Page:Elementary Color (IA gri c00033125012656167).djvu/131

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COLOR TEACHING IN THE SCHOOLROOM.
121

colored papers to correspond, will undoubtedly be able to more truthfully reproduce the colors which he sees in nature, on the canvas or paper by means of such a pallette than if he had been taught by any other system and used the ordinary pigments.

Color Blindness.

The subject of color blindness has received much attention because of its practical importance in the affairs of our daily lives. The use of colored lights as signals on ships and railroads has necessitated very strict regulations regarding the employment of persons whose color vision is defective, and therefore in some states specialists have been employed by the state authorities to examine from time to time the school children regarding their perception of colors.

Possibly this condition of things may not at present be considered a serious reflection on the methods of color instruction, or lack of such instruction in our schools because it has become so common as to attract little attention. But if it were necessary for the same course to be pursued in any other department of our public education that fact would not fail to occasion very uncomplimentary remarks regarding the methods employed.

For example, if a state official were necessary to determine whether pupils are deaf or not after they have been through our grammar schools, and preliminary to accepting positions of responsibility, it would seem that something was wrong, and yet after a child has had instruction in color according to a logical system there should be no more necessity for an examination regarding his ability to properly distinguish colors than there should regarding his ability to hear.

Color blindness has quite generally been divided into three classes, red, green, and violet blindness, those afflicted with red blindness being most numerous, and the cases of violet blindness being very rare, if indeed there are any which may properly be so called.

This classification, known as the Holmgren system, seems to have been based on the Young-Helmholtz theory that all color