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A Persistent Interpretation: Art Education Historiography and the Legacy of Isaac Edwards Clarke

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Arthur Efland  and
Donald Soucy
Arthur Efland
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University
Donald Soucy
Affiliation:
University of New Brunswick
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Extract

Over the past decade, an increasing number of researchers in North America, Britain, and South America have become interested in the history of art education. Their work has had little impact on general educational history but high visibility in the art education network. In addition to numerous journal articles, there have been several books and seven international conferences on the topic since the early 1980s. Prior to then, however, very little was written about the subject, or at least very little that was new. Art education historiography has never had its Bernard Bailyn or its Lawrence Cremin, or even its Ellwood Cubberley. But in the United States it did have someone who served one of Cubberley's functions: to provide subsequent historians with a set, narrow interpretive framework. That person was Isaac Edwards Clarke.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , Winter 1991 , pp. 489 - 511
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 by the History of Education Society 

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References

1. Books include Wygant, Foster, Art in American Schools in the Nineteenth Century (Cincinnati, 1983); Korzenik, Diana, Drawn to Art: A Nineteenth-Century American Dream (Hanover, N.H., 1985); Wilson, Brent and Hoffa, Harlan, eds., The History of Art Education: Proceedings from the Penn State Conference (Reston, Va., 1985); Efland, Arthur, A History of Art Education: Intellectual and Social Currents in Teaching the Visual Arts (New York, 1990); Soucy, Donald and Stankiewicz, Mary Ann, eds., Framing the Past: Essays on Art Education (Reston, Va., 1990); Thistlewood, David, ed., Histories of Art and Design Education, Longman/NSEAD Art and Design Education Series, vol. 3 (in press, Essex, Eng.). The conferences were held at São Paulo, Brazil (1984, 1986, 1989); The Pennsylvania State University (1985, 1989); Halifax, Nova Scotia (1987); and Bournemouth, , Eng. (1988). Proceedings of the 1989 Penn State conference have been edited and are being published by the National Art Education Association, Reston, Va. Google Scholar

2. Clarke, Isaac Edwards, Art and Industrial Education, ed. Butler, Nicholas M., Monographs on Education in the United States, vol. 14 (Albany, N.Y., 1904), 7; Secretary of the Commonwealth, Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, in the Year 1870 (Boston, 1870), ch. 248, 183–84. On support of the act, see petition signed by prominent Massachusetts businessmen calling for the act in Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Board of Education (Boston, 1871), 163–64; also on these businessmen, see Bolin, Paul E., “The Influence of Industrial Policy on Enactment of the 1870 Massachusetts Free Instruction in Drawing Act,” in Penn State Conference , ed. Wilson, and Hoffa, , 102–7; Bolin, Paul E., “The Massachusetts Drawing Act of 1870: Industrial Mandate or Democratic Maneuver?” in Framing the Past , ed. Soucy, and Stankiewicz, , 59–68. On educators' support of school drawing for industrial ends, see Massachusetts Board of Education, Industrial or Mechanical Drawing. Papers on Drawing (Boston, 1870). On the exposition and industrial education, see Clarke, Isaac Edwards, Art and Industry, pt. 1, Drawing in Public Schools (Washington, D.C., 1885), lxxxixff.; Bennett, Charles Alpheus, History of Manual and Industrial Education, 1870 to 1917 (Peoria, Ill., 1937), 42ff.; Cremin, Lawrence A., The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876–1957 (New York, 1961), ch. 2; see also idem, American Education: The National Experience, 1783–1876 (New York, 1980), 331–34.Google Scholar

3. Smith, Walter, American Text Books of Art Education (Boston, 1873); idem, Teachers' Manual of Free-hand Drawing and Designing, and Guide to Self-Instruction (Boston, 1874).Google Scholar

