draw differently, could he but see to draw.  Were vision the first sense consulted, and were the simplest visual appearance sought after, one might expect something like diagram B, the shadows under eyes, nose, mouth, and chin, with the darker mass of the hair being the simplest thing the visual appearance can be reduced to.  But despite this being quite as easy to do, it does not appeal to the ordinary child as the other type does, because it does not satisfy the sense of touch that forms so large a part of the idea of an object in the mind.  All architectural elevations and geometrical projections generally appeal to this mental idea of form.  They consist of views of a building or object that could never possibly be seen by anybody, assuming as they do that the eye of the spectator is exactly in front of every part of the building at the same time, a physical impossibility.  And yet so removed from the actual visual appearance is our mental idea of objects that such drawings do convey a very accurate idea of a building or object.  And of course they have great advantage as working drawings in that they can be scaled.

[Illustration:  Diagram I.

A. Type of first drawing made by children, showing how vision has not
been consulted

B. Type of what might have been expected if crudest expression of visual
appearance had been attempted]

If so early the sense of vision is neglected and relegated to be the handmaiden of other senses, it is no wonder that in the average adult it is in such a shocking state of neglect.  I feel convinced that with the great majority of people vision is seldom if ever consulted for itself, but only to minister to some other sense.  They look at the sky to see if it is going to be fine; at the fields to see if they are dry enough to walk on, or whether there will be a good crop of hay; at the stream not to observe the beauty of the reflections from the blue sky or green fields dancing upon its surface or the rich colouring of its shadowed depths, but to calculate how deep it is or how much power it would supply to work a mill, how many fish it contains, or some other association alien to its visual aspect.  If one looks up at a fine mass of cumulus clouds above a London street, the ordinary passer-by who follows one’s gaze expects to see a balloon or a flying-machine at least, and when he sees it is only clouds he is apt to wonder what one is gazing at.  The beautiful form and colour of the cloud seem to be unobserved.  Clouds mean nothing to him but an accumulation of water dust that may bring rain.  This accounts in some way for the number of good paintings that are incomprehensible to the majority of people.  It is only those pictures that pursue the visual aspect of objects to a sufficient completion to contain the suggestion of these other associations, that they understand at all.  Other pictures, they say, are not finished enough.  And it is so seldom that a picture can have this petty realisation and at the same time be an expression of those larger emotional qualities that constitute good painting.