When I can talk, I'll tell Mamma." -And that's my earliest recollection. The first essential to an understanding of the child is a clear recognition of the fact that he lives in a different world from his parents. His interests and horizons are such that he does not see the same things as they do, though more imperfectly; he sees, and is concerned about, quite different things. Nor are the excellences all on the one side or the other. It is, however, one of life's tragic necessities that the child as he grows up must leave his world behind him, for the most part, if he is to live a healthy adult life, and it is one of the chief functions of parents to see that this transition is accomplished as painlessly and effectively as possible. As much of the joyous freedom, spontaneity, and élan of a healthy childhood should be conserved as possible, and, so far as may be, its infantilities should be sloughed off; while, on the other hand, no person has done as well by his child as he might if he guarantees him, in return for the loss of his childish horizons, no larger world than that of the here and now. The mere present is always too narrow a realm in which to live. The world of the child is sometimes spoken of as though it were small and circumscribed, but (except as adults in their ignorance stunt and repress it) it is always full of possibilities, and it is a shame if, as the questions and wonderings of childhood are slowly settled or disappear, new worlds to conquer or to wander in are not guaranteed. REFERENCES 1 These matters are thoroughly covered by R. H. Lowie, Primitive Society (N. Y., Boni and Liveright, 1920), Chaps. 2-8. 2 Lowie, 42-43. Lowie, 22-23. Edward Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas (London, Macmillan, 1908), Vol. 2, 400-402. 5 Westermarck, Vol. 2, 422–424 f. • Westermarck, Vol. 2, 213. The data are conveniently summarized in L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, A study in comparative ethics (2 ed., N. Y., Holt, 1907), 206–230. 8 First Corinthians, Chap. 7. 9 W. G. Sumner, Folkways, A study of the sociological importance of usages, manners, customs, mores and morals (Boston, Ginn, 1907), 411-413. 10 Thirteenth Census of the United States: Abstract of the Census (Wash., Govt. Printing Office, 1913), 147. 11 Thirteenth Census, Abstract, 163, 164. 12 Arthur Newsholme, The Elements of Vital Statistics in their bearing on social and public health problems (3 ed., London, Allen and Unwin, 1923), 66. 13 A Century of Population Growth, from the first census of the United States to the twelfth, 1790-1900 (Wash., Govt. Printing Office, 1909), 96, 98. 14 Century of Population Growth, 103. 15 R. E. Turner, American in Civilization, Designed as a text-book for college and university use in courses introducing students to life (N. Y., Knopf, 1925), 119. 16 Newsholme, 59-60. 17 Newsholme, 96, 98. 18 J. A. Thomson, in Scientia, Vol. 15 (1914), 392; see Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman (5 ed., N. Y., Scribner's, 1914), for the relevant data. 19 F. Marion Crawford, The Heart of Rome, Chap. 5; quoted from J. Welton, The Psychology of Education (London, Macmillan, 1911), 129–130. Edward Carpenter, Love's Coming of Age (7 ed., London, Methuen, c 1924), 50-52. 20 Carpenter, 43. 21 Summarized in Mental Hygiene, Vol. 7 (1923), 831-833. The complete data are in K. B. Davis, A study of the sex life of the normal married woman. II. The happiness of married life. Journ. of Social Hygiene, Vol. 9 (1923), 1–26, 129–146. Chapter XVI ART AND THE ENJOYMENT OF LIFE The theme of this chapter In this chapter art will be analyzed as one of the chief contributors to man's happiness and well-being. While the discussion will have to be fairly general, so that the intrinsic and more universal connections of art with human life may not be obscured, no attempt will be made to evade current issues and problems. Of these no doubt the most important is the relation between useful and so-called fine art. Here our effort will be to point out (without abating any of the merited praises that men have uttered in favor of the fine arts) that as noble arts they do not stand unique in the culture pattern, but that they have sisters, perhaps less well recognized as "fine," but equally worthy of recognition. The distinction of genuinely fine as opposed to spurious art depends to a considerable degree upon the intimate connection of art with human welfare-a connection that can hardly be understood so long as sculpture, painting, architecture, music, and poetry (great as they are) are honored above their blood sisters. Few subjects, indeed, are vexed with more and greater confusion than that of the nature of art. Into the jungle of darkness created by the various formal philosophies of art we shall not venture to penetrate, although the beams of light that here and there pierce the tangled forest might well disclose much to intrigue a curious mind. Philosophers at different times have credited art with almost every human merit, due no doubt, to the fact that they have usually been content to append their esthetic views (somewhat inartistically) to already completed systems.