Page:How to show pictures to children (IA howtoshowpictur00hurl).pdf/35

the average child to any extent. The love of nature in early years is due in a measure to the exhilarating effect of air and sunshine, The great out-of-doors is a glorious playground in which the child delights to sport like any other healthy young animal. As his mind develops, the latent æsthetic impulses are awakened. He rejoices in the “shout of color to glad color,” and his heart leaps up at the sight of the rainbow in the sky. Though beauty must make its first appeal to the senses, it finds its way at last to the inner spirit, quickening the imagination, and creating a joy which is quite of its own kind. We can never draw a hard-and-fast line between the sense experience and the underlying æsthetic joy, but we come to recognize the signs of the deepening experience in our children’s maturer years. In the mean time we can hardly expect a pictured out-of-doors to produce the same effect that the world of nature does on the child. It lacks the stimulating influence of sun and air. Nature pictures like nature poetry must bide their time. We need not be discouraged if our children fail to respond to Corot and Inness, but we can please them best by giving them photographs of the woods and meadows associated with their own summer outings. They usually respond more quickly to actual views of natural scenery than to ideal landscape. Subjects representing the unusual and striking in nature, like Niagara Falls and the majestic peaks of the Alps, also arouse their interest. Another opening wedge to the appreciation of pure landscape art is the animal picture with landscape setting, like some