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inches eye work distance should be quite comfortable for them. In one school where 24 girls were
hemming in the same room as 34 boys, all being about 7 years of age, only 1 boy was frowning whilst
17 girls were doing so. These girls had had six previous lessons in hemming, including four of drill,
so that this was the second lesson in hemming a specimen. Each specimen had been inked in red
and black dots by the teacher, about six stitches to the inch to ensure regularity of stitch. The wasteful
expenditure of nervous and muscular energy displayed by these children, and the clumsiness of
the hands of all the 24 was most striking. 21 held their hands close to their chest wall entailing bent
head, and chin sunk in chest, raised shoulders, or heads held sideways and bodies twisted ; 3 were
squinting and only 1 held her work at a reasonable distance.
Actual sizes. A—Coarse threader for learning. B—Darning needle with wool tied in. 5, 7 and 8—Sizes of
needles from infants' departments, Standard I.
The threading of needles is a very difficult task for many. The needles size 7 and 8 (are about
3.3 cm. or 1 1/8 inch long) have very small eyes (.6 mm. by .25 mm.). The difficulties of the young
children are increased by their needles becoming constantly unthreaded. Two lessons are usually
devoted to learning to thread needles. Watching 40 children of standard I., age about 7, many of
them held the needle about 3 or 4 inches off, and 1 tried for half an hour unsuccessfully ; the teacher
stated that this child had spent the whole of the previous lesson in unsuccessful attempts. In a
standard I. 39 were present and the light was not good, the windows having double-ribbed and wired
glass. 15 of the class were frowning, 10 were threading their needles and the notes made were :—
(a) Two are squinting.
(b) N.R. (vision=6/24) spent 25 minutes in trying to thread a needle, frowning, with
twisted limbs, she was continually letting the needle fall, and spent most of the lesson time
under the desk.
(c) T.S., according to the teacher, slightly defective mentally, did not succeed in spite
of all her attempts in 30 minutes.
(d) E.N. (vision=6/9) sighs heavily, she sits in the front row in a bad light, and cannot
thread her needle in five minutes.
(e) J.E. (vision=6/36) holds her needle 4½ inches from the eye, opens her mouth all
the time in the effort, succeeded after ten minutes.
It was noted too that the children occasionally suck the needles instead of the end of the cotton,
and some suck their thimbles; as these thimbles are used promiscuously they will have to be remembered
if sore throats should be prevalent.
On the other hand, in a standard I. where the children are dull, backward and of the truanting
class, aged 9 and 10, and in standard II., aged 11 and 12, where they had been taught hemming on
coarse canvas with a large-eyed rug needle, most of them threaded a small-eyed needle for the first
time quickly, although the younger children again held the needles 3, 4 or 5 inches off the eye. Headaches
from eye work are rare in the elementary schools. They are almost unknown as ocular headaches,
being chiefly associated with home conditions of debility and want of ventilation and in
children generally with nasal obstruction from adenoids, but in connection with needlework lessons,
headaches do occur and children crying with headaches are almost peculiar to the needlework lesson.
The Learning Of Sewing.—Standard I.—Hemming ; oversewing (specimens), plain knitting,
strips of cotton with two steel or wooden needles. Making articles for use—Hemming handkerchiefs
(for sale), dusters, bean bags (for a game), pillowslips. The materials on requisition are coarse canvas
unbleached calico, white calico (Horrocks), cotton (red blue or green).
A child in standard 0 of a junior mixed department is taught first to thread a coarse needle or
threader (about two lessons). She then learns a thimble drill in four parts, after this a needle drill
which is different in the case of knitting, hemming and oversewing. One may hear these drills chanted
over for ten minutes at the beginning of a lesson, the children making the fine movements without
using cotton. The drills make an adult realise how complicated these fine, and in later years automatic,
movements really are. In answer to an enquiry about a class of 64 7-year old girls the head-