ndertaken by the student that will, with a comparatively small
amount of manual skill carry him a considerable distance in the
understanding of the principles of design upon which all creative art
rests. Another advantage is that, in the process, considerable skill
in freehand drawing also can be acquired. But this advantage is merely
incidental.

The greatest value lies in the fact that the Design method offers to
the student an excellent means of self-expression. The student,
through no fault of his, is too prone to absorb and too little
inclined to yield of the fruits of his knowledge. Herein lies a
partial remedy for the tendency of college students to make
receptacles of their minds into which knowledge is poured through the
ear by listening to lectures, or through the eye by reading. Herein is
a means of overcoming mental inertia, for, certainly, the solution of
a problem in design calls for thought--the amount of mental exertion
being commensurate with the difficulty of the problem. In this, the
Design method is superior to the Representation method, though it
would be an error to assume that freehand drawing is chiefly a manual
operation. Such an error is entertained by those only who never have
learned to draw. Another considerable value lies in the fact that even
if the lay student of design should in later life never set hand to
paper,--as he probably will not, any more than he who has taken
courses in drawing and painting will ever attempt to paint a
picture,--yet he has come into practical contact with the leading
principles of art, and has gained a knowledge that can be applied not
merely to the discriminating understanding of the artistic qualities
of the exhibits in art museums or in private galleries, but to the art
of every day. It can be applied to the estimating of the artistic
value of a poster, a book cover, or a title page; to the choosing of
wall paper; to the arranging of the furniture in a room; to the laying
out of a garden; to intelligent cooperation in the designing of a
house or in replanning, on paper at least, the street system of a
city; or to the selecting of a design for a public memorial. It is not
to be assumed that in thus exercising a cultivated taste he would
always make conscious application of the principles of design in
making his estimates. These would have so entered into his habit of
thought that he would unconsciously make what Mr. Dow calls "fine
choices."

The educatio