Page:Elementary Color (IA gri c00033125012656167).djvu/91

 If a sheet of neutral gray cardboard can be secured for use on each desk all early color work will be more valuable, because of the undesirable effect of the usual yellow or orange color of the wood of the desk.

If some of the pupils do not make the correct selection of the papers it may be well to let the error pass for that time and have another exhibition of the spectrum before the next trial. Get as many of them as possible to make the selection of the six colors from the eighteen solely by comparison with the spectrum. Later if some are still unable to succeed, a paper spectrum may be shown to them, or what is better, six bits of paper like their own, pasted on a card, with an interval as wide as two papers between each two. When every child can readily select the six standard colors from the eighteen then all of them may with advantage be told to lay the six in a row on the gray cardboard or desk, in their proper order, and sufficiently separated to allow room for two other papers between each two. When all have made the attempt and some have failed to arrange the papers correctly the card having them properly mounted may again be shown and each one iu error may make the necessary corrections by comparison.

In a solar spectrum such as is possible in the ordinary schoolroom the intermediate colors between the standards cannot be very distinctly seen but the child can be shown that between the red and orange, with which he is familiar, there are colors different from both and possibly he may be led to see that these colors seem to be a mixture of the two. With this impression in the minds of the children the following experiment may be a very interesting psychological test of the natural color perception of each child, or in other words his "color feeling."

Ask the children to arrange the remaining twelve papers between the six standards in pairs and one outside of the red and violet at the ends. This exercise will serve to bring each of the other colors to the critical attention of the children so that they may not be entirely strangers to them in the succeeding