Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

nothing in his character substantially better than does the Tartar or the semi-civilized Ethiopian. His is, equally with theirs, a record of violence, cruelty, ignorance, superstition, bigotry, with scarce a gleam of the intellectual light or humanitarian principle on which his descendant of to-day boasts himself. The simple aborigines of the West Indies and South America were soon undeceived in regard to the "celestial" character of those fairvisaged strangers whom they called "children of the sun," but whose atrocities committed upon these helpless, hapless, confiding children of nature showed them far more akin to the powers of darkness and the dwellers in the regions below.

And even within the present century, wherein European progress stands for amenities in war and the treatment of prisoners, for the abolition of torture and slavery, respect for the religion and customs of conquered peoples, and for much more which alone gives our race a right other than might to overspread the earth as it has done and bend the nations to its will, we still show our kinship of spirit to the barbarous races over which we prevail in many instances inconsistent with our general profession of superiority. Take our individual white man out of his own country, thus away from the restraining influences of civilization which there determines or shapes his ordinary conduct, and too often will the old savage nature in him—ancestral legacy of ruthless Goth and plundering viking—reassert itself. The history of the Dutch in South Africa, of the Germans in the Cameroons, of the suppression of the sepoy insurrection by the British, will serve to illustrate and confirm this observation. And even in settled white communities, like those of our Southern States, wherein an Anglo-Saxon population finds itself dwelling amid the environment of a warm climate and in the immediate presence of a race of humbler origin, we see, over and over again, the tendency of the proud heir of centuries of the highest civilization and enlightenment to revert to almost medieval or oriental barbarism in its acts of chastisement upon the Afro-American offender. When one of the least favored representatives of the latter race,-some ignorant, halfbrute negro, removed by but two or three generations, maybe, from original African savagery, and denied during the slavery epoch all opportunities for rising to a higher moral and intel

lectual plane-when such a well-nigh irresponsible creature, overcome by the untamed impulses of his preponderating animal nature, commits a revolting crime, his victim being of the superior race, what do the representatives of the latter usually, almost uniformly, do? Try the culprit according to the spirit and forms of modern civil law? Afford him the same opportunity for legal defense and protection to which the worst white criminals are held to be entitled? Punish with a just punishment, proportionate to the gravity of his crime? No! with the pretext of "making the punishment fit the crime," our representatives of the enlightened Anglo-Saxon stock, throwing law and humanity alike aside, proceed to emulate the red aborigine or the Spanish Inquisition in deeds of fiendish cruelty; to show the world how well able we still are to match the atrocities of the semi-barbarian upon which we look back with such contempt. But the white man thereby proves his essential kinship—a kinship of savagery-with the latter.

Let one other point serve to knock away the last support of the Caucasian's assumption that he belongs to a superior order of creation. His generally expressed pride and contempt as regards what he considers the inferior races, holds him in no check with regard to any opportunity he may find among these for the gratification of his own active animal nature. The race pride of the Teutonic stock has been claimed to be an instinct implanted by nature to prevent the mixing and "debasing" of its blood with that of less intellectual types. But has it actually this effect? No! it simply works to proscribe lawful union between the white and colored of opposite sexes, but is no bar to concubinage and illegitimacy which flourish unhindered thereby, and are passed over by it as a matter of course. The fair-skinned Aryan of the proudest type has in all ages of history mingled his blood with the African, Mongol, etc., wherever among these he found convenient objects for his lust, and a large proportion of the colored races of the world to-day are of this mixed origin, and can claim white ancestry upon one side or both of their family line.

No, despite the superior intellectual and moral force of his race, the white man is no separate or superior order of creation, removed beyond kinship with other human types. He is, at the

most, but an older, wiser, more capable brother to his African, Asiatic, or South Sea Island co-dweller upon the surface of this planet; and, as such, may well have been intended, in the providential scheme, as a guide and uplifter of these to the higher level which he himself has attained in part only. We may use the comparison of a family party ascending a steep acclivity, the stronger going ahead and then reaching back a helping hand to the weaker ones behind. But the leader does well to look to his own footing also, bearing in mind, from frequent experience, that he himself is liable to slips and falls. Thus the great human family party, in their toilsome, often frustrated, ascent from the low-lying levels of brutishness and barbarism toward their goal upon the lofty eminences of a perfect human development, show inequality in their ability to accomplish the journey; and it may well be that the sturdier, more adult white brother has got somewhat in advance of the rest. But he is no bird whose power of Hight carries him to summits unattainable to his companions and takes him out of their sphere of interest. He is, for all his greater progress, but a toiling climber like the others,-one of the original family party; and as such his duty to the rest is one of helpfulness, and not that of a being lifted out of all relations and obligations to these as not of his kind.

