school and kindergarten of this pleasing and educating occupation.

Color standards have been adopted, which are nothing less than selections from the solar spectrum itself, and the manufacture of pigments has improved so much that it may almost be said to be a new industry. In the training of teachers, also, color instruction is now given an important place, so that the kindergartner and primary teacher can give the attention that it deserves to a subject which is so interwoven with all that is beautiful in the material world around us.

Passing from one form of color work to another, it is exceedingly important that children of any grade should find the same principles obtaining in each step of the way, and also that the knowledge gained in the earliest stages of the work should be available in the higher forms. This is particularly true of color instruction as it is now found in the best schools, and the principal reason why water colors are so much better adapted to use in the schools to-day than in former years, is because paints are now made to correspond in color with the standards with which the children have become familiar in the colored papers and other material of the kindergarten.

At present it is generally conceded that these six colors, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Violet, which stand out so prominently in the solar spectrum, are pre-eminently adapted to serve as standards and as the basis of an alphabet of color. There should, therefore, be no question as to the adoption of these same colors as the palette of paints for the earliest color work, even with the babes in the kindergarten, when anything beyond the colored papers and the usual kindergarten occupations is wanted.

Not very long ago it was the practice to give the child a box of colors and let him paint at random without any definite instruction as to the relation which each color should bear to the others. In fact, with the usual cheap box of paints then in the market there was no decided correlation of the colors nor any educational selection, both of which we have to-day.

Water colors are now furnished which so closely approach the standards of the colored papers that they are of the greatest assistance in developing the æsthetic taste and judgment of the pupils, and it is remarkable how early in the training of children paints can be used with advantage.

In some of the previous pages of this book we have treated of the false theory of Sir David Brewster, who supposed that there were three primary colors in the solar spectrum and that all the other colors were produced by the overlapping or mixing of these in pairs.

This error, being applied to pigments, has worked much harm and has greatly retarded the progress of color study. Even now some teachers recommend the use of the red, yellow and blue palette on the ground of simplicity and economy.

All the recent scientific writers on color treat this three-color scheme as already exploded, because the simplest as well as the most complex experiments with colored light prove its falsity. Nevertheless, the fact that yellow and blue, which with light make very nearly white, do in the mixture of pigments produce a green, has deceived many persons. But the best green that can be so procured is a very broken color and not to be successfully compared with the beautiful and brilliant green of the spectrum. Why then, should we not have in our paints imitations of the solar green, orange and violet as well as the red, yellow and blue? It is not well to sacrifice so much for alleged simplicity, and as for economy, it will take but a moment's reflection to see that it would take no more paint to cover a given surface with six colors than with three.