Some of the very advanced and extremely superior women of the present day are strenuously opposed to the teaching of needlework in girls’ schools and colleges. A mere handicraft should be beneath the notice of highly intellectual human beings, and should be left to those whose intelligence is of a lower order. That is their creed. I am glad to see that one of the cleverest and most learned women of the time, Mrs. Bryant, D.Sc., advocates, though in a half-hearted and semi-apologetic fashion, the teaching of needlework to girls receiving the higher education. She thinks that, just as a man is a somewhat incomplete person if he cannot make himself useful with a hammer, a plane, and a saw, a woman who cannot sew is equally an anomaly. The man who wants a rent in his glove stitched would be likely to regard her as much more so. But I must not, from this, be understood as advocating the accomplishment of sewing merely with a view to the repair of men’s sartorial damages. This would be to invoke indeed the wrath of the superior woman, who thinks it degradation to stoop to all the sweet, old-fashioned, housewifely uses and despises her gentler sisters who delight in making home comfortable and life smooth for those who dwell with her.

One of the best and foremost reasons for teaching sewing to girls is the training it involves. Our wonderful finger-tips have within them possibilities which oftentimes lie dormant throughout a whole lifetime for the want of education. The Great Genius who made them gave them a capacity of delicate, sensitive touch, which is blurred and lost when not encouraged and promoted. The hands that can wield a needle with celerity and skill have necessarily received a training that tells for them in many another way besides mere sewing. The servant who sews well is the one who breaks fewest things. She has learned to use her finger-tips. The clumsy woman who uses brute force in dealing with the most delicate articles, and is constantly smashing and damaging something or other is she who has never been taught to sew, or in some way had manual training. Its moral value.The value of this development of finger-training is greater than at first sight might be imagined. Through the hands the mind and character are influenced. Patience progresses while the diligent little fingers of the child are at work, conquering difficulties gradually and achieving skill day after day with a continued progression towards perfection. The lesson in perseverance is a fine one, and no less valuable is the necessary exertion in self-control, which soon becomes a habit and works wonders in producing repose of manner. This last may not be a particularly valuable quality, but it is a delightful one in this restless age, when few people seem able to settle down for more than half an hour at a time, even to the agreeable occupation of reading.

It may seem exaggerated to attribute so much to the mere learning to sew; but a little examination into the matter will prove to the thoughtful that there is something in it. Any man, for instance, who has learned even a little carpentering, will admit that the effect on his mind and character of perfecting himself in any one of the necessary processes was distinctly good. It promotes clearness of thought, banishing that vague slovenliness of ideas which is analogous to the ragged edges of a frayed garment. To many an uneducated worker the acquirement of skill in some handicraft has brought with it an upward influence that has led him far in the direction of self-improvement.

But there must be moderation in it. Many an intellectual life has been killed by intemperate sewing. It was the creed of our grandmothers that everything else for girls was idling. Long seams were regarded as the business of young lives, and to be unable to sew well as a disgrace. Harriet Martineau tells us all about it in her “Household Education.” Harriet Martineau on overdoing it.She says, “I believe it is now generally agreed, among those who know best, that the practice of sewing has been carried much too far for health, even in houses where there is no poverty or pressure of any kind. No one can well be more fond of sewing than I am; and few, except professional sempstresses, have done more of it; and my testimony is that it is a most hurtful occupation, except where great moderation is observed. I think it is not so much the sitting and stooping posture as the incessant monotonous action and position of the arms that causes such wear and tear. Whatever it may be, there is something in prolonged sewing which is remarkably exhausting to the strength, and irritating beyond endurance to the nerves. The censorious gossip, during sewing, which was the bane of our youth,” she adds, “wasted more of our precious youthful powers and dispositions than any repentance and amendment in after life could repair.”

In the exhibition of “Fair Children,” held at the Grafton Gallery some seasons since, there was a whole case full of cruel samplers, which must have made many a young child miserable. Because, you know, it is not only the work that is visible that went into them! There were the tedious and endless unpickings when mistakes were made, causing bitter tears of woe to rise in childish eyes. “You shall stay in, Araminta, until you get it right.” And outside was the sun shining, the birds were singing, the meadows full of hay, and the other children romping and shouting. Poor Araminta.Poor Araminta! There was her name embroidered on one of the most barbarous of those dreadful samplers; one with a double border, the outer one in circles, the inner in vandykes. The stitches in each had to be counted, and every one crossed in the same direction. And Araminta was aged seven! There it was, at the end of her sampler, “Araminta Paget. Her sampler. Aged seven.” Composition ambiguous, but meaning clear. Well, perhaps Araminta learned to love her fine marking, and passed many a happy hour singing to herself over her embroidery frame; but it is good to remember that the old tyranny of the needle is past and gone. The invention of the sewing-machine has been to women one of the very greatest blessings of our dear Queen’s most beneficent reign. I am not sure that it was not the real means of introducing many others, legal and educational.

When Caddy Jellaby remarked, “Africa’s a beast!” she was but unconsciously paraphrasing an expression of opinion familiar enough to her contemporaries. How many thousands of girls in those old days have declared, “Berlin wool’s a bother!” And so, indeed, it was. To be able to do what was then called “fancy work” was almost sufficient accomplishment for the young women of the middle classes of those days. Cushions, chair furniture, slippers, and even pictures were produced in this despotic cross-stitch, varied occasionally by a finer and more difficult variety called tent-stitch; and so far from employing fancy or imagination, every row had to be diligently counted—so many brown stitches, so many green, so many red, &c. I have seen hearthrugs worked in this way with Berlin wool in impossibly huge flowers, and the fender-stool was a great favourite in those old days, often made prickly with white beads, in which recumbent lilies were delineated. Fire screens of the hanging banner pattern were esteemed as great ornaments, and I believe I once heard of a carpet worked in sections by an ambitious party of ladies, and afterwards joined together.

But who wastes time over fancy work now? Only a small minority of women, I fancy. There is a market for beautiful sewing and for fine embroideries, but as for futile and inartistic chairbacks and their tribe, their day is done. The exquisite Church embroideries bring in fair incomes to those skilled in that class of work; but there is no longer any demand for the home-made lace that occupied half the waking hours of many a woman’s life in the sixties and seventies. That nightmare is over. But let us hope that skill with the needle will never be despised among gentlewomen. To put it on the very lowest ground, it is a marvellous economy to be able to sew. The policy and sentiment of the matter.If one had to pay for every little repair in one’s garments, as men have, it would cost a large sum of money in every year, for our dresses are not so durable as men’s coats. And even the richest of women can never be absolutely certain that she will not one day be poor. “Nothing is certain except that nothing is certain,” and the changes of this troublesome world are capable of anything. But, apart from motives of policy, the accomplishment of sewing is a part of refined femininity. And think of the pleasure that women would lose without it. Think of the thoughts sewn into the beautiful little garments fashioned for the babies—the hopes and fears, the love and tenderness, and the far outlook into the future that comes with mother-love. All these are stitched in with the flying needle; and who would be without these long, long thoughts? To be able to sew is utilitarian. It is also conducive to happiness.