Primary Education (1959)

(page numbers in brackets)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages (i-xiii)
Foreword, Preface, Contents

Part 1 Historical
Chapter I (1-11)
Recent History of Primary Education

Part 2 The Primary Schools
Chapter II (15-26)
Introduction
Chapter III (27-36)
Nursery Schools and Classes
Chapter IV (37-55)
Infant schools
Chapter V (56-77)
Junior Schools
Chapter VI (78-105)
The Working of the School
Chapter VII (106-110)
Special Educational Treatment

Part 3 The Fields of Learning
Chapter VIII (113-116)
The Curriculum
Chapter IX (117-129)
Religion
Chapter X (130-134)
Physical Education
Chapter XI (135-178)
Language
Chapter XII (179-212)
Mathematics
Chapter XIII (213-246)
Art and Craft and Needlework
Chapter XIV (247-259)
Handwriting
Chapter XV (260-274)
Music
Chapter XVI (275-288)
History
Chapter XVII (289-313)
Geography and Natural History

Part 4 The Special Problems of Wales
Chapter XVIII (317-329)
Wales

Index (331-334)

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1959
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

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The history of Art and Craft teaching is the story of a slowly changing social attitude, with its broadening conception of the nature and purpose of these activities, and the gradual recognition that in every one of us there is some native power of imaginative expression.

Little remains of the drawings of young children of earlier times, no doubt because their elders regarded what they managed to do, in an atmosphere that was unconducive to such pursuits, as too crude and unfinished to merit preservation. In his book Gentleman's Exercise published in 1634, Henry Peacham wrote:

'Painting I love and admire in others, because ever naturally from a child, I have been addicted to the practice hereof; yet when I was young I have been cruelly beaten by my ill and ignorant schoolmasters when I have been taking in black and white the countenance of some one or other ... Yet could they never beat it out of me, though I remember one master I had took me one time drawing which he perceiving in a rage strook me with the great end of the rod and rent my paper, swearing that I was placed with him to be made a Scholler and not a Painter.'

We may be certain that where they have found the chance children have always drawn and made things - and probably always in the same sort of way; certainly those faint drawings still to be seen upon the nursery wall in Haworth Parsonage share an idiom common to children today. The urge to record impressions of life in this way would seem always to have been present: it is only the official recognition of it that has been long delayed.

The very names by which this aspect of a child's make-up and needs have been known are a clear indication of our changing view of their place and importance in education. The instructions issued to Her Majesty's Inspectors in 1840 contained among the Special Questions on Infant Schools the following:

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'Industry
How many children learn to sew?
To knit?
To plait straw?
To keep the garden-border free from weeds?
To sweep the school-floors, etc.?

Imitative Arts
Do the children learn to draw on the wall or on a board, right-lined figures from objects or copies?
Do they learn to draw the roman capital letters and numerals?
Are these steps the preliminaries to learning to write?
Do they in this way learn to write the letters upon the wall, or on a board?'

By the turn of the century 'hand and eye training' was the watchword. There was much 'freehand drawing' from 'flat copies'; and stress was also laid on making representations in pencil of 'flat' objects such as an umbrella or walking stick hung

*Herbert Spencer: Education - Intellectual, Moral and Physical (1854-1859) Published in book form, 1861.

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upon the blackboard, followed by efforts in the same medium to imitate the appearance of a 'solid' object such as a box or a bottle or sometimes a flower. It was the infants who suffered most at this time. The situation is summed up in a paragraph from the report of Miss Heale, a Woman Inspector of the Board of Education, published in 1905:

'The drawing varies greatly; there is still some work on squared paper in stereotyped patterns, accomplished to the detriment of eyesight and with painful calculation of the lines up and lines down and lines across, which have to be marked with dots before a line ¼ in. long, perhaps, is drawn. The best drawing I saw the Babies do was in sand - just a mouse, without any repetition.'

There are men and women still teaching today who must remember their own experiences as young children in Edwardian times. They will recollect that it was considered sinful to draw in lines as their prehistoric forefathers did, but that all forms were to be developed from a 'mass'. With crayons they were taught to make every shape form a mass, working outwards from a nebulous whirl of strokes at the centre; the cunning child might fix the contours of the tomato or orange that he was supposed to represent with a line as an aid, but this he took care to conceal before his teacher came to examine his work.

These teachers may also remember the introduction of brushwork - how the teacher mixed saucers of water-colour (usually Prussian blue, sap green, or crimson lake) and demonstrated the making of a petal shape upon the paper by pressing upon it a single blob with a soft brush; how formal patterns were built up with these and, when proficiency had been gained, a flower complete with leaves symmetrically placed was painted. In the recently introduced 'Handwork' lesson the more advanced schools gave instruction in making a carefully measured mount or card frame for the painting, and the children who made it well were shown how to embellish theirs with patterns in macramé twine.

