I. NEEDLEWORK AND DRESSMAKING
INTRODUCTION
Modern woman finds herself in the twentieth century heiress to an accumulation of domestic experience handed down from her primitive sisters, much of which originated in necessity, and survives from custom.
It is said that “of the billion and a half human beings on the earth, about 700,000,000 are females, and what share their mothers and grandmothers, back to the remotest generation, have had in originating and developing culture is a question which concerns the whole race,” though allusion only can be made to it in this paper.
If, from the study of anthropology, we find that man was the hunter, the killer of food, it was woman who cared for it, prepared it for use, tilled the ground, cleaned, dried, cut, and sewed skins for clothing and shelter. It is believed by many authorities that it was woman who invented and made many of the implements with which she worked, and who spun, wove, and dyed fibres of all 296 kinds into strong, useful, and sometimes beautiful fabrics of varied and pleasing tints and colours, from dyes of her own making, which she obtained from animal and vegetable sources. The introduction of much plain and ornamental stitchery, the forerunner of the needlework of the present day, followed quickly upon the coming of textiles.
Until the invention of machinery and the institution of the factory system, the practice of a large number of arts was in the hands of women as part of their lives and homes. Now, however, women are no longer leather-dressers, potters, or weavers in the home—these arts have become trades for men, carried on in factories; and even the more intimate arts of cooking, cleaning, and needlework are threatened from the outside.
The cheapness and readiness with which the products of the factory can be obtained, whether for the purposes of food or of clothing, has to a large extent removed the desire to exercise these arts herself, especially from the woman whose time can be otherwise employed to her financial advantage in industrial pursuits. It would almost appear that she has failed to perceive the intellectual and æsthetic enjoyment to be derived from them, and has been content to permit the skill and knowledge she originally acquired and exercised to rust from want of practice as each generation succeeds its predecessor. On the other hand, as the accumulated profits from the factory have made it possible for well-off women to depute their own share of cooking, cleaning, sewing, and 297 the care of children by payments to their less financially fortunate sisters, usually untrained women of narrow education, public opinion has shown a tendency to regard these arts as menial, and to some extent derogatory in practice to the educated and refined. Amongst this class of women, consequently, knowledge of these arts has steadily dwindled, until the home-made jams, jellies, cordials and pickles of our grandmothers, the linen they spun, wove, and fashioned, are no longer the glory of our storerooms and linen-presses; while the home has come to be less and less regarded as the right and proper place for instruction in the domestic arts.
Deep down, however, in the modern woman’s nature lies the old instinct for order, for caring for things animate and inanimate. This instinct has found expression since the early seventies among more fortunately situated women in an endeavour to arrest the decay of what I have called the more intimate household arts, to promote their revival and to raise their status in education—an endeavour due, shall we say, to “something in the air,” a kind of “Zeit Geist”—beginning more or less contemporaneously on the Continent of Europe, in Great Britain, and in the United States and Canada; an endeavour not to benefit themselves alone, but to help their poorer sisters.
It was soon agreed that the cultivation of the household arts belonged to education, and that they might and should be taught in schools; but the questions—What was their link with general 298 education, by what methods they could be most appropriately taught, and in the curriculum of what schools they should find a place—have been the basis of prolonged experimental effort. It is now the opinion of a large section of persons of authority in education, that these arts are neither “sacred mysteries which can only be understood by patient life study,” nor, on the other hand, can any woman, whatever her intellectual ability, master them without training. It has been well said, in effect, that the former attitude leads to a contempt for the plain everyday things of life, while the latter is responsible for the cultivation of a girl’s head at the expense of her hands.
The arts of cooking and cleaning took the lead in order of experiment. The results, as recorded, have proved their position to belong directly to the region of applied science, and to be worthy of a place in a specially arranged course of household science and economics for women, of university standard. We may confidently expect that this result only anticipates a corresponding triumph, awaiting in its turn similar experimental work, which has been carried on for some years in respect of the teaching also of the art of needlework. These experimental efforts include the intelligent employment of the pencil, the scissors, and the needle in the production of garments, draperies, napery, and so forth. The lines along which at the present moment this development is proceeding have regard indeed not only to the practical worth of needlecraft, but to its intimate 299 association with general education as well as to decorative and applied art.
When we inquire what have been the results of past methods of teaching needlework in our elementary schools, and find that they are in no way commensurate with the time, labour, and money spent upon them, it surely is wise to call a halt and examine into our aims and methods. The circular of “Suggestions for the Teaching of Needlework” issued by the Board of Education in August 1909 is not the first authoritative pronouncement of the Board on this matter, but is the outcome of “the well-considered criticism” invited upon their “Suggestions” on the same subject issued in 1905, which teachers and others were asked to consider as a challenge to independent thought on the subjects of which it treated.
THE “PRINCIPLES” OF NEEDLEWORK
This challenge has resulted in the statement of certain important “principles” in the new circular and of the proper attitude of the teacher towards them, viz.:—
I. The duplex aspect of needlework.
1. As a separate branch of instruction, the aim of which is proficiency.
2. As a means to an end, other than (but not excluding) a certain proficiency, i.e. to develop the intelligence and even to form the character of the child.
II. The subject must be made interesting if it is to be educational. The making of specimens is not interesting, and should be discouraged, excepting for the practice of new stitches before they can be used on a complete garment or article, however small, for the child herself or for others.
III. Correlation of needlework with drawing and arithmetic in the higher classes.
1. To train the eye in form and proportion.
2. To illustrate principles of arithmetic, by measuring and deciding upon quantities and by calculating cost, introducing incidentally ideas of economy and thrift.
