Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Garcia and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
BULLETIN No. 156 Home Economics Series No. 13
THE TEACHING OF ART RELATED TO THE HOME
SUGGESTIONS FOR CONTENT AND METHOD IN RELATED ART INSTRUCTION
IN THE VOCATIONAL PROGRAM IN HOME ECONOMICS
JUNE, 1931
Issued by the Federal Board for Vocational Education--Washington, D. C.
THE TEACHING OF ART RELATED TO THE HOME
SUGGESTIONS FOR CONTENT AND METHOD IN RELATED ART INSTRUCTION
IN THE VOCATIONAL PROGRAM IN HOME ECONOMICS
JUNE, 1931
[Illustration]
UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON: 1931
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C. Price 20 cents
FEDERAL BOARD FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
MEMBERS
William N. Doak, _Chairman_
_Secretary of Labor_
Robert P. Lamont,
_Secretary of Commerce_.
Arthur M. Hyde,
_Secretary of Agriculture_.
Wm. John Cooper,
_Commissioner of Education_.
Edward T. Franks, _Vice Chairman_,
_Manufacture and Commerce_.
Perry W. Reeves,
_Labor_.
Claude M. Henry,
_Agriculture_.
John S. Shaw, _Secretary and Chief Clerk_
EXECUTIVE STAFF
J. C. Wright, _Director_
Charles R. Allen, _Educational Consultant_
John Cummings, _Chief, Statistical and Research Service_
VOCATIONAL EDUCATION DIVISION
C. H. Lane, _Chief_,
_Agricultural Education Service_.
Adelaide S. Baylor, _Chief_,
_Home Economics Education Service_.
Frank Cushman, _Chief_,
_Trade and Industrial Education Service_.
Earl W. Barnhart, _Chief_,
_Commercial Education Service_.
VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION DIVISION
John Aubel Kratz, _Chief_,
_Vocational Rehabilitation Service_
CONTENTS
Page
FOREWORD VII
SECTION I. Introduction 1
SECTION II. Purpose of the bulletin 4
SECTION III. Determining content for a course in art related to the home 10
Place of art in the vocational program in home economics 10
Objectives for the teaching of art 12
Essential art content 14
Home situations for which art is needed 17
SECTION IV. Suggestive teaching methods in art related to the home 22
Creating interest 22
Discussion of method in the teaching of art 29
Suggested procedure for developing an ability to use a principle of
proportion for attaining beauty 34
Suggested plan for the development of an understanding of the
principle of proportion and its use 34
Details of lesson procedure 35
Series of suggested problems to test pupils' ability to recognize
and use the principle of proportion just developed 38
Further suggestions for problems, illustrative materials, and
assignments 40
Class projects 42
Notebooks 43
The place of laboratory problems 46
Field trips 53
Measuring results 55
Evidences of the successful functioning of art in the classroom 55
Evidences of the successful functioning of art in the home 58
Home projects 66
Suggestive home projects in which art is an important factor 68
SECTION V. Additional units in art related specifically to
house furnishing and clothing selection 72
SECTION VI. Illustrative material 75
Purpose 75
Selection and sources 75
Use 77
Care and storage 79
SECTION VII. Reference material 81
Use of reference material 81
Sources of reference material 81
Bibliography 82
INDEX 85
FIGURES
Page
1. An arrangement of wild flowers and grasses and a few books placed
on a blotter on a typewriter table in front of an inexpensive
india print may furnish a colorful spot in any schoolroom. Note
the effective use of the screen in concealing a filing case 7
2. A bulletin board on which it is necessary to use a variety of
materials adds to the appearance of the room when these materials
are well arranged and frequently changed 8
3. Pupils in a Nebraska high school try out different flowers and
arrangements 9
4. In a Nebraska high school a screen was used in an unattractive
corner as a background for an appreciation center 24
5. The simplest school furnishings can be combined attractively.
A low bookcase, a bowl of bittersweet, and a passe partout
picture as here used are available in most schools 26
6. A few pieces of unrelated illustrative material may be grouped
successfully in bulletin-board space 28
7. Sprouted sweetpotato produced this attractive centerpiece for
the home table 29
8. Glass-paneled doors open from the dining room directly into a
main first-floor corridor in the high school at Stromsburg, Nebr. 30
9. The dresser as found in the dormitory room 43
10. The same dresser after the class in related art had remodeled
and painted it 43
CHARTS
1. Suggestions for use of this bulletin by teachers 5
2. Analysis of the value of notebooks in art courses 44
3. Types and sources of illustrative materials 76
Publications of the Federal Board for Vocational Education relating
to home-economics education 89
FOREWORD
Since the organization of the vocational program in 1917 the teaching
of art in its relation to the home has been recognized as an essential
part of the home-economics program.
Great difficulties have been experienced in securing adequate
instruction in this field. Many schools, especially in the rural
communities, employ no art teachers. In such schools the only art
instruction is that given by the regular home-economics teacher, and
is commonly reduced to a minimum of applicable content.
The teaching of art has dealt too exclusively with the creation of
artistic things, and it is not easy to change the emphasis over into
the field of appreciation and discriminating selection.
Clothing, home planning and furnishing, care of the sick, serving of
foods, care of children, and family relationships, all have an "art"
side. The successful discharge of household responsibilities is
conditioned largely upon a perception of this truth.