But handwork was concerned mainly with the 'paper modelling' - or, for older children, 'cardboard modelling' - of dog kennels, boxes with and without lids, and other objects that lent themselves to such geometrical, manual exercises. There were occasional excursions into modelling with little balls of grey plasticine, and many will remember the progressive exercises devised in rolling and coiling, that culminated in as literal a

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representation as possible of a potato, complete with its shoots, or an apple on its stalk. There were at the same time teachers, working quietly and unobtrusively, who believed that children were capable of more than this. Some of the firsthand drawings of plants, feathers, and other natural objects, for example, rendered in pen or water-colour, by their children, were both sensitive and beautiful.

It was not until the years following the First World War, however, that there was any particular awakening to the potentialities and resources of children. Since the end of the nineteenth century Franz Cizek had been working in Vienna with a rare intuitive understanding of children's approach to drawing and painting; and to many who saw the exhibitions of his pupils' pictures in this country in the early twenties this work was a revelation. English boys and girls, educated under different conditions, would probably not work in this way, but surely the discovery that children have an art of their own - in some respects akin to the art of primitive peoples - would also be shared here. Educational thought at the time was beginning to lead teachers to consider children as growing and maturing individuals, each with his peculiar gifts and personality. The moment was certainly ripe for those teachers, scattered throughout England in towns and villages, who believed in Art and Craft as the birthright of every boy and girl, to go ahead, and this they did. Many encountered opposition and prejudice, and there was for a while great difficulty in finding suitable materials with which to work. Yet that great educational advance of which they were a part is now generally recognised as one of the major revolutions of this century in the teaching of young children.

To the vision, courage and skill of Marion Richardson teachers owe a profound debt. Her struggle to liberate children's urge and power to paint pictures and make patterns culminated in the memorable London exhibition of 1938, when once and for all it was established that some boys and girls are essentially artists.

Only very slowly, however, out of the old ideas of 'Industry' and 'Imitative Arts', and the entirely separate ideas of 'Drawing' and 'Handwork', there emerged the conception of Art and Craft considered as one broad aspect of living. The direct vision and creative attitude of the child surely did not need to stop at painting and pattern-making but might be given an

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outlet also in the great traditional crafts. The section of the Handbook of Suggestions (1937) on Art and Craft opens with this statement:

'Design - the common ground of the arts and crafts. The chief purpose in combining the hitherto separate chapters on 'Drawing' and 'Handwork' and substituting for them a single chapter with the title 'Art and Craft' is to stress the importance of design, which forms the common ground shared by Handicraft with Drawing and every other form of graphic art ... Whatever he creates or interprets, the artist seeks to achieve something that will cause both in himself and in others a feeling of satisfaction - similar perhaps to what we experience in our response to the works of nature - through the use of design appropriate to the medium he has chosen. So, too, the crafts, which are primarily concerned with the making of serviceable things in various materials, have each its own technique. The good craftsman, whilst suiting his material to the particular end he had in view, seeks, like the artist, to arouse similar feelings of satisfaction by the use of appropriate design. Thus, design, - the character of which is determined, in each art, by the experiences it expresses and the medium employed, and in each craft, by its practical purpose and the material used, - provides a link between the arts and the crafts'.

Yet it must be admitted that today, while the majority of young children have opportunities to paint freely, craftwork falls far behind. Trivial occupations, sometimes using spurious materials and often only those that have been 'manufactured', without much relation either to a genuine craft or to the interests and attitude of children, tend to usurp the place of true craft teaching; and the whim of the moment or the use of some fashionable new material too often dictates what is done. It is then that Craft degenerates into a merely manual process in which mind and spirit have no part, whereas it should be thought of as the whole creative process by which a carefully made design or plan is achieved. But where, on the other hand, children's visual sensibility and feeling for material are encouraged from the start, and they paint a picture, model in clay, create a costume, arrange some flowers, paint or print a pattern, or explore the possibilities of all manner of raw materials, including native ones such as rush, straw, willow, wood, wool and clay, with equal zest and sense of purpose, they happily never see any division nor indeed much distinction between these activities. They grow in their respect for materials, for their inherent qualities, and the ways of using them; and because they love

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making things they bring all their imagination and power to whatever absorbs them at the moment.

