Next we tried designing booklets. Again the subject was the Indians, their life and habits. The materials needed were a piece of cover paper, pieces of plain drawing paper (about 11" x 8" doubled), pencils, rulers, and afterwards, paints. The text was to be lettered rather than written in script. The cover had to be designed with title and ornament, the title page inside with pupil’s name, a decorative initial letter, the first and succeeding pages with appropriate margins, borders, and other decorations, and illustrations if desired. What splendid problems the pupils found in the booklet how to fit spaces, how to balance effects, where to put ornament, how to harmonize colors. The booklets were completed in about four half-hour lessons. The work was very interesting, and the results were gratifying. The productions were all different, each had its individuality, each was a real creation on the part of the pupil. Two of the covers are shown in Plate III.
The other senior classes of the Model School, and the classes of the teachers-in-training likewise copied and suitably applied the Indian ornament. Then we ceased our Indian art work for the year; but the effects of its study did not cease. Since then Indian forms have been discovered in unsuspected places and used for decoration in a variety of ways. One boy who had some Indian mementos on hand utilized them in designing a den of Indian character, adding here and there some of the designs learned in school. Then, too, our efficient gardener took note of the circular porcupine quill design of the Eastern Woodlands, in colored chalks on the art-room blackboard. He said, “What a beautiful flower-bed that would make, about sixteen feet in diameter; for the blue I could use the lobelia, for the purple the foliage leaf plant, etc.” He has planned to set out the bed for next spring. We feel that we have some appreciable success in beginning what is here a new phase of art work—the use of our American aboriginal art.
And what we have done can be accomplished and excelled by other schools who have collections of Indian art available, or failing that, books on anthropology with a plentiful supply of illustrations, such as many of the volumes published by the Smithsonian Institute of Washington, D. C. The other requirements are, on the part of the teacher—some considerable enthusiasm, and the ability to lead.
Let us not overlook the plant which grows at our own doorstep.