4. For a more detailed description of Smith's program and of drawing in Massachusetts schools during the 1870s, see Smith, Walter, Plan and Graded Programme of Instruction in Drawing for the Public Schools of Massachusetts of the Primary, Grammar, and High School Grades (Boston, 1880); idem, Report on the Present Condition of Drawing in the Public Schools of the City of Boston, in the Year 1880, Addressed to the School Committee, April 13, 1880, School Document no. 7 (Boston, 1880; reprint in Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 1), 261–86; Efland, , History of Art Education; Korzenik, , Drawn to Art; Wygant, , Art in American Schools. Quotation from Smith, Walter, Art Education: Scholastic and Industrial (Boston, 1872); 42; idem, Report on the Present Condition, 264.Google Scholar

5. On Bartholomew, William, see Drawing in the Public Schools: A Brief History of Its Origins and Progress (New York, 1873), which is a “history” put out by Bartholomew's publishers; Clarke had very little to say about Bartholomew (Art and Industry, pt. 1, 213–16, 221, 231); perhaps the best contemporary source of information on Bartholomew's series and other nineteenth-century school drawing texts is Wygant, Art in American Schools; see also Efland, , History of Art Education; on Bartholomew in Nova Scotia, see Soucy, Donald, “Religion and the Development of Art Education in Nineteenth-Century Nova Scotia,” Arts and Learning Research 4 (1986): 40–41; on the commercial competition in the Massachusetts drawing textbook market in the late nineteenth century, see Stankiewicz, Mary Ann, “Drawing Book Wars,” Visual Arts Research 12 (Fall 1986): 59–72. On out-of-school texts, see Korzenik, , Drawn to Art, esp. 52–53. On pre-1870 texts, see Marzio, Peter C., The Art Crusade: An Analysis of American Drawing Manuals, 1820–1860 (Washington, D.C., 1976); Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 1, 8–11, 13–36.Google Scholar

6. Clarke, Isaac Edwards, Art and Industry, pt. 1; idem, Art and Industry, pt. 2, Industrial and Manual Training in Public Schools (Washington, D.C., 1892); idem, Art and Industry, pt. 3, Industrial and Technical Training in Voluntary Associations and Endowed Institutions (Washington, D.C., 1897); idem, Art and Industry, pt. 4, Industrial and Technical Training in Schools of Technology and in U.S. Land Grant Colleges (Washington, D.C., 1898); Stankiewicz, Mary Ann, “The Eye Is a Nobler Organ': Ruskin and American Art Education,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 18 (Summer 1984): 51–64.Google Scholar

7. Haney, James Parton, “The Development of Art Education in the Public Schools,” in Art Education in the Public Schools of the United States, ed. Haney, (New York, 1908), 21–77; Bennett, Charles Alpheus, History of Manual and Industrial Education up to 1870 (Peoria, Ill., 1926), 431; see also idem, History, 1870 to 1917; idem, “Industrial Art Education—America's Opportunity,” School and Society 10 (no. 248, 1919): 373–77; Whitford, William G., “Brief History of Art Education in the United States,” in An Introduction to Art Education (New York, 1929), 7–18; see also idem, same title, in Elementary School Journal 29 (Oct. 1923): 109–15; Cubberley, Ellwood P., Public Education in the United States: A Study and Interpretation of American Educational History, rev. ed. (1919; reprint, Boston, 1934), 468–69, 477, 479; Belshe, Francis B., “A History of Art Education in the Public Schools of the United States” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1946); Green, Harry Beck, “The Introduction of Art as a General Education Subject in American Schools” (Ed.D. thesis, Stanford University, 1948); see also idem, “Walter Smith: The Forgotten Man,” Art Education 18 (Jan. 1966): 3–9. Green's dependence on Clarke was exacerbated because, according to Plummer, Gordon S., Green conducted all of his research on Massachusetts by mail from California; Plummer, , “Collage: People, Places, and Problems in Our Historic Continuum,” in Penn State Conference , ed. Wilson, and Hoffa, , 215.Google Scholar