The foolish separation between Art and Craft in our present day life which has led to the making of so much that is ugly to look at and unpleasant to use should be a warning. We know that if an artist is not a craftsman the less artist he, and we also know that a craftsman worthy of the name is always an artist. Indeed, printing is as much a craft as weaving is an art. The education of children should surely aim at fulfilling their creative powers as both artists and craftsmen; and at the same time it should foster their growth as discerning people, able to choose and select, to discriminate between the true and the counterfeit, to reject the shoddy and false and hold fast to that which is good - in short, to form firsthand judgements, to grow in critical awareness and in the capacity to enjoy the arts and crafts of mankind.

'Do you remember, when you were first a child,
Nothing in the world seemed strange to you?
You perceived, for the first time, shapes already familiar,
And seeing, you knew that you had always known
The lichen on the rock, fern-leaves, the flowers of thyme,
As if the elements newly met in your body,
Caught up in the momentary vortex of your living
Still kept the knowledge of a former state,
In you retained recollection of cloud and ocean,
The branching tree, the dancing flame.'*

*From 'Message from Home' by Kathleen Raine, from Collected Poems. Hamish Hamilton.

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'The sugar bowl, the glass of milk
Would never waver the way people would waver.
The apple lay. Sometimes it did me good
To hold tight to it, a hard ripe apple -
The big table, the coffee cups that never moved.
They were good, they quieted the year.
And my toys did me good too, sometimes.
They were by me like the other things, as sure as they
Only not so peaceful. They stood, as though half way
Between me and my hat, in watchfulness forever.
There was a wooden horse, there was a rooster,
There was the doll without a leg.
I did so much for them.
I made the sky small when they looked at it.
Since, almost from the start, I understood
How alone a wooden horse is. You can make one,
A wooden horse, one any size:
It gets painted, then you pull it,
And it's the real street it pounds down then.
When you call it a horse, why isn't it a lie?
Because you feel that you're a horse, a little,
And grow all maney, shiny, grow four legs ...
And wasn't I wood, a little, too,
For its sake, and grew hard and quiet
And looked out at it from an emptier, woodier face?'*

Through the ages it has been the life and labour of the land and its own native character that have permeated most deeply, and given our Art and Craft - whether professional or in the popular idiom of the people - its essential quality. The weather, the soil, the vegetation and wild life, the variety of the scene, all these have given to men's work a peculiarly indigenous character. Even today, when the local idiom often seems submerged under

*From Requiem on the Death of a Boy by Rainer Maria Rilke (Translated by Randall-Jawell, Partisan Review, 1953).

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industrial development, English children remain essentially English. While they share with boys and girls the world over certain needs and characteristics, they nevertheless retain, in their approach and in their way of using materials, something that is deeply embedded in their native culture. True, the influences upon this culture from beyond these islands have been many and continuous, but each in its turn has been so completely assimilated as to become an inherent part of tradition. There may be few vestiges of folk art alive in England today, yet wherever they are still found they are unmistakable. Perhaps it is the craftsmanlike respect for the materials chosen, the restraint or subtlety of the colour, or the loving attention to detail that shows itself; be that as it may, such work could not have been produced elsewhere: it has emerged from a certain way of life lived in a certain place with long traditions and where certain materials are ready to hand. And this has significance for the teacher, who may not always understand why, for example, a small meticulous drawing made with a fine point may sometimes satisfy a child's need more completely than the now familiar large painting in bold powder colour. It is clearly possible for adults greatly to influence the work of children and for mere passing fashion to dictate what they shall do; yet, when they can feel free to be themselves, children often surprise us by what they choose to do and how they set about it. Moreover, since a child brought up in, say, a northern industrial city or a new housing estate sees and experiences a life very different from that of a coastal village in the south west or a quiet suburb of a cathedral town in the midlands, the paintings he makes and the things he constructs may be expected to show in some degree the peculiar impact of his environment. But the point must not be pressed too far. It is those common attributes and needs among children that will concern teachers most. For instance, in the two-dimensional world of their paintings, problems of recession may not interest many; and proportion, in the adult sense, is not their concern. What the camera reveals is not what they attempt to reveal. Drawing, painting, and making things are for them a means by which they not only explore their world and learn, but through which they also express and sometimes communicate their emotions and ideas.

