SPINNING DEPARTMENT
I should like to add a few more facts about the spinning department, before I come to weaving.
In Ashadha the students were more energetic than before. The number of regular students was 21, and these in 23 working days (there being six holidays in the month) spun 30 pounds and 24 tolas of yarn of about 12 counts on the average, fit for warp. At ten annas a pound, this means a wage of Rs. 19–2–0. The total number of hours of spinning was 1337. At 4 hours a day it should have been 1932 (23 number of days × 21 number of students × 4). This deficiency is not due to idleness, nor to headache. Complaints of idleness have now quite ceased. And students now understand that headache may prevent one from reading or working sums but not from spinning. They have also realised that if the arms are fatigued by fetching water or swimming, there is nothing like spinning for removing the fatigue. The thing is that those students who have mastered spinning were engaged in carding and other process. If full time had been given to spinning, we would have turned out a proportionately bigger quantity of yarn.
The spinning power of the students is increasing every day. The student who spun 7 tolas an hour during the Satyagraha week is now no longer a prodigy and others are fast overtaking him. One day a girl spun 9 tolas of uniform and well-twisted 12-count yarn in 6 hours. At the above rate this means a wage of 2 annas 3 pies. For 8 hours therefore the wage would be 3 annas, for 12 hours 4 annas 6 pies, for 14 hours 5 annas 3 pies. But it is hardly necessary to emphasise the pecuniary value of the work, so far as schools are concerned. The point is that by constituting spinning as a permanent part of our school curricula we provide manual training of the highest kind and at the same time prepare for the re-advent of a day when spinning will be as much a part of our domestic economy as say cooking.
Y. I.—11th Aug. '21.
THE ADVANTAGE OF THE THIN SPINDLE
Since we introduced the thin Spindle, we have been keeping a number of them in reserve. When a student has his spindle bent, it is not corrected there and then but he is at once given one of the spare good ones, so there is no delay. Afterwards all the spindles that have gone wrong are collected and corrected together.
The sadi, i.e. the wrapping on the spindle which serves as a pulley, is often cut by itself and has sometimes to be cut off in order to correct the spindle. A new sadi has to be wrapped and for this a bottle of thick gum is kept ready at hand. It must be made of fine strong yarn, and be wrapped very tight. If it is loose, the string which revolves the spindle (mala) sinks in it and cuts it asunder, and at once the spindle stops. If the sadi is made of coarse yarn, it becomes rough, and so the mala does not run smoothly, and the spindle throbs and causes breakage of the yarn while it is being spun.
Pairs of chamarakhan (leather-bearing) also are kept in reserve. When these become too soft by an excess of oiling or by rough handling, they must be changed. Now-a-days we make them from raw hides and not from leather or bamboo, and so they keep longer.