visors submitted to her criticism outlines for
work in their schools before giving the work-
to teachers and pupils. The need of closer
and more systematic instruction for teachers
and supervisors becoming apparent, the Prang
normal art classes for home study in form,
drawing, and color, with instruction by corre-
spondence, were organized in 1887. They
were designed to assist public school teachers
in preparing themselves to teach the subjects
of form, drawing, and color. The advantages
of these classes were quickly seized upon by
hundreds of teachers in all grades, by princi-
pals of schools, and by supervisors.
Much of the beneficent and far-reaching influence of this movement is uncjuestionably due to the personality of Mrs. Prang ^as director. Her beautiful spirit made itself distinctly felt even through the cold medium of dictated letters and typewritten correspondence. Her cheerful greeting to the new student, perhaps in Maine, perhaps in California, established from the first a sense of welcome and an as- surance of sympathy.
This instruction by correspondence came like a ray of light in the darkness to many a discouraged, conscientious teacher, struggling in her own out-of-the-way little corner with the great problems of education. For to Mrs. Prang, and to those who shared her faith and her enthusiasm, art education in the public schools meant the uplifting of all the studies to a higher plane. In all her teachings the thought was to lead beyond the actual thing taught to its relation to nature and to human life. Those who were fortunate enough to become students with Mrs. Prang will look back upon the association with a deep sense of pleasure and gratitude.
As Mrs. Prang, from her first decision in 1868 to make public art education her life-work, strenuously devoted herself to its promotion, her work as an author has been largely in that direction. She was joint author with John S. Clark of "The Use of Models" (1886); with John S. Clark and Walter Scott Perry of " The Prang Shorter Course* in Form Study and Draw- ing," "Form Study without Clay," "The Prang Complete Course in Form Study and Drawing," "The Prang Elementary Course in Art Instruction"; and with John S. Clark and Louis Prang of " Suggestions for Color Instruc- tion" (1893). Her latest work is "Art In- struction for Children in Primary Schools," in two volumes (1899).
In the intervals of this very busy life Mrs. Prang has found time to share in other work for the people. She was one of the charter members of the Massachusetts Floral Emblem Society, which was organized July 4, 1894, by Mrs. Ellen A. Richardson, at Winthrop, Mass. One object of the society is to bring about a more rational celebration of the Fourth of July, and to that end the society endeavors to cultivate a love for the beautiful in the minds of school children by the distribution of flowers on that day. Mrs. Prang was presi- dent of the society in 1898 and 1900, and she inaugurated the public distribution of flowers to the children of Boston, in 1898 flowers being given to twenty-five hundred children and in 19(X) to nearly four thousand. In March, 1900, and agani in February, 1901, Mrs. Prang ap- peared before the Legislative committee to advocate the adoption of a floral emblem for the State of Massachusetts.
Mrs. Prang is a member of the Wintergreen Club, the New England Women's Club, the Equal Suffrage Society for Good Government, the Twentieth Century Club, Woman's Edu- cational and Industrial Union, the Boston Business League, the Woman's Alliance, the Eastern Kindergarten Association, the Walt Whitman Fellowship, the Copley Society, the Unity Art Club, the Public School Art League, the Harvard Teachers' Association (of Cambridge, Mass.), the Massachusetts Forestry Association, the Massachusetts Floral Emblem Society, the Massachusetts Industrial Art Teachers' Association, the Social Service League (of New York City), the Onondaga County Historical Association and the Social Art Club (both of Syracuse, N.Y.), the Eastern Art Teachers' Association, the Western Drawing Teachers' Association, the National Educational Association, the American Association for Physical Training, the Massachusetts Prison Association, the Massachusetts Society for Aiding Discharged Convicts, the American Park and Outdoor Association and the Appalachian