This is not to suggest that boys and girls are receivers of some heavenly gift that their less fortunate teachers must be

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careful not to sully! On the contrary, if children are to grow to the full they need to be helped specifically and consistently to use this native language that we call Art. The teacher needs to see that it is a fundamental basis for learning and maturing. Like all forms of language, its use involves effort: there must be respect for the materials employed if they are to be properly handled as instruments of ideas. Above all, children have to be helped to observe and see; and their school environment and their experience within it should together lead them to see with a growing acuteness and discernment, with finer appreciation and subtler feeling. Children cannot be expected to grow in visual awareness unless they are taught. Their nature is such that if they are merely surrounded by attractive materials and then 'allowed to develop on their own' they fail to develop but rather repeat a performance ad nauseam and with diminishing effort and sincerity of feeling. Art and Craft are not mere recreation; they involve hard work and constant effort to master materials and techniques as they are appropriate to children's growing needs and powers. It must be recognised that laziness and slovenliness can mar what they paint or make no less than what they do in any other field; and a sense of progression is as necessary here as in every other aspect of education.

The teacher can neither impose an adult standard nor leave children to flounder. Nor can he hope to find that they will conform to any theory of Art. It must be recognised that a way of teaching that makes for freer expression on the child's part also allows for freer expression on the part of the teacher, who must therefore sedulously avoid using the child as a vehicle. The influence of the teacher is undeniably necessary. Just how far it should extend must be decided by the individual, who must face the possibility of a child expressing what is more the teacher's than his own if it penetrates too deeply. What is certain is that it is temptingly easy for a teacher to put too much of himself into the work of his children, and often this happens without his having even realised it.

The essence of the artist is his uniqueness: no two children are alike. Within any group there will be some who, by virtue of their innate sensibility, will see far further and work with much greater expressiveness than others; while some, and especially those with a meagre background, will respond only haltingly to what is offered them. But, undoubtedly, the experience of an

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education in learning to see must be provided for all children - not as an isolated 'subject' or as a set of skills to be practised, but as a very means of learning and living.

The pleasures of looking, seeing and making begin very early in the life of a child. Whatever his background, the materials composing it make some impact upon him; and from the start he uses for his enjoyment those means that might be called without extravagance the equipment of the artist.

(a) Children's sense of shape and solid form

From babyhood a child will have handled flat, two-dimensional shapes like a leaf, or a sheet of paper; and besides he will have experienced a sense of volume and depth in objects that are spherical like a ball or an orange, and in things hollowed out like a bowl or a shell. He will be well acquainted, too, with angular three-dimensional forms like a box or a brick. He will use his hands to realise the solidity and girth of these things, as when he smoothes his fingers round the body of his mug, both inside and out. At the seaside he not only runs the sand through his fingers but draws linear shapes in it too, and he pats and moulds wet lumps of it into solid 'puddings'.

Quickly he recognises differences in shape and size: flat discs, like buttons and coins, are seen to be unlike the spherical forms of marbles and balls, and he loves to sort things and arrange them in kind and size.

Shapes that move, like waves and animals, branches and grasses, trains and motor cars, all delight him, and each seems to impress its essential character upon his vision, or so his early power to recognise and select forms would seem to indicate; and he is soon able to draw them convincingly with symbols and conventions that are often startlingly apt. The helicopter has already taken its place in children's mythology, as the aeroplane and farm tractor quickly did as soon as they came into their ken. The infinite diversity of shapes made by man and the teeming variety of the shapes of nature equally absorb the attention of young children. Nothing seems to be devoid of interest: everything is worth seeing.

(b) Children's feeling for texture

Nor is it only the shape of a thing that draws a child to it: the very nature of its surface, its peculiar texture, must be realised.

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We all know that for the cook, the gardener and the architect, for instance, the element of texture is all-important, and for the young child it quickly shows as a compelling source of interest and wonder. 'Don't touch!' is a hard demand to make, for only through touching and handling is it possible to learn the most intimate nature of a substance.

In his food and in his toys a child will show strong preferences; one prefers the smooth and slippery and another the pitted and rough; one shrinks from velvet and fur, while another finds pleasure in them. What is important to the teacher is to recognise that children generally are so aware of texture that to them it is an essential quality of every shape; and experience shows that many boys and girls are surprisingly discerning in regard to it. A well-shaped plastic bowl may nevertheless be repellent to a child who has already taken pleasure in the glazed surface of an earthenware one; a boy may love to polish a well-used leather belt for the obvious pleasure which its mature patina gives him; the collections which children, from the nursery to the top of the junior school, like to make seem to be selected and enjoyed as much for their individual textures as for their forms and colours; pebbles and stones, fabrics of all sorts, and papers in endless variety, to name a few such collections, are of inestimable value and a constant source of pleasure.

