Oil colors, of course, are out of the question and pastels almost equally so, for although full colors may be produced in both these mediums, they are not suited to the use of young children, and at best are neither neat nor convenient, while colored pencils are not sufficiently satisfactory in results. Therefore water colors seem to be better adapted to primary work than any other pigmentary material.
Of necessity the pupil must later be able to recognize any pigment he may meet and to classify it according to its color value and also to give it a definite name, other than the one by which it is sold.
More than one professional artist has already worked successfully from nature in oil colors with a palette consisting of only close approximations to the six standard colors with white and a few grays. A person whose color perception has been trained by the use of the color disk in six standard colors with colored papers to correspond, will undoubtedly be able to more truthfully reproduce the colors which he sees in nature, on the canvas or paper by means of such a pallette than if he had been taught by any other system and used the ordinary pigments.
Color Blindness.
The subject of color blindness has received much attention because of its practical importance in the affairs of our daily lives. The use of colored lights as signals on ships and railroads has necessitated very strict regulations regarding the employment of persons whose color vision is defective, and therefore in some states specialists have been employed by the state authorities to examine from time to time the school children regarding their perception of colors.
Possibly this condition of things may not at present be considered a serious reflection on the methods of color instruction, or lack of such instruction in our schools because it has become so common as to attract little attention. But if it were necessary for the same course to be pursued in any other department of our public education that fact would not fail to occasion very uncomplimentary remarks regarding the methods employed.
For example, if a state official were necessary to determine whether pupils are deaf or not after they have been through our grammar schools, and preliminary to accepting positions of responsibility, it would seem that something was wrong, and yet after a child has had instruction in color according to a logical system there should be no more necessity for an examination regarding his ability to properly distinguish colors than there should regarding his ability to hear.
Color blindness has quite generally been divided into three classes, red, green, and violet blindness, those afflicted with red blindness being most numerous, and the cases of violet blindness being very rare, if indeed there are any which may properly be so called.
This classification, known as the Holmgren system, seems to have been based on the Young-Helmholtz theory that all color perceptions are the result of three primary effects in the eye, namely, red, green and violet, rather than on any analytical classification of actual experiments concerning color blindness.
Color tests should be so arranged as to detect either a defect in the brain which renders it difficult for the pupil to remember the names of the several colors, or in the eye, by which he cannot see a difference between two dissimilar colors.