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geometric solids. And here it might be well to observe that it is not the manual skill displayed in the children's drawings which determines their educational value, so much as the thoughts they have induced and the habits of accuracy, observation and selfreliance they have helped to create.

1. In Grammar Schools, the pupils should be taught the use of the ruler and compasses in working out plane geometrical problems, and in executing the mechanical repetitions of elementary design.

2. Design, as practised in the workshops, should be taught in the schools, and in the Grammar Schools the first features of applied design; namely, the invention or adaptation of the forms of nature or historical ornament and their exact repetition as required in design. This has been proved to be easy of attainment.

3. Object drawing, from the copy to learn principles, and from the object itself to learn their application in drawing from nature, is a very important branch of Grammar School work.

4. Enlarging and reducing from flat examples of natural forms or historical details of ornament, are necessary for practice to give knowledge of proportion and of accepted types of the beautiful in design and ornament.

5. Drawing from memory, of forms already drawn, is a very direct mode of fixing in the mind the essential characteristics of any form, and is an exercise which should form a part of any system of instruction in drawing.

6. In every class the imagination of the pupils should be exercised by drawing from the teacher's dictation such forms as can be exactly described, as, for instance, geometric patterns, varied by other forms, such as leaves and flowers, described by their names, or details of ornament previously drawn, and whose names recall their shapes and characteristics.

Thus, by regular alternation of exercises, the thinking, inquiring, executing faculties of the pupils will be aroused and exercised, and in one direction the senses of sight and touch will be utilized for the purpose of acquiring information and of creating or developing habits of accurate observation and fructifying incipient taste.

I have always considered that the work of drawing in Primary Schools was to learn names and to interest the scholars; in

Grammar Schools, to apply these names and utilize this interest in practising the branches of drawing whose names and first principles have been learnt in the Primary Schools; whilst in the High Schools the processes of drawing should be applied to some useful branch of industrial art, so that the pupil may realize that drawing is not an amusement, but a help towards the serious work of life, a practical help, either to the active agencies which minister to the progress of society, or a practical preparation for the incidental duties which all will be called upon to perform, though it may be in a variety of ways. In the High Schools the pupils are old enough to be taught special subjects in drawing, but it is at present too often the case that they are ignorant of the elements of drawing, and are therefore unable to take up the advanced subjects. This will be remedied when the children who have been well taught in the classes below take their places in the High Schools, and we shall not see how very general is the ability to draw or how the practice improves the taste, until a younger generation than the present become High School scholars.

I have thought it advisable to dwell somewhat fully on this branch of the subject, because the teaching of drawing in the day schools is the most important step that can be taken towards the elevation of industrial art, and its introduction calls for more general action than has yet been taken.

NORMAL SCHOOLS.

From the examinations in drawing of the pupils in the Normal Schools, it is quite manifest that few of them receive instruction in drawing before entering the schools. As this is perhaps the only subject they will be required to teach which they have had little or no practice in before joining the Normal Schools, it might be advisable to give more time to it than to some others, to compensate for the deficiency. The Board of Education can hardly hope to see industrial drawing taught in all the schools, unless every graduate of the Normal Schools is made competent to teach it before graduation, and this competency cannot be acquired in the few hours given to its study for the one or two years of the Normal course. And yet it should be recognized that for every student of a Normal School who graduates without the ability to teach elementary drawing, there

will be a class-room in the State where the children are deprived of one branch of elementary instruction which the law says is necessary for their education.

To remedy this, and establish uniformity of attainment, there should be an examination for graduation in drawing as for every other subject required to be taught in the schools, and the subjects examined in should be,

1. Freehand outline drawing and elementary design.

2. Model and object drawing from flat and solid.

3. Plane geometrical drawing.

4. Linear perspective by freehand and instruments.

5. Memory and dictation drawing.

The same examination papers to be used simultaneously in all the schools, and failure to obtain pass marks in the subjects to disqualify for graduation. The application of this test need not be made a hardship, for the students should have a year's notice given that such an examination will be held, and the papers should be not too difficult at first. Great progress has already been made in the systematizing of drawing in all the schools, and only such an additional step remains to be taken to put the subject in its right place, that of a very elementary branch of instruction which every teacher must know before the Normal Schools consider him qualified to teach in a Massachusetts school.

THE EXHIBITION OF DRAWINGS FROM THE FREE INDUSTRIAL EVENING CLASSES.

The exhibition was open four days instead of three, as in previous years, and was visited by a larger number of persons than in other years. By actual count there were 30,000 in two days, the numbers not being kept on the other two days.

A new feature was the display of drawings from the day schools, from several cities, in accordance with the invitation given by the Board. Much interest was felt in these drawings by the large body of teachers and others who examined them, and it is one of the strongest arguments for such displays that they enable the teachers to examine schemes and details of teaching of various kinds, without loss of time or expenditure of money.

I spend annually a considerable amount of time with special teachers of drawing, hearing their statements and advising with them concerning their work. A careful study of the annual exhibition of drawing by special and regular teachers would save much time, and the exhibition itself is a more valuble authority to consult than any person. Though it is costly to hold, even for the short time it is kept open, perhaps no other expenditure of the same amount of money; viz., $500, would do as much good to the cause of art-education, or influence so many persons, or afford so many persons the opportunity of seeing its essentially practical character.

The report of the State Board of Examiners appointed to award marks of distinction to the best works in the exhibit of each city, was made and published at the time of the exhibition, giving full details of all awards made. I here reproduce a summary of the four exhibitions held since the Act of 1870 was passed. From this report will be seen how very uncertain seems the nature of the work done in the classes, Boston, Lowell, Taunton, Newton and Lawrence being the only cities which have exhibited their works four years in succession at the state exhibition.

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Comparison of Awards to Students, made by the State Board of Examiners at four Exhibitions of Drawings in Boston, during the Years 1872, 1873, 1874 and 1875.

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