For the purpose of illustrating lectures and aiding in discussions, prints and photographs may be shown either directly or through the medium of the reflectoscope. Or, they may be transferred to lantern slides and shown by means of the stereopticon. To a limited extent the Lumière color process has been used in preparing slides.
The methods of laboratory and studio work have already been briefly treated under the head of Courses of Instruction, and hardly need to be further amplified here.
It has already been stated that original works of art are the best illustrations, and that these are but rarely available within the walls of the college. Instructors in institutions which are situated within or near to large centers of population can usually supply this deficiency by arranging visits to museums and other places where works of art are preserved and exhibited; and to artists' studios and to workshops where works of art are produced. Instructors in institutions which are not so situated may supply the deficiency, in some measure, by arranging for temporary exhibitions in the museum or other rooms of the department. Rotary exhibitions of paintings, prints, craftwork, sculpture, designs, examples of students' work, etc., may be arranged whereby groups of institutions within convenient distances from each other may share the benefits offered by such exhibitions, as well as the expense of assemblage, transportation, and insurance. In arranging for such temporary exhibitions it is essential that only works of the highest quality, of their kind, should be selected.
Selections can best be made personally by the instructor or by capable and trustworthy agents who are thoroughly informed as to the purpose of the exhibition and as to the needs of the institutions forming the circuits. Such rotary exhibitions possess a wider usefulness than that of serving as illustrative material for the college department of art: they serve also as an artistic stimulus to the members of the college at large, and to the community in which the college is situated.[[109]]
The work of students outside of class has already been mentioned. It consists of collateral reading, the study of prints and photographs, and the preparation of written themes and reports. Notwithstanding the lavish production of books relating to art, there are but very few that are suitable for use as college textbooks. The instructor will usually assign collateral reading from various authors.
Testing results of art instruction
In attempting to measure the success or failure of the work, the teacher must ask himself, What do our college graduates who have taken art courses possess that is lacking in those who have not taken such courses?
The immediate test of the results of the work is in the attitude of mind of the students. Do they think differently about works of art from what they did before entering the courses? Is there a change in their habit of thought? Have they done no more than accept the lessons they have been taught, or have they so absorbed them and made them their own that they are capable of self-expression in making their estimates of works of art? These questions may be answered by the result of the written examination and by the oral quiz.
It must be confessed that the chief purpose of art instruction in the college is to supply a lack in our national and private life. Citizens of the older communities of Europe pass their lives among the accumulated art treasures of past ages. The mere daily contact with such forms of beauty engenders a taste for them. Partly through our Puritan origin, partly through our preoccupation with the development of the material resources of our country, we, as a people, have failed to cultivate some of the imponderable things of the spirit. So far as we have had to do with its creation, our environment in town and village is generally lacking in artistic charm.
The study by lay students of the art of the past has one chief object; namely, to train them to understand the works of the masters in order that they may discriminate between what is beautiful and what is meretricious in the art of the present day; to learn the lessons of art from the monoliths of Egypt, the tawny marbles of ancient Greece, the balanced thrusts of the Gothic cathedral, the gracious and reverent harmonies of the primitives, the delicate handicrafts of the Orient, the splendors of the Renaissance, the vibrant colors of the latest phase of impressionism, and to apply these lessons in the search for hidden elements of beauty in nature and art in their own country and in their own lives and surroundings.