Drawing Brings Happiness to the "Maladjusted"

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5328, 14 February 1947, Page 7

Drawing Brings Happiness to the "Maladjusted"

i STRANGE KIEjNmSH BOAuDING SCHOOL. In a country mansion in KLent, some 60 children, "maladjusted" to modern society, are finding happiness and education at a boarding school. Aged from 9 to 16, these boys and girls are* naturally bright (having an "intelligence quotient" of 1120 or rribre) ; and their unhappiness has been caused by adult forces beyond their control. By regular psychological treatment, and by a large measure of self-government, by patient care and teaching, their difficulties are systematieally overcome. Pupils usually reach matriculation standard. Most of them eventually enter the professions, jor some technical employment, and, judging from their subsequent histories, they make a success'of life. Mr. Otto L. Shaw, the headmaster (plain "ShaW" to the pupils), receives his charfges from magistrates' courts and from child guidance clinics, and while in his charge they are being maintained by the State under the Board of Education. Art takes an ordinary place in the school studies. There is special emphasis upon painting' in the curriculum. It just happens; and it- is accepted both by pupils and by teachers as a natural phenomenon.

Mr. George Westby, director of art at the school, says: "We believe in giving the child a full range >f media to. choose from, with paper of all colours and sizes and textures. . . Almost every tric.c in the whole gamut of technique is represented by some child who has taken to it. . . . V "Who dare not admit dots '• after Seurat? Who, after Modigliani, will correct a stylistic distortion? Who after Picasso and Henry Moore, can

ohject to. the transmogrification of the sacred human figure?" At this school 'childjren are not taught the traditional forms of art; but their creations demons'trate how much vital freedom is expressed in this period of their training. Their drawings are, in faet, a major contribution towards their happiness and one of the solutions for some of the human problems that beset maladjusted child'.