Page:The Mothers of England.djvu/54

Rh incidents of life, has much in her power in the way of preserving her children from needless fears; and if, in addition to this self-possession, she adds the resources of a well-stored mind, opportunities will never be wanting for teaching them why they have no cause to be afraid.

Although a comparison is generally allowed betwixt aiming and music, as sources of gratification adapted to a high degree of taste and feeling, yet, in their actual utility, they bear but little relation to each other. An inferior performance on the harp, or the piano, is scarcely in the present day admitted among the amusements of the drawing-room. Neither, it may be said, is an inferior performance in the way of drawing. It is not much to the purpose to surmise what a dismantling of albums there would be, if this were really the case. My business is chiefly to show that there may be great utility in a kind of drawing, which is little calculated to excite the admiration of an evening party; and it would be an unspeakable advantage to all mothers, in conveying lively and correct ideas to the minds of their children, if they were themselves proficients in the art of sketching from nature.

Indeed I am one of those who would be glad to see drawing taught to all, though upon a very different plan from that which seems at present to be most approved. It is not the fault of those who teach, that all children whose parents pay for drawing lessons, take home a certain number of pieces of polished pasteboard, on which are depicted, perhaps, a gothic arch marked out by the master, a bridge beside which he has planted a tree, a cottage thatched by his hand, or a scarecrow Magdalene with a round tear coming out of each eye. The production of such specimens, however much they may be admired by the near relations of the pupil, are far from being illustrations of what I mean by the art of drawing.

The art of drawing should be understood to mean the art of making just and true delineations of objects as they are; and this might be taught, in the first place, by beginning at once to reduce the simplest objects to the size wanted on the pupil's slate or paper. By commencing at once with the process of reduction, it will ever afterward be comparatively easy, and not present, as it now does,