Roanoke Rapids Herald

"How Come That Children Are So Gifted and Grown-Ups Are So Dumb"

NEW YORK (U.P.) - "How come," queried the dwarf of the witch in the fairy tale, "that children are so gifted and grown-ups are so dumb?"

But the witch did not know the answer.

Prof. Henry Schaefer-Simmern says he does. He also has what children and adults need to develop their gifts. And he proposes to make out of us a nation indulging in artistic activities. It would do us good, he says. We would be less cranky and depressed.

Work Mechanically

In our industrial civilization people work mostly mechanically. That's the trouble, says the German-born educator. When our hands work independently from our feet and our eyes, our functions become isolated. That endangers our mental balance.

Modern man's personality develops individually and not harmoniously. Hence his inability to unfold his creative capacities.

Artistic Activity

Schaefer-Simmern recommends artistic activity as a cure to such ills. When we work artistically our personality as a whole is constantly in play. We keep our balance. He has devised a new method of art education. He tested it experimentally. And he described both the method and the experiments in his book "The Unfolding of Artistic Activity."

His theory is the modern scientific expression of the age old wisdom that the ills of civilization can be cured only by the benefits of culture. But in order to be effective, culture must be genuine. And so, as John Dewey used to say: "Since we can neither beg nor borrow a culture without betraying both it and ourselves, nothing remains save to produce it."