Again, at other times, we see broken locks, windows unglazed, and furniture needing repair, all making necessary a kind of work women could easily perform, and yet left neglected because the men do not find time or are unskilled for the performance. In a country like ours, the emergencies of the family state often demand the exchange of the ordinary labor of men and women. Frequently, in newer settlements, no servants can be found, while the wife and mother is confined by sickness. In such emergencies, skill in performing woman’s work is a great blessing to a man and his family. So the soldiers, sailors, engineers, and all roving men need the skill of the needle that preserves clothing from waste. In our late war, millions would have been saved had all the soldiers been taught to sew in their boyhood.
In this view of the case, industrial schools, to teach both boys and girls all the economic skill of the family state, are of great importance, and a department for this purpose should be connected with every school, especially the public schools, where most of the children will earn their own livelihood and be exposed to many chances of a roving life.
Attempts have been made to introduce sewing into public schools, and usually with little or no success, from many combining difficulties. One of them arises from the increased number of classes for this purpose; which would be relieved by having boys taught to sew in the same class with girls. Another difficulty has been the providing of materials for sewing and the previous cutting and fitting needed, which the parents refuse to supply. A method which meets these and other difficulties, and which has been successfully tried in industrial schools in England, will now be described.
Let a fund be provided by school officers, or by contribution, to provide needles, thread, scissors, and thimbles of various sizes, and place them in the care of the teacher. Let two half-days of the week be devoted to this and other industrial employments, giving, as a reward for success in careful, neat, and quick accomplishment of the duties, the time left beyond that used in the task as holiday hours.
Let the first lesson be the use of scissors, in cutting straight slips of newspaper, thus training the eye and fingers to expert measurement and motion. Whoever excels in the performance of the allotted task in less than the allotted time is to be rewarded with the time, thus gained, for play.
Next, let the class cut broad strips of paper, and practice doubling them in a hem, first narrow and then broad. This also cultivates the eyes and trains the fingers.
Then give a lesson to teach the use of the thimble, using a needle without thread, and paper slips to set the needle through.
Let the class now have pieces of cheap and thin unbleached cotton, and cut off from it strips two inches wide, being directed to cut by a thread, At first a thread may be drawn to guide the eye. Then, these strips are to be cut into pieces five or six inches long, turned down and pinched to prepare for oversewing, and then put together and basted with a needle and thread, the teacher setting the example.
This last operation is intended to prepare two strips to be sewed together by oversewing. In this operation colored thread should be used in order to make the stitches show more distinctly. Meantime, the pupil is trained to make the stitches equal in depth, and also at equal distances.
The teacher is to be provided with a blank book for each pupil, and on the first page is to be inscribed, Oversewing. Beneath this word is to be fastened a specimen of the stitch, as soon as the pupil has attained the degree of excellence and accuracy required.