There has been a dearth of teachers prepared to teach art in its
application to homemaking. In the last decade, however, several of
the institutions approved for training vocational teachers of home
economics have introduced courses in this field, and the number of
such institutions is increasing.
This bulletin was prepared under the direction of Adelaide S. Baylor,
chief of the home economics education service, by Florence Fallgatter,
Federal agent for home economics in the central region, assisted by
Elsie Wilson, a member of the home economics teacher-training staff of
Iowa State College.
The Federal Board for Vocational Education and Home Economics Education
Service appreciate the cooperation of State supervisors, members of
teacher-training staffs, vocational teachers, and art teachers both in
the schools and colleges, and their contributions of material for this
study.
It has been undertaken to meet a demand expressed very generally during
the last 14 years by teaching staffs for assistance in adapting art
instruction specifically to homemaking, to the end that all instruction
for homemaking may be made more effective.
J. C. Wright, _Director_.
THE TEACHING OF ART RELATED TO THE HOME
Section I
INTRODUCTION
All art is life made more living, more vital than the average man
lives it--hence its power. Taste, unlike genius can be acquired;
and its acquisition enriches personality perhaps more than any
other quality.--E. Drew.
Professor Whitford[1] bases his book, An Introduction to Art, on two
hypotheses: "(1) That art is an essential factor in twentieth century
civilization and that it plays an important and vital part in the
everyday life of people; (2) that the public school presents the best
opportunity for conveying the beneficial influence of art to the
individuals, the homes, and the environment of the people."
In keeping with this present-day philosophy, the introduction of
art instruction into the public schools is increasing. Through the
influence of home economics, a field of education in which there is
an urgent need and wide opportunity for practical application of the
fundamental principles of art, art instruction is finding its way
into many of the small schools as a definite part of the vocational
programs. Whitford[2] refers to this present-day trend in home
economics as follows:
At first there was very little articulation between the courses
in art and the courses in industrial art or household art. At the
present time we realize that these courses are all related, and
all work together through correlation and interrelation to supply
the child with those worth while educational values which aid in
meeting social, vocational, and leisure-time needs of life.
Not until all girls in the public schools can have their inherent love
for beauty rightly stimulated and directed may we look forward to a
nation of homes tastily furnished and artistically satisfying or of
people who express real genuineness and sincerity in their living.
With the inception of the vocational program in home making through the
passage of the Smith-Hughes Act by Congress in 1917, art was recognized
as one of the essential related subjects. Thus, in the majority of the
schools that have organized vocational homemaking programs, art has
been included as a part of these programs and an effort has been made
to apply the principles of art to those problems in everyday life in
which beauty and utility are factors. The aim has been to develop in
girls not only an understanding of these principles but also an ability
to use them intelligently in solving many of their daily problems.
Therefore the teaching of art in home economics courses is primarily
concerned with problems of selection and arrangement. The girl as a
prospective home maker needs to know not so much how to make a pattern
but how to choose one well; not how to make a textile print but how
to select and use it; not how to design furniture but how to select
and arrange it; not how to make pottery but how to select the right
vase or bowl for flowers. At the same time, teachers of related
art in vocational schools have endeavored to show that true art is
founded upon comfort, utility, convenience, and true expression of
personalities as well as upon the most perfect application of art
principles. Considerable emphasis has been given, therefore, to a
consideration and utilization of those material things that afford
opportunity for self-expression. The importance of such self-expression
is stressed in the following words by Clark B. Kelsey:[3]
The home expresses the personalities of its occupants and reveals
far more than many realize. It stamps them as possessing taste or
lacking it. Thinking men and women want backgrounds that interpret
them to their friends, and they prefer that the interpretation
be worthy. They also want them correct for their own personal
satisfaction.
In art courses that are related to the home, an attempt is made to
build up in girls ideals of finding and creating beauty in their
surroundings and to bring them to the point where they can recognize
fitness and purpose and see beauty and derive pleasure from inexpensive
and unadorned things that are available to all homes.
Mr. Cyrus W. Knouff[4] has well expressed something of the importance
of such a practical type of art training as follows:
Show the people through their children that one may dress better
on fifty dollars, understanding art principles, than on five
hundred dollars not understanding symmetry, design, color, harmony,
and proportion. With this knowledge you furnish a lovelier home
on five hundred dollars than on five thousand without it. Get your
art away from the studio into life. Teach your children the gospel
of beauty and good taste in their letter writing, their picture
hangings, their clothes, everything they do.
Since the vocational program also provides class instruction for women
who have entered upon the pursuit of home making, as well as for girls
of school age, there has been some opportunity to extend art training
to these women through adult classes. An attempt has been made in
classes in art related to the home, home furnishing, and in clothing
classes to give a training which will help them to better appreciate
the influence upon family life of attractive and comfortable homes, of
careful selection and arrangement of home furnishings, and of
intelligent purchasing and selection of clothing.
For the girls who have dropped out of school and have entered upon
employment, part-time classes have been organized under the vocational
program. To these the girls may come for a definite period each week to
secure such instruction as will further extend their general education,
better prepare them for their present work, and also improve their
home life. To the extent that the employed girl improves her personal
appearance, makes her living quarters more attractive, and enjoys the
finer things of life she is more valuable to her employer and is an
asset to society. Much has been accomplished in this direction but
there is a large opportunity in most of the States for more definite
attention to such needs of the employed girl.