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.