By R. Bassett, B.A.
Headmistress, County Secondary School, Streatham
I. EXTERNAL EVIDENCE
Women are often limited in their amusements and in their hobbies for lack of power or of knowledge to use the requisite implements. We may wield the needle, the brush, kitchen utensils, even the spade and the trowel, but what knowledge have we of the chisel, the plane, the saw, or even the friendly gimlet and the screw-driver?
The scissors answer many purposes until the points are broken, but how helpless we are with a screw or a saw, how futile are our attempts to adjust a loose door-handle, or to set the knives of a mowing machine! It is humiliating to call for help in such simple jobs, and tantalising not to be able to enjoy the carpenter's bench as our men-folk do in their hours of leisure.
A really active hobby, one entailing exercise of many muscles, otherwise resting, does help to keep a well-balanced mind and a healthy body. It saves one from fretfulness, from too great introspection; it keeps one cheerful and changes one's attitude of mind when change is needed.
It is possible that the management of big things falls into men's hands because from babyhood they have dealt with larger things than women, and through handling manageable things from an early age have developed the constructive faculty more thoroughly. The little girl deals with 'wee' things: stitches are small, dolls are small; there is a fatal tendency sometimes to 'niggle,' to 'finick'—not that men-folk are immune from this—to love uniformity and tidiness for their own sakes, to seek regularity rather than utility. The little girl, however, must, unless she is too thoroughly supervised, exercise some ingenuity in planning a doll's dress out of a cutting from the rag-bag; but her amusements and hobbies tend to pin her down to small things, and she does not rise far enough from her immediate surroundings. The dress of her little doll will follow the prevailing fashion. Originality in dress is eccentricity.
The girl takes pains to carry out her work (neatness is often the sole aim put before her), the boy finds methods. The girl hovers round the well-known place, the boy makes a bee-line to fresh fields. See how this affects reading: the girl still hankers after What Katy Did, What Katy Did Next, while the boy of her age is reading Jules Verne or Ballantyne or Henty, or if there is open access to shelves in the Free Library near him, you see him finding books on Airships, Submarines, Carpentry, or Engineering.
We started our voluntary classes with these ideas in mind, and at first allowed girls to choose an indoor occupation in the two winter terms instead of outdoor games. Many girls preferred games, but others chose Art or First Aid or Cookery or Handwork or Needlework. They had to work at least a term at the chosen occupation. We felt that the girls gained great benefit from the hobbies, not only in the additional happiness of working at what they enjoyed, but in an increase of freshness of mind for other work. This year we have gone still farther and have given each girl one period of voluntary work in addition to a whole afternoon for games or gardening; moreover, the four lowest forms have each one period of class work in toy-making; yet even now the children say that the time is too short. It is really amusing to see a change of classes in the woodwork-room; the first class dare not and cannot stay a minute after the bell has rung, for the second class is in and already at work.
I have tried to find out what is the great attraction to the child in the handwork lessons; the children's appreciation of the subject will be found in Section II. Probably the strongest attractions are: firstly, they see the building up of a piece of work and the result pleases them (at all events, until they do something better); secondly, they are actively employed, learning by doing, not learning by listening; and, lastly, they love the cheerful noise of the hammer and the saw and friendly conversation.