(c) Children's sense of pattern and arrangement

A texture may be so pronounced and so regular that it becomes a pattern in itself: the child may see corrugated packing paper as a pattern of stripes, or a huckaback towel as a pattern of squares. Daily he sees patterns of the orderly kind that arise inevitably out of constructional methods; bands or stripes in boarded floors or wooden palings; chequered patterns of tiled surfaces and window patterns; spot patterns pricked in biscuits; the patterns that threads or cane or willow make when woven; complicated half-drop and zigzag arrangements of brickwork and parquet flooring. He meets, too, the informal patterns of random walling in stone or flint, of the markings of a tabby cat or a speckled hen, of sunlight and shadow, ivy closely covering a wall, people and traffic moving about the streets; or of a group of objects (that the painter would call a still-life).

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A child has an eye

    'for dappled things -
For skies of couple-coloured as a brindled cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscapes plotted and pieced - fold, fallow and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.'*

The teacher who himself cares about pattern will be quick to feed his pupils' desire for finding and collecting patterns from both art and nature, for these will form the source from which their own designing will derive. Indeed, the importance to children of sharing a grown-up's fascination with a phenomenon so deeply rooted in the life and work of mankind cannot be overestimated. Where there are growing plants to observe - with, maybe, photographs that reveal cellular arrangements or other patterns not visible to the sight - and insects and animals to watch; and where children's interest in design is fostered through acquaintance with good printed textiles and well-printed books; and where pattern is seen less as a surface embellishment than as an element that is intrinsic in the object

*From Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

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displaying it, the response is wholehearted. For this is a sphere where no child need meet failure, and here is an interest that may well become lifelong.

(d) Children's sense of colour

The shapes, textures and patterns of things, for a child as for an adult, are of course intimately associated with their colour. The enchanting brilliance of lights, fire, flowers, toys and bright clothing will have been one of the earliest delights. Familiarity with a full, rich red, with a clean, pure yellow, and with a blue that tends neither to red nor green, should be part of every child's enjoyment. This is not to say that muted and subtle colour has no attraction for the very young; observation shows that the reverse is often true, for where red, yellow and blue paints, with black and white also, are provided, and children are encouraged to make their own palette from these raw ingredients, they rarely employ a colour that is not a mixture of several; black and white are freely used to lighten or darken a tone and as frequently to change a colour itself; greys and browns and subtle greens often occur, and pale fawns, ochres and greyish pinks are not uncommon.

Likes and dislikes are both strong. Even before coming to school many children will already have gone through phases of liking this or that colour particularly or of shunning another. It would seem that a colour is sometimes associated with a happy or unhappy experience or person or place, and is liked or not accordingly. Any infant teacher knows that children frequently use colour without any reference to actuality; there is nothing irrational in this, since they have usually no thought whatever of imitating natural appearance. Rather, they tend to employ colour for its own sake, seeming to relish the sensuous quality of the paint itself or the very nature of the fat wax crayon as much as the actual colour. What is clear to many teachers, after the experience of the past twenty years in infant and junior schools, is that colour - whether used as paint, weaving yarns, fabrics, chalk or crayon, card or paper - reflects the personality of the user so unmistakably that they must never be surprised at what any child may choose.

However, as in every other field, there is much to be taught. First, the teacher must take full responsibility for choosing what is brought into the school for the children to use. Here much can

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be done to steer them clear of ugliness, for what is already harsh, vulgar and crude before it ever reaches children cannot possibly be redeemed by being made beautiful in their hands. Then the teacher, in his eagerness to give children access to gay, pure colour, must be careful not to neglect that wide field of subtler colour already mentioned. The collection of natural objects is the obvious starting point. Interest in one such colour, say grey or brown or white, might be focused by gathering and displaying as wide a range as possible of things of that colour only, when the variety within its compass will surprise and interest everyone. To match such a colour in paint is a piece of work worthy of the most intelligent and sensitive junior child. Junior school children, too, will engage with zest in exploring the nature and range of a particular colour; they will only begin to know the quality of yellow, for example, when they have brought together, and arranged according to tone and kind, every yellow thing they can find, from palest cream and greenish yellows, through ochres, golds and orange-yellows, to darker mustard yellows and khaki. Comparing, contrasting, matching, mixing, inventing, and, above all, using colours in association with others - sometimes quite deliberately restricting the palette and at other times spreading the range wide: these are some of the most obvious means of building up in children a foundation of colour experience and knowledge. The ability to select and use colour with confidence can only be cultivated by practice, with much trial and error; to provide plenty of worthwhile, purposeful experience is therefore the prime business of the teacher.

