This collection of blackboard sketches and the accompanying text has
been planned at the request of many teachers and pupils who desire
lessons and suggestions along this line, but who are unable to secure
personal instruction.
In general, these requests have been for simple sketches dealing with
the various lines of school work, and at the same time for strokes and
explicit directions for using these in the drawings. For these reasons
there are given upon nearly every plate the strokes of the chalk useful
in producing the desired effect, and upon the opposite page such
directions as are generally given to the students in the classroom.
A few of the lessons deal with the strokes and their application to the
very simplest objects possible, but even these may be found useful as
illustrative material. They are recommended in order that the teacher
may become familiar with the medium, and with the simplest and the most
direct manner of handling it before attempting sketches which require a
great variety of touches. I have tried to have the other sketches cover
as great a variety of subjects as possible.
Plates 3, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23 and 29 have been
used with the little people in different forms of stories, language
and reading lessons. Plates 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 18, 27, 28 and 29 are
suggested for geography lessons in various grades. Plates 8, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 27, 28 and 29 may be used in history lessons. Plates 1
and 3 have been used in primary numbers, and plates 27 and 28 for
arithmetic, when the problems had to do with commission, measurement,
etc., or when the problems referred to lumbering or manufacturing.
Plates 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27 and 28
will be found helpful in many lines of nature study, especially when
the nature specimens are difficult to obtain. Plates 9, 24, 25 and
26 illustrate the value of this line of drawing in the study of
literature; and many of the other drawings may be used in a similar
manner. The teacher who uses this type of illustrative sketching will
readily see how the drawings may be applied to other subjects.
Teachers have occasionally asked for illustrations for the different
months of the school year, something to use with calendars, or for
different holiday drawings. Several sketches given on the plates are
suitable for the various months. For calendars I suggest discarding the
plaided pumpkin for November, the numbered bricks in a fireplace for
December, the kite covered with numbered squares for March, etc., etc.
A regular numbered calendar may be used, with an appropriate sketch
above or at one side. See Plate 13, goldenrod. The holiday itself
should suggest the character of the sketch.
Although these sketches are recommended as illustrations for certain
subjects, it is not intended that the teacher should merely copy these
drawings, but that she should be able to appropriate these strokes,
enlarge upon them, and apply them in illustrations for the particular
subjects she is teaching; and there are many subjects which require
just this sort of expression on the part of the teacher.
“Children are not all ears; they take in more through the eyes than in
any other way.”
Since all teachers know this is true, they should realize the
usefulness of illustration on the blackboard.
A few moments now and then devoted to the practice of these strokes,
and frequent application of them, will enable the teacher better to
express and emphasize certain facts, details, or incidents connected
with a lesson; better to hold the interest and attention of the
class, and more readily to create an interest in drawing. She will
thus, by example, lead the children to make the drawing a natural and
spontaneous means of expression.