An introduction to linear drawing/Introduction and Preface
INTRODUCTION.
An elementary treatise on Drawing, adapted to the use of common schools, can not but be well received. Besides the professions which make the art of drawing their particular study, anatomists, naturalists, mechanicks, travellers, and indeed all persons of taste and genius, have need of it, to enable them to express their ideas with precision, and make them intelligible to others.
Notwithstanding the great utility of this branch of education, it is a lamentable fact, that it is seldom or never taught in the publick schools, although a very large proportion of our children have no other education than these schools afford. Even in the private schools where drawing is taught, it is too generally the case that no regard is paid to.the geometrical principles on which the art depends. The translator appeals to experience when he asserts, that not one in fifty of those who have gone through a course of instruction in drawing, can do more than copy such drawings as are placed before them. Being ignorant of the certain rules of the art, (and they are the most certain because mathematical) they are always in leading strings, and, unless endowed with uncommon genius, never originate any design, and rarely attempt to draw from nature. It is to remedy this defective mode of teaching, that the translator has been induced to present this little work on the elements of drawing, to the American publick.
Mot of our faculties, when exercised, may attain to a surprising degree of perfection. A precision may be acquired by the eye and hand, almost equal to that of ordinary instruments. With this view, the society for the improvement of elementary instruction in France, directed some of their most distinguished members to procure a work on the art of drawing, which should be applied to the system of mutual instruction, there the national system. The following treatise is, in a great measure, a translation of that approved by them. It is not intended for a treatise on the art in all its numerous branches, but merely the linear, and, of course, the fundamental and most useful part of it.
The geometrical figures are arranged according to the difficulty of their execution, rather than in the order of theorems.
Each figure is accompanied with suitable explanations, so that the teacher or monitor will easily comprehend them, and be able to teach them to his classes, without much previous acquaintance with the art.
The pupils are each furnished with a slate and pencil. The monitor directs what figure shall be drawn, and if the pupils are not all furnished with this treatise, he chalks the figure on a board, painted black for the purpose, and suspended where all can see it. The slates are then examined by the monitor, and precedence is given to whichever pupil has executed the figure best.
The instructer should select a sufficient number of the most skilful for monitors, who should be under his immediate instruction. As soon as they have become expert in drawing the figures of the first class, a second may be formed to be instructed by the first class, (which now becomes the second) and so on to the sixth. The highest class under the master, may consist of about fifteen pupils. The lower classes may consist of any number, but for every six or eight scholars there should be a monitor.
The first class draw right lines, angles, parallels, perpendiculars and triangles.
The second class draw polygons, and polyedrons, or solid figures of many sides.
The third class make circles, and regular polygons.
The fourth draw a protracter, make angles of a given opening, draw ellipses, cylinders, cones, spheres, &c.
The fifth apply the preceding figures to architectural drawings, vases, and tasteful ornaments.
The sixth class draw the orders of architecture, and such other objects as an ingenious instructer shall direct.
If the school do not consist of more than 30 or 40 pupils, there will be no need of employing as monitors any but the highest class.
The children should not be permitted to draw on paper, until they have become thoroughly acquainted with the figures of the five first classes. Before they attempt the sixth, they may be permitted to review the five preceding classes, drawing the figures on paper with a lead pencil.
The pupils are not to be allowed the use of a rule, or any other instrument; but the monitor, to correct and prove their figures, may be furnished with a rule, dividers, square, and protracter or graduated semicircle. The rule should be a good one, with the inches and tenths of inches marked on it, that, when the pupils have become expert in making the figure, the difficulty may be increased by requiring the whole, or some part of the figure, to be of a given length or dimension.
On most rules in common use, the inches are divided into quarters and eighths, but as it is our plan to apply Geometry to decimal arithmetick, such rules as are divided into tenths should be preferred. When the simplicity of decimal calculations is so evident, it is to be regretted that all our measures are not subdivided into decimal parts, as our currency is, and why our government should set so good an example in one particular, and neglect all he rest, it is not easy to determine.
Although this treatise was originally designed for schools of mutual instruction, still a slight examination of it will show that there is nothing which unfits it for use in schools on any other plan. If the pupils are all taught, and their drawings examined by the instructer, they will do well; but if they are likewise required to examine and correct each other's work, they will do better; they will acquire a familiarity with the figures, and an exactness in execution, to which mere learners seldom attain.
PREFACE
TO
THE SECOND EDITION.
The favourable reception of the first edition of this Treatise, has induced the Translator to revise it carefully, and to add to it a Second Part, containing the elements of Perspective Drawing, to which the First Part is a good introduction.
Questions, also, upon the more important parts of the book are added; and the Translator hopes that this more correct and enlarged edition will meet with the same favour that a liberal publick has bestowed upon its predecessor.
Dec. 1827.