Most of the great crafts of mankind will have impinged upon the lives of children before they come to school. Within the home, however humble, furniture and joinery, pottery and glass, cookery, basketry, textiles and the printed word contribute to the daily life. In books and journals the young child meets not only the ancient shapes of letters but photographs and drawings and perhaps lithographs and wood engravings. Outside he sees buildings, probably both old and new, good and bad, in materials chosen merely for cheapness or more carefully according to their purpose and the resources and methods of the region. A child

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may see the plumber or carpenter at work or his mother making clothes or knitting. In the country he may still watch roofs and ricks being thatched, stone walls being built, hedges being cut and laid, and baskets, gates and hurdles being made; and in town and country he will certainly see amateur gardeners absorbed in their hobby. It is through watching people using their hands on well-chosen materials for a sensible purpose that children gain a proper view of the crafts. They see them then as a part of ordinary life, not as an artificial revival or as a pursuit for the few.

(a) Sources of inspiration

Throughout history the artist and the craftsman have derived inspiration from two great sources - things made by man, and the things of nature - and in their own way children too turn to the works of man and to the objects of the natural world as the inevitable starting point.

(i) Man-made things

The bewildering welter of things made by man, in the past and today, is for children an abiding source of wonder. A motor car, a lawn mower, a cup and saucer or a pair of shoes may be as much the stuff of a child's imagination as an exquisitely engraved glass of the seventeenth century, the medieval carving in the parish church, a fine bridge or the latest ocean liner. It is indeed a comforting thought that the child who daily sees only mean streets and the common articles of bare living is not denied the pleasures of seeing, and he can transmute through his imagination and his memory the most commonplace things, making them the material of his art. All comes as grist to his mill. Though by ten or eleven he may begin to take pleasure in drawing things from direct observation, long before that time he will have been constantly storing impressions of objects, learning about how they are made, enjoying seeing or using them, and unconsciously through his association with them building up some standards of judgement in regard to them. He comes to know what is a 'good job of work' and what is shoddy, what is intended to be temporary and what permanent. Nice finish does not pass him by, and at a surprisingly early age he admires skilful workmanship.

In the junior school, particularly, children can be helped to learn more about things, to see more in them, and to realise more

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fully their pictorial qualities, if an occasion is contrived for some special concentration of interest upon a particular type of object, when a number of its kind are brought together and enjoyed as an exhibition and the occasion made memorable. In local museums and the private collections of friends and the homes of the children themselves there are many more things worth borrowing for such a purpose from time to time than is generally realised. Just as in poetry and story it is found of immense value to be constantly widening and enriching children's diet, so in visual education it is important always to be extending the range, quickening the observation with what is unfamiliar or arresting, beautifully made, old and well-loved, curious and strange, or on the other hand, so familiar that children have ceased to look at it.

In infant and junior schools where there are many good things for boys and girls to see and live with and get to know well, there is a noticeable robustness, strength of attack, and substance in what they do. It may easily happen that a child paints a picture or makes an object that is superficially attractive but empty of content and expressive of no deeply felt experience; on the other hand, that same child may, as a direct result of living in a challenging and stimulating environment and gaining knowledge of things through day-to-day familiarity with them, be moved to make a tremendous effort to give shape to something he has genuinely felt.

(ii) Natural objects

Plants and animals, all living and growing things and the earth itself, are a deep source of wonder to children. If they are given the opportunity to grow and tend plants, to care for animals, and to collect natural objects, children show an absorption and a power of sustained observation that are truly scientific, and it is in this way that they store those impressions that feed their imaginations. They so delight in the divers forms, textures, patterns and colours of nature that they must collect, arrange, and even on occasion classify them. Leaves and flowers, ferns, mosses and lichens; fruits and seeds in their infinite variety of size and kind; lumps of chalk, curious flints, flat slabs of limestone, smooth pebbles - no two alike; grasses, rushes, straw; fungi, feathers and shells with their strange markings; the skins and rinds and coverings of fruits and vegetables - some

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fluted, some glossy, some rough, such things as these that may be had for the finding, are at the root of all design. To house and display such a constantly changing assortment will always be a problem, even in the easiest building; yet it must be faced that familiarity with these things can be one of the most formative influences, and to restrict or deny this aspect of a child's growth is seriously to impoverish him. Not every teacher can be expected to be a gardener or a naturalist, and some may even feel repelled at the sight of the creatures that fascinate their pupils: theirs is a formidable obstacle to overcome, yet if they see the value to their children of imaginative observation they will find a means of fostering it.

A room where there are growing plants to watch, and where the things that children find are placed for all to enjoy, is at once inviting and stimulating; for here is a source of knowledge that can inform all the work that children do and can bring to it a positive vitality and sense of pleasure that is absent in a dreary, empty setting.

