Page:Van Loon--The Story of Mankind.djvu/541



CONCERNING THE PICTURES OF THIS BOOK AND A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The day of the historical textbook without illustrations has gone. Pictures and photographs of famous personages and equally famous occurrences cover the pages of Breasted and Robinson and Beard. In this volume the photographs have been omitted to make room for a series of home-made drawings which represent ideas rather than events.

While the author lays no claim to great artistic excellence (being possessed of a decided leaning towards drawing as a child, he was taught to play the violin as a matter of discipline.) he prefers to make his own maps and sketches because he knows exactly what he wants to say and cannot possibly explain this meaning to his more proficient brethren in the field of art. Besides, the pictures were all drawn for children and their ideas of art are very different from those of their parents.

To all teachers the author would give this advice—let your boys and girls draw their history after their own desire just as often as you have a chance. You can show a class a photograph of a Greek temple or a mediæval castle and the class will dutifully say, "Yes, Ma'am," and proceed to forget all about it. But make the Greek temple or the Roman castle the centre of an event, tell the boys to make their own picture of "the building of a temple," or "the storming of the castle," and they will stay after school-hours to finish the job. Most children, before they are taught how to draw from plaster casts, can draw after a fashion, and often they can draw remarkably well. The product of their pencil may look a bit prehistoric. It may even resemble the work of certain native tribes from the upper Congo. But the child is