* In this chapter we shall try to arrive at sound ideas concerning the nature of Schopenhauer, Dewey, and perhaps Croce among recent philosophers furnish exceptions. It is surprising, for all their boldness and general irresponsibility, how narrowly philosophers have conceived the metaphysical enterprise. They have been very easily set agoing. art from a study of the creative life of the artist and from an inquiry into the cultural functions of completed works of art. In the main our data will be taken from painting, largely because the materials required for our analysis are most easily available in this field; but there seems no reason to think that analogous studies of the other arts would lead to conclusions different from those we shall offer. Upon the basis offered by these analyses of the artist's life and of the function of pictures in the culture pattern, we shall try to frame a satisfactory definition of art. The creative life of the artist In this section the following topics will be discussed in the order named: (1) ways of experiencing the world; (2) how the artist treats his experiences; (3) technique in the creative life; (4) imagination in the creative life; (5) why the artist creates. (1) Ways of experiencing the world. It is surprising to what a slight degree our daily life depends upon clear and accurate acquaintance with the things among which we move. Ours is a roving and unsettled glance, given to looking everywhere and seeing little, quick to catch a movement, apt at sensing change, wondrously facile in guiding us through the maze of objects that obstruct our path, but unbelievably incompetent when it comes to telling us just what things are like. When we read our eyes do not move steadily and comprehensively across the page; they advance by little leaps, like the hops of a bird-four or five to the width of a newspaper column. Nothing much is seen while they are in motion. The fixations are not nicely joined together; in most instances they overlap or there are gaps between, but we read on just the same. Careful experimentation has shown that we do not actually see more than a small proportion of the words we read.1 Throughout much of life it is our settled habit to deal almost entirely with the labels of things. A glance, and we know that the person coming towards us is a stranger; another glance, and we recognize a friend; but what friend or stranger really looks like we should be at a loss to say. It is for this reason, no doubt, that so much of testimony in courts of law is of little value; and it is because the scientist knows that he cannot trust his senses for exact work that he so often has recourse to instruments. We treat the world as cavalierly as we treat the coins we carry in our pockets -it is enough that this is a nickel and that a Saturday Evening Post; the one exchanges for the other unquestioned upon the slenderest possible identification. We trade a label for a label, and know neither what we have nor what we give. In this manner we skate thinly over the surface of things, being almost entirely untouched by them as they forever flow in and out of our lives. Most of our stock notions of actions-even those which occur over and over again are highly schematized, if not entirely conventional. Take running, for example; it is easy to run one's self, or to identify the activity of running, but when slow motion pictures are taken of the act, most of us are surprised to see for the first time what really happens whan a man runs. Our notions of running are only casually connected with the actual activity. Some of the graphic conventions of a culture can be observed even in children's drawings; for example, in the way they represent the human figure. It is a commonplace that children do not draw from a model, but rather from their notion of what the model should be like. We shall have occasion shortly to show how the culture pattern affects the developed activity of mature artists. Although much of life is transacted, not with things as they are, but as men think they are, no man's career consists entirely of this strange commerce of ghosts. Not every experience slips through his fingers, leaving only a label behind; nor does he always give and receive in anonymous coin. Sometimes when friend meets friend, they both see and are seen; or again, a tree standing silent and alone against the sky wins an undivided gaze; or once more, a touch upon the arm becomes for a moment the sum and focus of a unified experience; or the sober play of color against color, of form against form, on the trunk of a sycamore fills the eye with the joy of seeing. |