The School of the Art Institute of Chicago exerts great influ ence in the Middle West, and has perhaps the largest enrollment of any art school in the United States, having 4,662 for the school year of 1927-28. More than half of these attend the evening or the Saturday school. There were 69 instructors in 1927-28, serving the five specialized departments of Drawing, Painting and Illustration, Sculpture, Design, Teacher Training and Drama.
Other large and influential schools of art are : The Art Academy of Cincinnati; The Cleveland School of Art ; Maryland School of Fine and Practical Arts ; Art School of the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts; St. Louis School of Fine Arts; School of Industrial Art of the Pennsylvania Museum.
Schools of industrial art, which center their interests on design as applied to industry, as well as to the decorative arts, are gaining ground in the United States. These schools must be distinguished from the schools of the fine arts, where painting, sculpture, and architecture predominate. Sometimes the industrial arts are taught in the same schools as the fine arts, but they are designated as different departments.
In the teaching of the arts, the growing tendency in America is toward the encouragement of individual expression as dis tinguished from the hard, tight, or academic style. The idea is that a thorough technical training may be secured without preju dicing the minds of the students in favor of any particular creed of art, leaving them free to express their own individuality with out undue influence from their instructors, whose business it is to guide and develop rather than to encourage imitation.
The opening of an art school at Somerset House, London, in 1827 was a forerunner of the many provincial schools that fol lowed. The Exhibition of 1851, at the Crystal Palace, was of un told influence not only in Great Britain but on the Continent. France had taken the lead in tile industrial arts and the exhibi tion of her products in London caused an awakening as to the ad vantages in organized training for art trades. In 1889 the Techni cal Instruction Act was passed and in 1897 the Royal College of Art was inaugurated, the latter being perhaps the greatest factor in the movement toward national art education. The Education
Act of 19o2 meant that art became a definite subject in the curriculum of English elementary and secondary education. The Burnham scales of salaries for teachers and the Pension Act of 1925 have meant a higher standard of art teaching.
Some of the important schools of art in Great Britain and Ire land are : London : Royal College of Art, London County Council Central School of Arts and Crafts, St. John's Wood Art Schools, Glade School at University College, School of Art of the Royal Academy; Bristol: University of Bristol, Merchant Venturers' College; Edinburgh: College of Art; Glasgow: School of Art, Technical College; Liverpool: University of Liverpool; Man chester: Municipal School of Art; Cheltenham: School of Arts and Crafts ; Derby : School of Arts and Crafts; Dover : School of Art; Dublin: Metropolitan School of Art, Hibernian Academy of Art; Leeds: School of Art, Hudders' Field, Technical College; Newcastle: Aermstrong College; Nottingham: Municipal School of Art and Design; Reading: University College.
France.—Paris: The Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts, with de partments of architecture, sculpture, painting and engraving, is free to the French and admits a limited number of foreigners. The Ecole Nationale des Arts Decoratifs gives a general training in the decorative arts, with special courses in decorative paintings, decorative sculpture, tapestry and glass. The Ecole du Louvre is a graduate school of the history and theory of the arts, using the collections of the Louvre for illustration and research. The Ecole des Hautes Etudes Urbaines specializes in city planning and decoration, and urban administration. It is a graduate school for men. The Ecole Centrale d'Architecture is a private incorporated school recognized officially as an "institution d'utilite publique." There are also in Paris many private schools of drawing and paint ing, the most celebrated being the Atelier Julien and the Atelier L'Hote. The Ecole d'Art Animalier of M. Navalier, for sculp tors of animal life, is of high repute. The New York School of Fine and Applied Arts, directed by Professor Parsons, maintains a branch at Paris for American students, especially those who can not speak French.