The following quotation from Édouard Petit's book "De l' école à la guerre" on what the normal schools of France are doing ought to be enough to inspire our American girls.
The girls of the normal schools of France are working very hard, knitting, sewing, making hospital supplies, in the intervals of their school work; also acting as laundresses, secretaries, bookkeepers, etc. They are not old enough to be nurses. In addition to the work for the armies, they give a part of their time to work for other students. They are providing for the girl students of the normal schools in the invaded districts, many of whom were obliged to make long journeys on foot, clad in summer clothes, with no chance to carry even a change of clothing with them. The school at Fontenay appealed to the normal schools for aid for its students; other appeals followed, some from schools in the districts from which the invaders were driven out. Very soon in all the normal schools of France girls were cutting and sewing, providing new garments, or garments from their own supply, to be sent to the towns in the north of France. Some of these supplies are held in reserve for the towns that are still to be liberated. One teacher writes: "Our young girls are glad to come to the aid of their fellow students who are not known to them but who are coming to seem nearer as I have them learn about the schools, read the letters that are received, etc. Anything which makes real and tangible the responsibility of this friendly help ought to be encouraged."
As the need arises, our secondary-school girls will respond in like manner.
The preparation needed to initiate Red Cross work in any large way in the schools of a state is considerable. There is a good deal of organization and consequent detail connected with it. The domestic-arts teachers of a school district or county ought to be called together and instructed in the minutiæ of garment-making and surgical dressings. With the blue prints, photographs, and written specifications already issued by the Red Cross headquarters at Washington these teachers could then work out a full set of directions for each article which would be specific and graphic. These could be printed by the state printer or, better, by the boys in a vocational school. In addition, moving-picture reels of processes carried on according to the most modern methods of workroom procedure could be shown to those who have not been in contact with present-day modes of work.
In order to excite interest on the part of the community in rural districts where this work has not as yet penetrated to any extent, moving pictures of processes of making surgical dressings, pajamas, surgeons' gowns, or children's dresses could be exhibited as illustrating what other sections of the state are already doing. These moving pictures could be taken of girls at work in an up-to-date New York City factory, and the reels could be either purchased outright or rented from an educational-film company. In Washington the Department of the Interior has a number of reels which have been put at the disposal of the Red Cross, and will make more if the occasion demands. Slides too could be made showing special operations, special garments, and special methods of arranging work. When public interest has been aroused at a public meeting in a small center, the school will find it easy to take up the work and push it forward. The person in charge of the work would have to keep in constant touch with the Red Cross headquarters as to the needs for garments and hospital supplies, as well as to the changes that from time to time have to be made in the kind and quality of supplies. A chart could be made of the capacity as to equipment and number of pupils, and the present grade of their working ability, for each place where a school is located. Brief reports could be sent to a state director from these schools as to what they could make, when they could make it, and when specified articles could be finished. Thus there would be a line out from a central supervisor to each school in the state where pupils are old enough to do any work of this public-service nature. Along this line would travel the information as to what was being done and what would be the next thing to be done.
Knitting by hand is one of the occupations which many girls and women are taking up. One drawback to hand-knitting is that it takes a good deal of time, and in the case of socks, at least, the results of amateur work may be uncomfortable to the wearer. It is suggested that schools put in knitting machines. One school at Yonkers, New York, has such a machine. It enables its operator to finish a sock every twenty minutes, or 12 pairs in an eight-hour day. It is possible to knit wristlets and sleeveless sweaters on these machines. The Vacation War Relief Committee of New York City has been responsible for the sale of 980 of these machines, on which over 85,000 pairs of socks have been made during the past year.
A letter written to me by Mettie B. Hills, Director of Girls' Work in Troy, New York, relative to her Red Cross work is so full of human interest and gives in such detail the excellent methods which she employed that I quote it in full. It will serve as suggestive material for other equally enthusiastic and competent teachers.
My office has been turned into a cutting room. Girls are now at a large table cutting hospital bed shirts with just as little waste as possible. Smaller girls are snipping the few waste pieces, and one little girl at the end of the table is filling a fracture pillow with the snips. In my machine-sewing room the girls are making hospital bed shirts. Each girl has a different operation. The shirts move through the cutting room to this room and from one machine to the next just as they do in a factory. They finally reach the inspection table, where they are inspected as they are folded, and an inspection card is placed in the pocket. They are then piled up for that final inspection which I give every article before it goes to our stock room. Here we hold all articles until we have enough to make the moving worth while, and then they are taken to Red Cross headquarters in the city truck. The chairmen of each Red Cross division of our local chapter are notified beforehand that things are coming and they are at headquarters to receive our work and sign for it. I tell you, it is a big day for all when the school work is turned in. I hear about it for weeks afterward.
The girls do not stay at one operation. As soon as they are ready, they are promoted to the next. [And in this connection may I call the reader's attention to the chapter which brought out the new spirit of teaching the household arts?]
The little jacket which is hanging in my clothespress is only the beginning of a big piece of work which I expect to push during the winter, a piece of work which I believe will do more to standardize the girls' work than anything we have yet done.
Another room is given over to knitting, and the girls pass from one type of work to another. We have a teacher from the Red Cross rooms who is showing the older girls how to make oakum pads. The work is really fascinating, and fortunately we no longer have to think of the money for the materials, as the work done in the schools has been of so much higher standard that the local chapter has voted me $500 in order that there might be no danger of our stopping the work. I am inclosing a list of what our schools have done in the past three months.
| I. For the Red Cross Society | |
| 1. Hospital Supplies | |
| Hospital boots | 48 |
| Hospital shoulder wraps | 36 |
| Hospital shirts | 156 |
| Pajama suits | 48 |
| Surgeons' operating gowns | 6 |
| Surgeons' operating caps | 12 |
| Surgeons' operating helmets | 48 |
| Slings | 492 |
| 1-inch bandages | 12 |
| 2-inch bandages | 13 rolls |
| 2. Surgical dressings | 22 |
| Oakum pads | 20 |
| Fracture pillows | 20 |
| II. For the Soldiers' Welfare League | |
| 1. "Housewives" for Second New York Regiment | 48 |
| 2. "George Washington kits" for Second New York Regiment | |
| 3. Neckerchiefs for Second New York Regiment | 120 |
| 4. Pajama suits | 32 |
| III. For the National Navy Comforts League | |
| 1. Knitted mufflers for the army and navy | 313 |
| 2. Knitted sleeveless jackets for the army and navy | 25 |
| 3. Knitted wristlets for the army and navy | 40 pairs |
| 4. Knitted caps for the army, navy, and aviators | 2 |
| 5. Knitted hospital socks | 7 pairs |
| IV. For the Surgical Dressings Committee (French) | |
| 1. Slings | |
| 2. Fracture pillows | |
| 3. Eye binders | |
| V. For Belgian Relief Committee | |
| 1. Kits for small children (full set of clothes) | |
| VI. For National League for Woman's Service (adults) | |
| 1. Two commissariat classes | |
| 2. Motor classes with 30 enrolled |
Of course the Red Cross work need not be limited to girls and women. Boys under 14 are able to pick over oakum and to do other work that girls of the same age can do. The older boys can adjust and tend the knitting machines and pack and deliver the finished product.
Men and women in many of the state institutions will be glad to contribute a share in service. Thomas Mott Osborne, while warden at Sing Sing, organized through the Mutual Welfare League a large class of men who enthusiastically gave up their evening periods of recreation in order that they might knit for soldiers in foreign fields.