Inquiries into human faculty and its developmentGalton, Francis
Science
Inquiries into human faculty and its development
Galton, Francis
Ability; Eugenics
produced a chart comparable in extent and accuracy to that of this
barbarous Eskimo. The aptitude of the Eskimos to draw, is abundantly
shown by the numerous illustrations in Rink's work, all of which
were made by self-taught men, and are thoroughly realistic.
So much for the wild races of the present day; but even the Eskimo
are equalled in their power of drawing by the men of old times. In
ages so far gone by, that the interval that separates them from our
own may be measured in perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, when
Europe was mostly icebound, a race who, in the opinion of all
anthropologists, was closely allied to the modern Eskimo, lived in
caves in the more habitable places. Many broken relics of that race
have been found; some few of these are of bone engraved with flints
or carved into figures, and among these are representations of the
mammoth, elk, and reindeer, which, if made by an English labourer
with the much better implements at his command, would certainly
attract local attention and lead to his being properly educated, and
in much likelihood to his becoming a considerable artist if he had
intellectual powers to match.
It is not at all improbable that these prehistoric men had the same
geographical instincts as the modern Eskimo, whom they closely
resemble in every known respect. If so, it is perfectly possible
that scraps of charts scratched on bone or stone, of prehistoric
Europe, when the distribution of land, sea, and ice was very
different to what it is now, may still exist, buried underground,
and may reward the zeal of some future cave explorer.
There is abundant evidence that the visualising faculty admits of
being developed by education. The testimony on which I would
lay especial stress is derived from the published experiences of
M. Lecoq de Boisbaudran, late director of the École Nationale de Dessein,
in Paris, which are related in his _Education de la M. émoire
Pittoresque_ [1] He trained his pupils with extraordinary success,
beginning with the simplest figures. They were made to study the
models thoroughly before they tried to draw them from memory. One
favourite expedient was to associate the sight memory with the
muscular memory, by making his pupils follow at a distance the
outlines of the figures with a pencil held in their hands. After
three or four months' practice, their visual memory became greatly
strengthened. They had no difficulty in summoning images at will, in
holding them steady, and in drawing them. Their copies [7] were
executed with marvellous fidelity, as attested by a commission of
the Institute, appointed in 1852 to inquire into the matter, of
which the eminent painter Horace Vernet was a member. The present
Slade Professor of Fine Arts at University College, M. Légros, was a
pupil of M. de Boisbaudran. He has expressed to me his indebtedness
to the system, and he has assured me of his own success in teaching
others in a somewhat similar way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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