8. In addition to other histories cited in this article, examples of post-1950 histories that echo Clarke are Gaitskell, Charles D., “Art Education Has a History,” School Arts 53 (Oct. 1953): 6–7; de Francesco, Italo L., Art Education: Its Means and Ends (New York, 1958); Keel, John S., “Art Education, 1940–64,” in Art Education: The Sixty-fourth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education , ed. Reid Hastie, W. (Chicago, 1965), 35–50; Kaufman, Irving, Art and Education in Contemporary Culture (New York, 1966); Hubbard, Guy, Art in the High School (Belmont, Calif., 1967); Pasto, Tarmo, “A Critical Review of the History of Drawing Methods in the Public Schools of the United States” (pt. 1), Art Education 20 (Nov. 1967): 2–7; Jones, Ronald L., “Aesthetic Education: Its Historical Precedents,” Art Education 27 (Dec. 1974): 12–16; Saunders, Robert J., “Art, Industrial Art, and the 200 Years War,” Art Education 29 (Jan. 1976): 5–8; Chapman, Laura, Approaches to Art in Education (New York, 1976); Efland, Arthur, “School Art and Its Social Origins,” Studies in Art Education 24 (Spring 1983): 149–57; Soucy, Donald, “Social Factors in Nineteenth-Century Art Education: A Comparison between Nova Scotia's Public and Private Schools,” Bulletin of the Caucus on Social Theory and Art Education 7 (1987): 49–54. For discussion of these and other art education histories, see idem, “A History of Art Education History,” in Framing the Past , ed. Soucy, and Stankiewicz, , 3–31.Google Scholar

9. Gaitskell, Charles D., Hurwitz, Al, and Day, Michael, Children and Their Art: Methods for the Elementary School, 4th ed. (New York, 1972); Green, , “Walter Smith”; Eisner, Elliot W., “The Roots of Art in Schools: An Historical View from a Contemporary Perspective,” in Educating Artistic Vision (New York, 1972), 29–63; idem, “American Education and the Future of Art Education,” in Art Education, the Sixty-fourth Yearbook , ed. Hastie, , 299–325; Eisner, Elliot W. and Ecker, David, “What Is Art Education? Some Historical Developments in Art Education,” in Readings in Art Education , eds. Eisner, Elliot W. and Ecker, David (Lexington, Mass., 1966), 1–13; Clarke, Isaac Edwards, Drawing in Public Schools: The Present Relation of Art to Education in the United States, Bureau of Education, Circular no. 2 (Washington, D.C., 1874).Google Scholar

10. Cremin, , Transformation 361. Cremin is one of the few non-art educators to write about the field's history. Others include Bohn, Donald, “‘Artustry’ or the Immaculate Misconception of the '70s,” History of Education Quarterly 8 (Spring 1968): 107–10; and Lazerson, Marvin, Origins of the Urban School: Public Education in Massachusetts, 1870–1915 (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 81–85, 252. Both Bohn and Lazerson examined Massachusetts in the 1870s. Bohn took his information from Clarke, Drawing in Public Schools . Lazerson, cited Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 1; Bennett, , History to 1870; and Bohn, , “‘Artustry.“’ Lazerson (82 n. 11) notes that his analysis differs from Clarke's. See Henry Turner Bailey's entry in Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th ed., s.v. “art teaching in the U.S.”; and Bailey, Henry Turner, A Sketch of the History of Public Art Instruction in Massachusetts (Boston, 1900).Google Scholar

11. Boris, Eileen, Art and Labor: Ruskin, Morris, and the Craftsman Ideal in America (Philadelphia, 1986), 216, 85. Boris says that Clarke had earned an M.A. in Fine Arts from the Massachusetts Normal School of Art, but we have found no evidence to support this, and historian Diana Korzenik says the degree was not even offered there at the time (Korzenik, personal communication, Nov. 1988). The National Union Catalog Pre–1956 Imprints (NC 0461794 MB 00) lists Clarke's talk as “‘Re-union’. A speech delivered at the decennial celebration class of 1885, Yale college, July 26, 1865.” Google Scholar

12. On Clarke's birth and family, see “Isaac Edward [sic] Dead, Clarke,” Washington Post, 10 Jan. 1907, 13; “Obituary. Isaac Edwards Clarke,” Daily Hampshire Gazette, 11 Jan. 1907, 3; Yale Obituary Record (New Haven, Conn., 1907), 703; Clark, Solomon, Antiquities, Historicals, and Graduates of Northampton (Northampton, Mass., 1882), 180–82, 290; Genealogical chart #GC.C3, A.L.18.222–77 and 301, A.Md.18.200F4–209, Clarke Papers, I. E., Northampton Historical Society Archives, Northampton, Mass. Google Scholar