IV. Needlework lessons are ordinarily uninteresting and wearisome to body and mind. This need not and should not be; if the subject is taught with the why and wherefore of things, it should rather stimulate intelligence and capacity.
V. Opportunity is afforded by the lesson for practically and tactfully inculcating the charm of neatness, cleanliness, and tidiness in person and in clothing, encouraging the child in self-respect and to regard as a matter of shame that any girl should reach woman’s estate without a practical knowledge of the use she can make of the needle.
1. As a separate branch of instruction, the aim of which is proficiency.
2. As a means to an end, other than (but not excluding) a certain proficiency, i.e. to develop the intelligence and even to form the character of the child.
1. To train the eye in form and proportion.
2. To illustrate principles of arithmetic, by measuring and deciding upon quantities and by calculating cost, introducing incidentally ideas of economy and thrift.
Certain suggestions follow as a basis for a more detailed scheme, viz.:—
1. Classification of scholars as to age and capacity.
2. Size of illustrations and use of blackboard.
3. Instruction of weakly children, and care of eyesight.
4. Exercises in knitting and various forms of constructive handwork for very young children, in preparation for definite instruction in needlework at a later age.
5. Condemnation of habit of counting threads.
6. Order of teaching “processes” in needlework, from simple to complex.
7. Suitability of materials, needles, and threads to each other, and of the style of sewing to the garments which the children should wear.
8. Direction of attention to the fact that hands and eyes which have been sensibly trained to execute “plain work” will acquire “fancy work” quite readily later on if leisure can be found.
9. New methods and stitches to be learned on waste material.
10. Importance of practice in mending at school and at home.
11. Importance of cutting-out and pattern-making.
12. Garments made to be worn, not kept at school.
13. Elaborate making-up of paper garments to be discouraged.
14. Rough sketches to train the eye to recognise the value to each other of different parts of a pattern.
15. Importance of recognition of difference between a well-cut and an ill-cut garment.
16. Calculation of kind, quantity, and cost of material to be worked out in an arithmetic lesson.
17. Note-books and records to be kept.
18. Fixing to be done by actual maker of garment—not a joint production.
19. Use of sewing machine permitted for long seams and hems.
20. No time to be wasted while waiting for teacher’s help. Independent work to be encouraged. Knitting and other suitable work to be at hand.
This excellent and sensible paper of suggestions means an offer of freedom on the part of the Board; it remains, therefore, but to accept and adopt its conditions. A practical difficulty, however, at once arises from the fact that, after a long period of bondage to many “Regulations,” it is difficult for the teaching profession in general to realise that independent judgment is now expected 302 of them, indeed is required, though this is a phase temporary and evanescent, which will quickly adjust itself.
For lack of time and space we must here pass over the important question of the relation of the domestic arts to the general school curriculum, as well as the proportion of time to be allotted as between needlework and the other domestic arts, and dwell for a moment on the relative qualifications of our teachers in different sections of the whole subject taken at its widest, for these qualifications reflect the existing demands of the public. Taking England, for example—how do we stand with other countries in this respect? Speaking generally, and as one who, though not professionally a teacher, has for many years had a hand in the training of teachers, and who has given much time and thought to the comparative study, both theoretical and practical, of needlework and dressmaking, it seems to me that, as to sewing, we are as good, if not in some ways better than our neighbours, though we have been apt to regard the perfection of our stitches as an end in itself, which decidedly vitiates our conclusion. We also appear to have much to learn, or at least to practise, in respect of suitability of materials, needles, and threads to each other, and of the style of work to the purpose required. As to “cut” and “the hang of the thing,” and the root difference between an “ill-cut” and a “well-cut” garment, I fear we make a bad third with France and Austria; but with our newly acquired freedom we can and 303 we must change all that: the public begin to demand it.
In the first place, we must clear our minds of the indefinite cloud of detail in which they have been so long submerged; or, to change the metaphor, whereas hitherto we have too often not been able to see the wood for the trees, we must now learn clearly to distinguish between “principles” and “methods,” which in practice are over frequently confused: then, quite easily and naturally, the teacher will derive resulting details from the few definite principles which are the “basis alike of the simplest garment and the most artistic handicraft,” and “the principles once understood, in one instance, the pupils will be able to make wider applications for themselves.”
It is important here to emphasise that some elementary knowledge of hygiene, physiology, and anatomy is necessary for the intelligent appreciation of the requirements of the body as to clothing, and of its alterations in shape when muscles are tense or relaxed. By a reliable system of drafting from direct measurement, such as one of those in use in the Ecoles Professionelles of Paris, a shaped bodice can be produced fitting the arms and figure easily and gracefully, and from this pattern can be deduced further patterns of other garments, whether tight, loose, or semi-fitting, which hang from the shoulder or the waist.
When the theory of drafting has been learned, and the shapes and proportions of a pattern and its derivatives are understood, “moulage” or 304 modelling on the figure in muslin, should be attempted; though, be it remembered, “moulage” should not be regarded as a substitute for drafting, but as its necessary accompaniment, for it affords opportunity for eye training, and for learning how and where at certain points the material should be stretched or held easily on the figure. The pupil is thus prepared to handle the pattern intelligently when cut out in material.
I have seen it objected that only awkward and wooden lines can be obtained from drafting on paper because of its rigidity, and because the pattern is built up upon a framework of straight lines at right angles to each other. The objector cannot have understood that the rectangular construction lines have no connection with the outlines of the pattern, except as affording points d’appui, which are found by direct measurement. These construction lines stand for the warp and woof, or “thread” of the material to be used for the garment. Stress must be also laid on the fact that the grace or angularity of the pattern outline actually depend upon the eye training and perception of curves derived from drawing lessons, which must, for this as well as other reasons, form a part of the scheme of instruction.