with them. When the child is old enough to properly handle the colors, the use of the pencil and the brush may afford good manual training, combined with education in form and color. But the earliest color instruction must be based on such standards as afford the fullest and purest expressions which can be economically obtained, and these can now be secured more satisfactorily in colored papers than in any other medium, because it is only in the body colors used by fresco artists in house decorations that strong, pure effects can be obtained in water " colors. With the use of the colors put on the market in cakes or pans it is very difficult for even an expert colorist to produce a uniform surface of a color approximating the standards found in the papers.
In the fine arts the greatest beauty of water colors usually lies in the delicately tinted aquarelles which are admired by those best educated in color effects, but these gems of art have the same place in elementary color education that the purest specimens of poetry and prose have in elementary literary education, merely as examples of best expression, with which it is well for the pupils to become familiar long before they can even attempt to produce them.
Since the introduction of educational colored papers there has not been the great necessity for the very early use of pigments in primary color instruction which formerly existed, but the fact still remains that best harmonies cannot be produced in papers, because every surface of one color must be entirely flat, i. e. of the same hue and tone throughout, and it is well known that best color effects can be secured only when the color surfaces may be graded from one part to another.
Therefore, while colored papers are the most available for elementary color instruction, their use cannot be carried too far without loss of time, and when the limit of their highest usefulness has been reached then pigments in some form should be substituted for the papers or combined with them, and as early us drawings in color are required in connection with nature