13. See A.L.18.301.14, Papers, Clarke, for remnants of his travel notes. Clarke's letters were published in a newspaper called “the Gazette,” though none were found in Northampton's Daily Hampshire Gazette. A.L.18.253, 265, 268, Papers, Clarke. They are likely in the Pennsylvania Inquirer and National Gazette, a forerunner of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Yale Obituary; Lazerson, , Origins .Google Scholar

14. “Juenis, Yale College,” Daily Hampshire Gazette, 29 July 1856; “Caucus. Republicans Attend,” ibid., 28 Oct. 1856; “Republican Meetings,” ibid., 18 Sep. 1857.Google Scholar

15. A.L.18.239, Papers, Clarke; Yale Obituary.Google Scholar

16. Yale Obituary; A.L.18.251, folder 1, Clarke Papers. George Wells may have been Clarke's cousin.Google Scholar

17. Shepley, George F., “A Proclamation,” 29 Dec. 1862, Executive Department, New Orleans, La.; Clarke, to Lounsbury, , 14 Apr. 1871, folder 85, vol. 4, Thomas Lounsbury Manuscripts, Yale University Archives, New Haven, Conn.; A.Md.18.199–207, A.CW.18.145–47, Clarke Papers.Google Scholar

18. “Clarke Dead”; “Obituary”; Yale Obituary; A.L.18.230, 261, 301.8, Clarke Papers.Google Scholar

19. Lannie, Vincent P., Henry Barnard: American Educator (New York, 1974), 33; see also Cremin, , American Education, 518–20. For Clarke's connection to Garfield, see Clarke's six letters to him, 27 Aug. to 24 Dec. 1880, Reels 63, 66, 70, 78, 82, V090/167, V095/094 and 283, V101/165, V113/140, V118/203 and 204, Garfield Papers, James A., Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. For Clarke's assessment of Barnard's role in art education, see Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 1, 8–13.Google Scholar

20. The National Cyclopedia of American Biography (1924), vol. 8, s.v. “Eaton, John.” Google Scholar

21. Ibid.; Clarke, to Lounsbury, , 13, 14 Apr., 8, 19, 24 May 1871, 29 Mar., 13 Apr. 1872, Lounsbury MSS.Google Scholar

22. Clarke, to Lounsbury, , 13, 14 Apr., 19 May 1871, 10 Apr. 1896, Lounsbury MSS. On patronage battles at the customhouse, over which Conkling finally resigned his Senate seat in 1881, see Encyclopedia of American Political History: Studies of the Principal Movements and Ideas (1984), s.v. “civil service reform”; Appletons' Cyclopedia of American Biography (1888), s.v. “Conkling, Alfred.” Google Scholar

23. Eaton, John, Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1875 (Washington, 1876), vii; Secretary of the Interior, Official Register of the United States, Containing a List of Officers and Employees in the Civil, Military, and Naval Service… (Washington, D.C., 1879), 353; Official Register of the United States, Containing a List of Officers and Employees in the Civil, Military, and Naval Service (Washington, D.C., 1895), 783.Google Scholar

24. Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 1, cxlvi–cxlviii, pt. 3, xxxiii.Google Scholar

25. White, to Clarke, , 30 Apr. 1871, in Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 1, 508; Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 1, 500; Eaton, John to Delano, C., 4 Aug. 1874, in Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 1, 487 (see also xiv); Clarke, , Drawing in Public Schools .Google Scholar

26. Green, says Clarke knew Smith in late 1871; see Green's “Introduction of Art,” 111. Smith, to Eaton, , 1874, 16 Jan. 1875, in Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 1, 496, 517–21; Smith, , Art Education; Clarke, Art and Industry, pt. 1, 162, pt. 2, xxxviii.Google Scholar

27. Eaton, , Report 1875, vii; Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 1, xv–xvi, 487; on bureau publications for the exposition, see also Cremin, Lawrence A., The Wonderful World of Ellwood Patterson Cubberley: An Essay on the Historiography of American Education (New York, 1965), 11–12, 57. For a description of the art displays at the Centennial Exposition, see Korzenik, , Drawn to Art, 209–21.Google Scholar

