4
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
which are simplified in a new folded plate (V.), may do much to dispel the mental fog and personal bias that so hamper color education.
Brewster’s mistaken theory of color was rejected half a century ago, but it still lingers in the school-room, giving children a false start with Froebel balls and a three-color box. This leads to crude excesses with red, yellow, and blue, which ignore the teaching of both Art and Nature, and contradict the verdict of the eye, whose sensitive balance is the test of color beauty. Efforts at picture-making, with all the complications of linear and aërial perspective, call for aptitudes rarely found in pupil or teacher and of little use in daily life, but a fine color sense of great educational value may be trained by decorative studies whose simple color relations permit the student to realize in what way and by how much he falls short of a definite standard.
Plates II. and III. reproduce children’s studies with measured intervals of color-light and color-strength, which so discipline their feeling for color balance that they may then be trusted to use even the strongest pigments with discretion.
A new full-page plate of the Color Tree, with descriptive text, will be found in the appendix to Chapter II. It is also a pleasure to acknowledge the aid of many experienced teachers, especially Miss Mary L. Patrick, of Wellesley, Miss Margaret E. Hill, of Winchester, Miss Florence E. Locke, and Miss Alice Frye, of Somerville, who have helped in the preparation of a simple introduction to this system, separately published under the title "Color Balance Illustrated."
A. H. M.
