The Visual Arts in American Education.

Abstract

The colonists of the New World did not have time for the fine arts in their schools. The demands of survival and development of political and economic structures relegated the higher pur suits far to the rear in educational priorities in the eighteenth century. However, the arts were on the scene elsewhere in American life and fared fairly well among the upper classes during the colonial and subsequent decades. Cultural refinement motivated the amateurish dabbling in the visual arts of South ern belles and Northern gentlemen who bought sculpture for their gardens and commissioned portraits for posterity. 1 Early Americans looked to Europe for cultural guidance and inspiration, and a native tradition involving something more than production of merely utilitarian objects did not take shape until the end of the eighteenth century. Even then, the artists em ployed to paint portraits or create garden sculpture had usually been schooled in Europe and naturally took their leads from Old World masters.2 The earliest evidences of the visual arts in the schools of

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