I Hopes and Fears

The different ways in which imagination was spoken of in the educational field were shrouded in ambiguities. Sometimes welcomed and desired, sometimes feared for the troubles it might cause to the production of the child as a future citizen. The discourse unfolded, identifying nuances in these ambiguities and anxieties, above all through the lines drawn between good and evil imaginations. The imaginative child as a kind of person was already a reality, with more than one way to be lived.

Katherine Ball was the Director of art in public schools in San Francisco. In this article, the naturalization of the child as an artist is evidenced, but not a given. The value of arts education was not to produce artists but rather "to give a training designed to develop the faculties of observation, imagination and graphic expression".

We highlight some of the passages in the text:

The publication of Émile by Jean Jacques Rousseau was of great impact for the field of Western educational sciences. Even recognizing imagination as the most active faculty in the child, Rousseau clearly linked the overwhelming power of imagination to a state of unhappiness.