The next lesson is Hemming. To prepare for this, let the scholars first cut, out of newspaper, pieces three inches square, and fold a hem on each side till it is even and smooth.
Then the unbleached cotton is to be given to be cut and prepared in the same way. Finally, the hemming-stitch is to be taught, and the child be required to practice till the stitches are equal in size and regular in both slant and distances. When this is well executed, the specimen is to be fastened to another page of the child’s book, under the word Hemming. In the same way, the various stitches used for running up seams, for felling, darning, whipping, buttonholing, stitching, and gathering, should be taught on small pieces of white or unbleached cotton, using colored thread.
The books in which are fastened the finished specimens of sewing should be preserved by the teacher and exhibited at the school examinations, as an encouragement to excellence. In England, the ladies of wealth and rank take pains to establish and superintend, among the poor, industrial schools in which are taught other domestic work as well as sewing; and, as the consequence, their servants and dependents are well trained for the duties of their station. It is hoped that American ladies will make similar efforts for the children of the poorer classes, and employ all their influence to promote industrial training in our common schools; and also, to see that instruction in these important matters be given to their own daughters, who may become mistresses and directors of future homes, or who, in the constantly changing fortunes of our land, may need to perform as well as to guide the doing of these homely duties.
It is a mistake to suppose that sewing-machines lessen the importance of hand-sewing. All the mending for a family, and much of the altering of clothing and house furniture, must be done only by the hand. In all poor families that own no machine, and in all cases where persons travel, the whole sewing needed must be done by hand.
It is especially for the benefit of the poor who can not have machines, that all the children of our common schools should be taught not only to sew, but to mend and to cut and fit common garments. Hard-working mothers can not teach this art, and the school-teacher is the proper person to do it. Nor should this be added to the ordinary severe and wearing labor of a teacher, but other less important branches should give place to this. It is the constant complaint of all who are seeking to help the destitute, that women are not trained properly to do any kind of domestic work, and there is no way in which philanthropy can be more wisely exerted than in urging the establishment of industrial schools.
It is the hope of the writer that a day is coming when all women will be made truly independent, by being trained in early life to employments by which they can secure a home and income for themselves, if they do not marry or if they become widows. This is what is done for daughters in European countries, and should be done in our own.
Institutions for training women to employments suitable for their sex should be established and endowed, the same as agricultural and other professional schools for men. When this is done, there will be a liberal profession for women of culture and refinement, securing to widows and unmarried women such advantages as have hitherto been enjoyed only by the more favored sex.
CHAPTER XXIV.
ACCIDENTS AND ANTIDOTES.
Children should be taught the following modes of saving life, health, and limbs in cases of sudden emergency, before a medical adviser can be summoned.