often run the various tones of the same piece of color into two or three analogous scales.
It is the object of color education to train the eyes to see color wherever or however it may be produced, either by actual color reflection or contrasted effects, and in order that these effects may be understood as explained under Simultaneous Contrasts it is necessary that the prepared material be truthful to nature, the more so because these effects are sometimes greatly exaggerated by artists.
The question is constantly being asked by primary teachers, "What about Water Colors?" and any adequate consideration of the subject of color instruction in the public schools must include the possibilities of this, the simplest and the most practicable form in which pigmentary colors can be used in the schoolroom. Before educational colored papers were made water colors furnished the only available means for securing any systematic expression of color effects in the elementary grades of school work, and at one time a feeling was somewhat prevalent in various localities that it was profitable to give a box of water colors to a child with which to amuse himself without any very definite instruction, except to make pretty combinations, and often the opinion of the child as to which colors he preferred was counted of great value. There may, however, be some doubt at the present time regarding the value of such practice, and possibly those teachers who believe all things should be done decently and in order will choose, that, before using paints, the child shall have some instruction in color and such training as to be able to draw with either a pencil or brush a fairly good outline and to apply the color within these lines with a reasonable degree of neatness, and possibly with a definite idea of what he desires to represent.
Some teachers object to the use of water colors solely because they have not time to give them proper attention, while others neglect their use because they do not know what to do
