Selected writings of Thomas Godolphin Rooper . he more distant line smaller thanthe nearer one, so that perspective was omitted course, here again the child drew, not the object which hesaw before him, but some image which he had already in hismind, and which was called up by a glance at the object. Hiseye, if he attended to what it told him, would give him theimage of receding lines as smaller than nearer ones. He is,however, so accustomed to make corrections in the gifts of hissenses that he cannot grasp the object as it presents itself tohim in nature, but sees only the correc
Selected writings of Thomas Godolphin Rooper . he more distant line smaller thanthe nearer one, so that perspective was omitted course, here again the child drew, not the object which hesaw before him, but some image which he had already in hismind, and which was called up by a glance at the object. Hiseye, if he attended to what it told him, would give him theimage of receding lines as smaller than nearer ones. He is,however, so accustomed to make corrections in the gifts of hissenses that he cannot grasp the object as it presents itself tohim in nature, but sees only the corrected image of it. Themind falsifies the impression altogether, and nothing islearned from the latter. M. Passy tested the matter by showing the children aphotograph of a funnel with the neck foreshortened; theythink it is a nosegay. A flat-iron with the handle turned tothe front they pronounce to be a bell. Yet drawings of thesesame objects, executed, however rudely, by one child, with ease by another. 11 68 Essays and Addresses. The great difficulty in object teaching is to help the childto interpret the gifts of the senses correctly; and so hard is this, as I have said, that manyauthorities seem inclined toabandon the attempt and re-sume the mediaeval devotionto literary studies. If, then,perspective is so hardly recog-nized, what shall we say ofdrawing copies in which it isdeliberately falsified? I givehere a drawing of a house inwhich this is the case, and Ican only say that you mightas well expect to help chil-dren to draw by such copiesas these as to aid children to distinguish colours correctly ifyou put on them a pair of blue spectacles. Another feature in the drawings of infantsis the difficulty which they experience ingrasping the relative proportions of parts, Acup, for instance, which is wider than it is highwill be drawn in converse proportion. Perhapsthis is again an instance of the error beforeindicated. Cups are not usually more wide thandeep, and
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