28. Cong. Rec., 46th Cong., 2d sess., 2 Feb. 1880, 647.Google Scholar

29. Cremin, , American Education, 406, 516; Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 4, 231, pt. 1, xi–xii.Google Scholar

30. Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 1, ix, pt. 2, xxvi.Google Scholar

31. For various interpretations of Smith's dismissal, see Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 1, 190–93, appendix D; Haney, , “Development of Art Education,” 34; Belshe, , “History,” 40–42; Green, , “Introduction of Art,” 147–84; idem, “Smith, Walter,” 6–9; Wygant, , Art in American Schools, 70–74; Plummer, , “Collage,” 215; Stankiewicz, , “Drawing Book Wars,” 60–61; Efland, , History of Art Education, 111–13; idem, “The Introduction of Music and Drawing in the Boston Schools: Two Studies of Educational Reform,” in Venn State Conference , ed. Wilson, and Hoffa, , 118–23. On Carter, see Wygant, , Art in American Schools, 75. Lazerson, , Origins, 252.Google Scholar

32. For example, it was only at this time in the 1880s that Smith's program was being embraced in Canada; see Smith, Walter, “Industrial Drawing and Art Education,” in Annual Report of the Schools of New Brunswick by the Chief Superintendent of the Schools (Fredericton, N.B., 1882), xxxi–xxxix; idem, Industrial Drawing from Blackboard and Object: Course for the Normal School of Nova Scotia (Truro, N.S., [c. 1882]); Annual Report of the Superintendent of Education on the Common, Academic, Normal and Model Schools of Nova Scotia for the Year Ending October 31, 1882 (Halifax, , N.S., 1883), xxv–xxxvi, 53; Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 1, 576–90; Graeme Chalmers, F., “South Kensington and the Colonies II: The Influence of Walter Smith in Canada,” in Penn State Conference , ed. Wilson, and Hoffa, , 108–12; Soucy, , “Religion.” Google Scholar

33. The introductory chapters of Clarke's report appeared as Clarke, Isaac Edwards, The Democracy of Art, with Suggestions Concerning the Relations of Art Education, Industry, and National Prosperity (Washington, D.C., 1886). Quotation from Clarke to Lounsbury, 25 June 1886, Lounsbury MSS. Clarke, Art and Industry, pt. 2, xxvi–xxxi, xxxviii. Congress's hesitancy to publish the report resulted in part one not being available to the public until 1887, though the imprint on it is 1885.Google Scholar

34. Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 2, xxiv; Clarke, to Lounsbury, , 25 June 1886, Lounsbury MSS; Clarke to Garfield, 1880, Garfield Papers (see note 19 above); The National Cyclopedia, s.v. “Eaton, John”; Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 2, xxxi; Clarke to Lounsbury, 22 Dec. 1887, Lounsbury MSS.Google Scholar

35. Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 2, xxiv.Google Scholar

36. Ibid., 903–16, 931–42. Clarke may have already decided to publish one of the speeches before Harris became commissioner, see ibid., cxiv, 931. On the debate stirred up by Harris's speeches, see Bennett, , History, 1870 to 1917, 370–71 Cremin, , Transformation, 30–32, 57. Cremin argues that “if results were to be judged,” Harris lost the debate (p. 32).Google Scholar

37. For example, Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 2, 917–29.Google Scholar

38. Harris, to New England journal of Education , in Annual Report of the School Committee of the City of Boston (1876), and in Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 1, 342–43.Google Scholar

39. For example, Clarke, , Art and Industry, pt. 2, cxv, 905, pt. 3, xxvii–xxx.Google Scholar

40. Ibid., pt. 3, xxx.Google Scholar

41. Cremin, , Wonderful World, 7, 55; Tyack, David, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Cambridge, Mass., 1974); Reese, William J., Power and the Promise of School Reform: Grassroots Movements during the Progressive Era (Boston, 1986).Google Scholar

42. Lazerson portrays 1870 in this way in Origins; see especially the introduction.Google Scholar