While it is best not to insist upon an analysis of the feelings that one has in enjoying a picture or a poem or a great character, it is worth while to encourage choice.  Of many stories which have been told, children may very properly choose one which they would like to tell to others.  Of many poems which have been read in class, a group of boys may admire one and commit it to memory, while the girls may care for another and be allowed to memorize it.  Wherever such cooeperation is possible, the picture which you enjoy most is the one that will mean most in power of appreciation if placed in your room at home.  Spontaneous approval, rather than an agreement with an adult teacher who is considered an authority, is to be sought for.  There is more in the spontaneous laughter which results as children read together their “Alice in Wonderland” than could possibly result from an analysis of the quality of humor which is involved.

We are coming to understand as a matter of education that we may hope to develop relatively few men and women of great creative genius.  The producers of work of great artistic worth are, for the most part, to be determined by native capacity rather than by school exercises.  We must think of the great majority of school children as possible consumers rather than as producers.  Schools which furnish a maximum of opportunity to enjoy music and pictures may hope to develop in their community a power of discrimination in these fields which will result in satisfaction with nothing less than the best.  The player-piano and the phonograph may mean more in the development of musical taste in a community than all of the lessons which are given in the reading of music.  The art gallery in the high school, the folk dances which have been produced as a part of the school festivals, the reading of the best stories, may prepare the way for the utilization of leisure time in the pursuit of the nobler pleasures.  The teacher with a saving sense of humor, large in his power of appreciation of the great men and women of his time, and all of the time keen in his own enjoyment and in his ability to interpret for others those things which are most worth while in literature and in art, may count more largely in the life of the community than the one who is a master in some field of investigation.

QUESTIONS

1.  What are the characteristics of the mental states which are involved in appreciation?

2.  Name the different types of situations in which appreciation may be developed.  Give examples.

3.  Does the power to criticize poetry or music necessarily involve appreciation?

4.  To what degree may skill in creative work result in power of appreciation?

5.  What are the elements involved in appreciating human nature?

6.  Give an example of appreciation of intellectual powers.

7.  What is the essential element in the appreciation of humor?