hools it has almost
perished by neglect, or the thorns of the examination programme have
grown up and choked it. This misfortune has been fairly common where the
English "University Locals" and the Irish "Intermediate" held sway.
There literally was not time for it, and the loss became so general that
it was taken as a matter of course, scarcely regretted; to the children
themselves, so easily carried off by _vogue_, it became almost a matter
for self-complacency, "not to be able to hold a needle" was accepted as
an indication of something superior in attainments. And it must be owned
that there were certain antiquated methods of teaching the art which
made it quite excusable to "hate needlework." One "went through so much
to learn so little"; and the results depending so often upon help from
others to bring them to any conclusion, there was no sense of personal
achievement in a work accomplished. Others planned, cut out and prepared
the work, and the child came in as an unwilling and imperfect sewing
machine merely to put in the stitches. The sense of mastery over
material was not developed, yet that is the only way in which a child's
attainment of skill can be linked on to the future. What cannot be done
without help always at hand drops out of life, and likewise that which
calls for no application of mind.

To reach independence in the practical arts of life is an aim that will
awaken interests and keep up efforts, and teachers have only a right to
be satisfied when their pupils can do without them. This is not the
finishing point of a course of teaching, it is a whole system, beginning
in the first steps and continuing progressively to the end. It entails
upon teachers much labour, much thought, and the sacrifice of showy
results. The first look of finish depends more upon the help of the
teacher than upon the efforts of children. Their results must be waited
for, and they will in the early years have a humbler, more rough-hewn
look than those in which expert help has been given. But the educational
advantages are not to be compared.

A four years' course, two hours per week, gives a thorough grounding
in plain needlework, and girls are then capable of beginning
dressmaking, in they can reach a very reasonable proficiency when they
leave school. Whether they turn this to practical account in their own
homes, or make use of it in Clothing Societies and Needlework Guilds for
the poor, the knowledge is of real value