Let us hope that in the further progress of our stock we may at length divest ourselves of the last shred of that race pride and prejudice which have measurably hindered our real usefulness in the general co-operative scheme of nature, as part of our own complete evolution, pride of our special achievements be tempered with humility in consideration of our shortcomings and the appreciation of ability in other races, and of the qualities which unite as well as those which differentiate one and another; and that thus, with a clear, unbiased concept of our special mission, our European stock may be the agent and means of more unqualified blessings to the rest of mankind than it can as yet truthfully claim to be.

AN EDUCATIONAL ART TRAINING.

[ocr errors]

MIRA BURR EDSON, NEW YORK CITY.

T an exhibition of paintings two men discussing the relative values of art and literature were heard to say: "Literature, after all, is a necessity; it bears a real influence on life and morals. Art is a luxury."

66

Such a misapprehension of the ends of art is, fortunately, becoming less common every year. It is a result of our own wrong way of seeing, fostered by our two kinds of art schools, -those for the cultivation of the "fine arts," ignoring any application to practical ends, and those merely " Industrial," where technical necessities are dwelt upon, and art, per se, is a secondary matter, and receives little attention. The two kinds of schools, with avowedly different aims, effect a divorce between the ideal and the practical by which both lose in power. Today, however, the signs point to better things. The public is awakening to an interest in decorative art, and the results of this interest appear in better designs and in more artistic products in the market. That the matter is rightly grasped at last is shown, too, in the desire that art be taught in the schools, and this not as of old, in the way of a superficial accomplishment, but as a useful, necessary branch of public instruction. Many are the plans and systems now being put in practice, each working in its own way toward its own end, such ideas surviving, let us hope, as shall contribute toward an ideal system of the future.

In judging of any system in operation, or in forming a plan for a better, the aims of general education should be kept clearly in mind. What then are the aims of general education? How can a training in art further them, and of what kind should this training be?

The object of general education, of public instruction especially, is a moral one. It would before all else form character, -produce good and intelligent citizens. To accomplish this it must train the will to act along right lines, and the intelligence, that it may guide with reason and justice. Every normal and essential faculty of the mind should receive due attention, and

whatever works for true culture should be considered, that each pupil may become, as far as possible, a thinking, self-acting, self-regulating personality. As training the imagination, and cultivating an appreciation of beauty, some knowledge of art is due him. Culture in art, or the study of beauty, is mainly a study of relations. Its scope is far-reaching, and its field almost unlimited. It is not a question of luxury, nor of expensive details, but of taste. It establishes harmonious relations. With a great deal that is now included in the study of art, general education has nothing to do. Much of the training that is right and necessary for the artist is of no practical value to the average citizen. Whatever is of this nature should be left to the art schools and studios, where, later, the technicalities may be learned, and the development of art ideals carried forward with more facility, because of an understanding already gained of fundamental and primary truths. The best educational training is along the lines of decorative art, and should deal with the principles of design. Drawing and coloring objects is not enough; this may teach the observation of artistic facts, and perhaps do a little toward the cultivation of taste, but the correlation of these facts, the training of the imagination, the development of artistic personality, are left quite out of sight.

The aims of an art-education should be three-fold: to establish ideals of beauty by some familiarity with good examples past and present; to train in manual dexterity as a means to self-expression; and to make clear that beauty is not the result of chance, but rests upon principles as absolute as any of the laws of being.

Some suggestions are given below for a course of training in art, the material for which is drawn from observation and practical experience. It is only an outline, and is elastic enough to fit varying needs, and give scope to the individual genius of the teacher, which must always be an important factor. It aims to follow the development of the child's mind by suitable exercises, unfolding gradually to the larger view, illustrating the successive steps by practical examples from which the pupil may draw the moral for himself, so to speak, rather than allowing the method to be too apparent. Above all, in

« AnteriorContinuar »