The elementary schools are giving the usual proportion of time to
drawing and applied art. The time is distributed, however, in a
somewhat unusual, but probably justifiable, manner. Whereas the
subject usually receives more time in the primary grades than in the
grammar grades, in Cleveland, in quite the reverse way, the subject
receives its greatest emphasis in the higher grades.
TABLE 10.--TIME GIVEN TO DRAWING
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| Hours per year | Per cent of grade time|
Grade |-----------------------------------------------
| Cleveland | 50 cities| Cleveland | 50 cities |
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1 | 47 | 98 | 6.5 | 11.3 |
2 | 47 | 54 | 5.3 | 6.0 |
3 | 47 | 56 | 5.3 | 6.2 |
4 | 47 | 53 | 5.3 | 5.5 |
5 | 57 | 50 | 6.4 | 5.2 |
6 | 57 | 50 | 6.4 | 5.1 |
7 | 57 | 50 | 6.4 | 5.0 |
8 | 57 | 49 | 6.4 | 4.9 |
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Total | 416 | 460 | 6.1 | 6.1 |
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Drawing has been taught in Cleveland as a regular portion of the
curriculum since 1849. It has therefore had time for substantial
growth; and it appears to have been successful. Recent developments
in the main have been wholesome and in line with best modern progress.
The course throughout attempts to develop an understanding and
appreciation of the principles of graphic art plus ability to use
these principles through practical application in constructive
activities of an endlessly varied sort.
Occasionally the work appears falsetto and even sentimental. It
is often applied in artificial schoolroom ways to things without
significance. General grade teachers cannot be specialists in
the multiplicity of things demanded of them; it is not therefore
surprising that they sometimes lack skill, insight, ingenuity, and
resourcefulness. Too often the teachers do not realize that the study
of drawing and design is for the serious purpose of giving to pupils a
language and form of thought of the greatest practical significance
in our present age. The result is a not infrequent use of schoolroom
exercises that do not greatly aid the pupils as they enter the busy
world of practical affairs.
These shortcomings indicate incompleteness in the development. Where
the teaching is at its best in both the elementary and high schools
of Cleveland, the work exhibits balanced understanding and complete
modernness. The thing needed is further expansion of the best, and the
extension of this type of work through specially trained departmental
teachers to all parts of the city.
There should be a larger amount of active co-operation between the
teachers of art and design and the teachers of manual training; also
between both sets of teachers and the general community.