A series of experiments upon aesthetic appreciation in children / by Henry J. Watt.

  • Watt, Henry J. (Henry Jackson), 1879-1925.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A series of experiments upon aesthetic appreciation in children / by Henry J. Watt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    about ? The old man is taking care of the children. He is a fisher- man. What are his thoughts or feelings ? The boy is going to help the old man to fish.”—This girl is shy and sensitive, and was not able to formulate any further ideas, if she had them. The inclination and ability of the children, indicated in regard to their preferences with coloured picture postcards of arms, is well borne out in the examples of their answers just given. There are marked differences between them, but it seems quite clear that there is plenty of material upon which any teacher, who considers the training of appre- ciation a necessary part of education, might build. I shall, indeed, be glad if these notes on experiments, which from a special point of view were rather a failure than a success, should encourage those entrusted with the education of young persons to cultivate the aesthetic activities in them more than is usual by the comparison and preference of numbers of lovely things of any kind or by encouraging children to express themselves freely upon all aspects of beautiful objects. To love beauty and to rejoice in it is, apart from mere happiness, the main way in which we may love life and delight in unhindered activity of mind. Education must teach skilled action, knowledge of truth and goodness, but it must not omit to create the habit of delight in all that varied mental activity which art invokes. By art the mind is not only enriched but enjoyed. Neither life nor education would be complete unless conscious activity in itself were happiness.