Sponsors Unique International Art Exhibit at Rockefeller Center to Further Cause of Progressive Educ

In the Memoirs of the Brothers Goncourt one finds a splendid definition of art: To achieve with a minimum of apparent effort a maximum of results. If one hears Mrs. Sam A. Lewisohn speak of progressive education, one feels that she adheres in the pedagogic field to the Goncourt ideal. It is an aesthetic as well as a psychologic ideal and the teacher who accepts it is not only following a profession but practicing an art. Wherever such artists in education have the opportunity to translate their ideals into actual performance, one finds institutions such as the Little Red School House where children are allowed and encouraged to develop individually, where in gaining knowledge they are not at the same time robbed of originality and initiative.

Such institutions are never financially profitable and their work would be impossible if women like Mrs. Lewisohn were not generously devoting their personal work and influence to make progressive education available not only to the few who are born with a silver spoon but to the many who are in real need of this new type of education.

Just now, Mrs. Lewisohn is sponsoring a most interesting exhibit of international children’s art, the proceeds of which are destined to swell the Scholarship Fund of the Little Red School House.

When one wishes to see Mrs. Lewisohn one finds her in the workshop at Rockefeller Center where she is busily engaged in the task of hanging and arranging the exhibit which is housed in the Mezzanine Gallery of the RCA Building and is as interesting a display as any to be seen in our city.

FROM FORTY-TWO LANDS

Mrs. Lewisohn makes a delightful Cicerone explaining how those pictures were gathered from forty-two different countries, Palestine having sent some especially impressive contributions; how in remote countries like Bali and Tunis children had first to be taught that crayons were not to be eaten but something with which to draw; how the young artists, ranging in age from six to twelve years, clearly show the effect of their environment on the one hand and of the artistic tradition of their nation on the other; how the little ones are even influenced by the social changes of the modern day, provided their teachers allow them to express themselves unhampered by any formalized teaching technique.

Mrs. Lewisohn tells that she became interested in educational problems fifteen years ago as member of the Education Committee of the Women’s City Club, serving later as trustee of the Public Education Association. Ten years ago the Little Red School House and all it stands for claimed her devotion and she gave it unstintingly and even won the support of influential friends for this splendid new experiment in education.

“In the world of childhood,” says Mrs. Lewisohn, “there are no boundary lines of race or creed. The vision of the child is universal. Of course, each country has a distinctive note—you can not fail to recognize in these pictures the geographical and sociological conditions under which the children live, the religious and emotional influences that shape their outlook, yet there is an essential harmony in all these paintings and sketches, they have all the universal point of view.”

In appearance, Mrs. Lewisohn is so youthful, svelte, and graceful that one hardly believes she has grown children, but more even than by her charm and graciousness is one impressed by the sincere enthusiasm she brings to her work. A work which is to her not a pastime but an ideal, for she rightly feels that only on the foundation of a free and progressive education will we be able to build a world of freedom and progress.