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89
and other troubles, and the good results thereafter following, told me
that here was a great field of usefulness, and my imagination was fired.
The experiment has been justified by its success. By this time, in
none of the three classes which I teach, do I remember that I am
teaching sick people. Lewisham students have their own way of
expressing their contentment. For two years they were the show class
and were inspected, examined and ceremonially visited by every possible
authority, I should think, in London, so that now even a Royal visit
would not unduly agitate us. The students were continually bringing
me little newspaper cuttings. We were in the papers again. I know
that for the members of this group life without Monday morning arts
and crafts class would be more than incomplete.
At Deptford and Greenwich, where the workrooms are larger and
therefore more suggestive of a workshop, a low whistle often fills the
air, the whistle of men contentedly working. One imitates exactly the
blackbird's note. "Turn out that blackbird," I say, but I really do not
mean it. It may mean spring and new life, here indoors, as well as
outside.
Oh yes! there are women in the class as well. They show their
satisfaction by busily-moving fingers, and happy little conversations
among themselves.
They work at several different crafts, leatherwork, glove-making,
leather flower-making, stool-seating with sea grass, cane-edged trays
and fruit baskets, raffia-work, embroidery of the peasant variety, etc.
I have a list of over twenty possible occupations. Some take kindly to
one thing, some to another, but we never have a downright failure.
Something useful and not too uncomely is always produced.
Leather-work is the most popular, because it gives the greatest
artistic scope, and the results are the most useful. It is also the most
expensive, but not nearly so expensive as people think. The absolutely
necessary tools are not nearly so numerous as the text-books lead one
to suppose, and if the materials are notxheap, the finished articles are
worth a good deal more. And we have found it can be disposed of, and
the work made to pay its own way.
Here may I quite plainly say that there is no idea of teaching these
people a "trade." The terms of my engagement with the London
County Council forbid me from encroaching in any way at all upon the
realms of "trade." With the money side I may have nothing whatever