In Art and Craft, as in other spheres; children give out only to the extent that they have been filled. The teacher must realise that he has not only the wealth of the world's Art and Craft to draw upon but also the wealth of Nature. If he as an adult draws constantly from these sources, if his own imagination is quickened, nourished, and sustained by them, then this will certainly be true of the boys and girls in his care.

It cannot be too strongly emphasised that a child is affected and influenced, for good or ill, by his surroundings. It has been said elsewhere that the mean street or the featureless suburb can provide material for his picture-making as significant to him as the Cotswold village or Georgian terrace: that is another matter. A child cannot escape the impact of his environment, and it must be remembered that a school is a place specially intended to provide an environment that is good. The new and well designed school building, made of good and suitable materials, is of course the supreme example; though the art of living in a new building, so that its standards are not marred or its opportunities wasted, is one that calls for considerable and sensitive care. Ugliness can

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creep in all too easily. Fortunately it is possible, by determination and imagination, to make any room a wholesome and stimulating place; 'the seeing eye' can transform any environment. Most children daily suffer a bombardment of ugliness and shoddiness; at least the school can avoid adding to the onslaught, and it is within the capacity of any school to show that it stands for honest, decent workmanship and clean, simple standards. 'Good taste' is sometimes a vague, insipid commodity: there can be no recipe for achieving the ideal environment. Moreover, a classroom is not a museum, or a living room, or a show piece; yet by exercising discriminating choice when something new has to be admitted and when materials for the children's use are bought, and by considering the arrangement of the furniture and the way the walls are used, much can be done to teach sound visual standards.

Experience of watching young children shows that from a very early age they begin learning to see. Drawing is for them, as it were, a pre-literate language; it is a fundamental medium through which they perceive, explore, learn, express, and sometimes communicate - though the communication may not at first be conscious. The adult artist and the young child have this in common: as they learn to see they also learn to use these images - compounded of their seeing, remembering and imagining - in their drawing and painting; they constantly dip into their store as they work. It is only by constant looking, searching and observing that true, imaginative seeing can emerge, and the teacher has a significant part to play in helping children in this. As has already been said, it is all too easy to make them see with his own eyes; and if he happens to be caught up in some temporary fashion or whim he may unwittingly cause them to put aside their own vision for the sake of the tricks they are being shown. Further, if the teacher seeks some pre-conceived 'result' from his pupils - determined by some theoretical view of what children are like rather than by seeing them as they really are - this concern is bound to stultify their growth. All teaching must necessarily be influenced by current thought, and the teacher needs always to be aware of present-day trends and values if he is to understand the situation of which his children are the most

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contemporary part. It is not likely that he will have had any specialist Art and Craft training: it is as a general teacher, alive to the needs of his pupils and able himself to gain pleasure from the Arts, that he approaches his work. He will put sincerity as the highest quality in whatever his pupils do. He may need to clear his mind of certain long-held notions, such as that drawing is a matter of imitating a likeness. If he struggles to get his children to draw things 'right' - that is, as a catalogue of graphic facts, recorded as a literal copy of the surface appearance of things - he may fail to tap their latent powers of imagery, in the pursuit of a truth that lies deeper. As he grows, a child's vision will increasingly call upon impressions of things, imaginatively observed, and by the time he reaches the top of the junior school the observation of his physical sight will probably play an important part in what he draws and paints; he wants things to look 'right' in a way that did not interest him formerly. Yet even at this stage the concern with what might be described as the underlying harmony of 'significant form' remains uppermost. In a treatise by the fifteenth century Tuscan painter and teacher, Cennino Cennini, there occurs a description of painting which is as true for us today as when it was written:

'After which comes an Art dependent on the operations of the hand, and this is called Painting, for which we must be endowed with both imagination and skill in the hand, to discover unseen things: beneath the obscurity of natural objects, and to arrest them with the hand, presenting to the sight that which did not before appear to exist.'*

If imagination is thought of less as the ability to invent something new than as the capacity to disclose as new that which already exists, then it must be said that it is very present in the paintings of children. They look at things and are helped to see; and, if their observation is deeply felt, they recognise no such distinctions as 'imaginative' drawing and drawing from 'memory'. There can be no drawing or painting that is non-imaginative, save those graphic records of surface facts made only to serve a scientific or similar end. To 're-enkindle commonplace' has always been and must continue to be the prime aim of the artist.

*Cennino Cennini: The Book of the Art ('Il libro dell' Arte o Trattatto della Pittura'). Translated by Christiana J Herringham, and published by Allen and Unwin, 1899.

