Page:How to show pictures to children (IA howtoshowpictur00hurl).pdf/36

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HOW TO SHOW PICTURES TO CHILDREN

of the Dutch or French cattle subjects. It has been a capital idea in some schoolroom decorations to arrange a series of such subjects to follow the sequence of the seasons. This correlation of landscape art and nature study makes a pleasant introduction to an otherwise uninteresting subject. In schools where pupils are taught to recognize the forms of trees, I am told that landscape pictures iake on a peculiar interest if they contain well-defined tree examples.

Besides the subjects which the children do not themselves like are those which we do not want them to like. The vulgar and the sensuous should, of course, be eliminated from their repertory. The imagination should be fed only on the pure and clean. The beauty of the human figure should be taught chiefly through the ideal forms of great sculpture. The child familiarized with the austere and chaste nobility of the Greek gods will be embarrassed by no impure suggestions. The repugnant and the horrible should likewise he kept from children. We pride ourselves that we have traveled a long way from the medieval period when churches were decorated with the martyrdom of saints and the last sufferings of the Saviour. In their place we have moving-picture shows which display all the details of disaster and crime as if actually taking place before our eyes. Philanthropists are trying to save the children from patronizing these places, and we must avoid a similar element in illustrated newspapers and magazines and in prints. If a child is attracted by such things, he