The Parents' Review

A Monthly Magazine of Home-Training and Culture

The Teaching of Needlework.

We usually hear Needlework spoken of as an art, but it is, I think, making too high a claim for needlework to place it among the arts. That it held a modest place among them some centuries ago is undoubtedly the case, and that it is capable of artistic treatment at the present day is also undeniable; but its utilitarian side has developed so greatly, and its artistic side has suffered such degradation, that I think we should rather regard it as an art of a past age than as entitled to claim a place among those arts which are active influences to-day.

In saying this I have no desire to speak slightingly of needlework, or to detraction any way from the honorable position which it holds in the estimation of all right-minded people. On the contrary, I consider needlework, rightly regarded, as an instrument of training which may be made of immense service in the education of children. But I think the opportunity it affords is too often wasted, because it is taught in a conventional way, which may result in the acquirement by the pupil of the power of making microscopic stitches at the expense of her eyes, her time, and her temper, but which may have no other result, except that of giving the child a hatred and disgust of needlework for the rest of her life.

In the teaching which aims only at a mechanical perfection of this kind there is no value, and a pursuit which might be made of educational service is rendered tedious to both teacher and taught, and no one is any the better for it. Nothing is achieved beyond a few hundred little dots of more or less dirty cotton, which represent the labour of weeks, and which could have been better done by a second-rate sewing-machine in ten minutes.

I do not think we have succeeded in fitting needlework into its proper position, either as a factor in education or as a part of ordinary life of women, and I believe the fault lies in the fact that practically no attempt is made, in the teaching of needlework, to take into consideration the advance of ideas during the present generation, with regard to the powers and functions of women, and the new facilities which science has contributed to hand labour. In the light of these ideas, needlework should have been brought to assume a different place in the education of girls from that which it has hitherto occupied, and the teaching of it should have become modified in accordance with the new demands upon women, and the new adjustment of means to ends.

The question is, what are the purposes and aims of needlework, and further, how are these aims to be most perfectly carried out? Whether you rank it as an art or merely as a craft, needlework must fulfill one of two purposes--it must be either useful or beautiful, and it may be both. So that the whole value of needlework rests upon its title to utility or to beauty; and whether it has a title to one or both of these qualities, must depend upon what the current standards of utility and beauty are.

This opens before us a very large question indeed, and it is just this connection between the teaching of needlework and the wider ideas of life to which I want to draw attention, because I believe that connection is apt to be overlooked, the result being that needlework is taught conventionally because it is supposed to be the destiny of every girl to learn it according to old patterns and standards, and not with sufficient regard to the practical application of the study to the actual life she is to lead.

It will be best to regard needlework from the three points of view I have indicated, namely, that of beauty, that of utility, and finally as bearing upon the practical life possible to most women of the present day. We must, in doing this keep in mind the fact that a constant change is going on in ideas with regard to all these things, and that what was in accordance with standards current in past times is not necessarily in accordance with those current to-day, and further that the art, the clothing, the handicrafts, and all the material products of any period ought to be, and to a great extent must be, the expression of the thoughts and sentiments of that period.

Now needlework is not the mode of expression taken naturally by the thoughts and sentiments of the present day. As a means of artistic expression it is out of date; as a mode of historical record it is entirely superseded.

In past times, when pictorial art had reached only a very primitive stage in its development, women spent long hours in portraying the events of the time with their needles upon canvas. We have a splendid monument of skill and patience and artistic effect, as well as a most valuable assistance to the history of the time, in the Bayeaux Tapestry. Everyone who has see it must have wondered at the amount of artistic effect which mere needlework, done so many centuries ago, could achieve.

But to do such a piece of work now would be not only a waste of time, but a misapplication of artistic expression, because we have advanced so much since the eleventh century, that we can express ourselves in another medium very much better as well as much more quickly. Pictures of historical events will always be valuable as records, but it would be ridiculous for women to set to work to depict in crewel work the marriage of the Duke of Coburg's daughter, or the Labour Demonstration on May Day.

My argument is that needlework does not and cannot occupy the same position in modern times as it occupied in ancient times, and that its is a misuse of needlework to attempt to effect by its means what can be far more effectively done by painting, so that by forcing needlework into line done by painting, so that by forcing needlework into line with pictorial art we are doing needlework no service, and are doing much mischief in other directions.

One harmful result is that a misuse of needlework engenders a deterioration of taste and artistic perception, and realise the sort the sort of effect which can be produced by certain methods and materials. In fact, to do all this women must be artists. But alas! too often the women who work designs in wool and silk are very far from being artists. Any woman thinks she can manage such materials, and if she cannot design she flies to a draper's shop and buys paper designs by the yard, neither knowing or caring whether they are really good, nor even whether they are suitable to the particular material or purpose for which she means to use them. The consequence is that we get a multiplication of hideous objects, a lowering of the standard of taste, and most deplorable waste of time, money and energy.

I do not wish to be understood to object entirely to needlework as a mode of decoration. On the contrary, I know that very beautiful work can be done with the needle, and as it is of a lasting nature it is all the more valuable. But I think we ought to try and realise that it has limits, and still more to accept the doctrine so eloquently preached by Ruskin, that in order to be really beautiful the decoration of an object should be suitable to its purpose. He speaks of architecture, but what he says applies exactly to decorative needlework, which can only occupy its proper place if it is appropriately applied. To be truly artistic, the beauty of an object must grow out of its use, and just as the carving and variety of line and curve in a decorated building should be exactly adapted to its form and the purpose for which it is built, so the decoration of a dress or a piece of furniture in needlework should be in harmony with its shape and its intention. There is no intrinsic beauty in stitches. No garment is made more beautiful by innumerable rows of "tucks". Or, if it is pleasing to some eyes, to see straight lines which have no connection with the structure of the garment, no one can receive pleasure from the knowledge that each stitch in those rows of lines has been put in by a human hand, in such a way as to appear as much like the work of a machine as possible. The brain had nothing to do with it,--the eye and hand alone were subjected to mild torture, in order that a useless and unbeautiful effect should be produced. The utter absence of design is the one thing noticeable.

Having attempted to deal with needlework from the point of view of beauty, we have next to examine it on its claims to utility. Here i feel that we are on firm ground, and are putting needlework into its true sphere. Treated simply as a means of producing what may be beautiful but is necessary, needlework finds its level in a moment. It is in fact a means and not an end, and in the teaching of it I would urge a candid recognition of this fact by the teacher. The object with which she teaches needlework is not that the girl may be able to make small stitches, but in order that when she is grown up she may be able to construct from beginning to end, the clothes that she and her children have to wear, and moreover, what is equally important, may be able to mend them.

(To be continued.)

Typed by Sarah Delgado, Oct. 2024