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Children cannot be expected to paint or draw with zest and purpose if they have nothing to say. A stimulating school life will often bring them to the point of knowing what they want to do; and it must be said that what thus arises, spontaneously and naturally, out of their own vivid experiences is often their best; for it is then that they pour out their whole being upon the paper. To be told, however, to 'draw just what you like', when there may seem no reason for drawing anything, may prove an intolerable burden. The response made by the majority to such an empty gesture is to give a repeat performance, to play for safety, or just to fill in time. There are many occasions when the teacher very properly plays a part in choosing what children shall draw or paint. He takes up some point of interest and, by description or suggestion, so reveals its pictorial possibilities that his pupils are themselves enabled to fill out the framework. The prescribed or dictated picture may thus have very real value, especially to those children who are not very sure of themselves.

Though the atmosphere may be all that could be desired and the children are on the brink of genuine expression they will fail to gain satisfaction unless the physical arrangements are sensibly planned and the teacher himself has had enough personal experience of the materials to have a broad appreciation of them. Considerable ingenuity is required to make it possible for boys and girls in crowded conditions to work undisturbed. Many schools find that where space and equipment are meagre it is only possible to have a section of a class at a time attempting work on a large scale; in some schools there is rarely any occasion throughout the day when an entire class works as one; and in these all available space and materials are customarily utilised in this way.

Tools with which to draw should be available in as great a variety as possible. Since children naturally draw in line the range may include crayons, chalks, soft black pencils, coloured pencils and pens - for even before they write with pens some children take pleasure in drawing with them; the brush, too, is for many a sympathetic drawing instrument, and where possible there should be brushes both hard and soft, round and flat, large and small. A wide variety of surfaces and tones upon which to draw or paint is equally desirable. If papers of differing thicknesses and textures, shapes and sizes, together with panels of waste strawboard and card are available, the right piece can then

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be chosen to suit the job in hand, and a dead level of uniformity is avoided.

Water-colour, that most English medium of painting, is so subtle and difficult to manage that it will seldom meet the needs of young children, though on occasion they may enjoy applying fresh, transparent washes to some of their line drawings. More generally useful is body colour, either in powder form or ready mixed to a cream in screw-topped jars. The younger children will find enough to satisfy them in a range comprising black and white, yellow, red and blue; with these raw ingredients they should constantly be encouraged to explore a wide field of colour, making all manner of new colours as they mix. For this purpose each child needs a palette, which must be big enough for proper mixing. As they gain experience with this limited range it will be well to enlarge it; two different yellows, two reds, and two kinds of blue will permit wider experiment, and such a range is likely to satisfy the most fastidious and sensitive eye. The teacher's part will always be to encourage his pupils to gain more and more knowledge of colour, to extend their own range by mixing and experiment, to learn to match a certain colour and achieve a certain tone and to note subtle differences.

For many young children, to build up a pattern with lines and broad areas of colour is as satisfying as pictorial painting. They are quick to see the bases underlying the making of patterns - the spot, the stripe, the motif repeated in a number of ways - and they never seem to tire of using them, singly or in combination. Particularly in schools where the rhythmical quality of handwriting is appreciated and where from the start the infants are encouraged, with brush and crayon, to 'write' patterns as well as to draw or paint them, their all-over and border designs will have this easy-flowing, calligraphic quality. Patterns may be drawn in a thick, colourless, wax crayon, and washed over with transparent paint, which the wax will resist, so that the design shows up bright and clear against its background. Another old and equally satisfying method is to comb patterns in the wet surface of a mixture of powder paint and paste, using a pointed stick, a broad lettering pen, a metal comb of the kind used for 'graining' woodwork, or a piece of card with a serrated edge; as

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in the other methods described, the nature of the tool and other materials used will dictate the character of the pattern produced.

While symmetry undoubtedly fascinates children, and they enjoy the formal radiating patterns so abundant in flowers, they also find satisfaction in organising within a given space a pattern composed of lines and masses arranged quite informally. For this purpose they may employ pencil, crayon and paint, or they may use an assortment of pieces of cloth and other materials to build up designs in montage, and - as in appliqué and embroidery - they will enjoy the richness that comes from the use of both opaque and transparent colour. They often love to embellish the surface and enrich the textures of chosen areas until the whole has a jewel-like quality and exists in its own right, so to speak, as a picture.

To make patterns not by drawing or painting but by holding a block in the hand, charging it with colour, and printing with it, brings its own satisfaction. Printed impressions may be made with all manner of devices, from potato-blocks, wooden sticks, the cut ends of interesting stalks of plants, to pieces of strip rubber or other such suitable substance cut with scissors to a pleasing shape; sometimes a block will be used in combination with shapes drawn with brush or crayon.

Arranging certain carefully chosen things to make a pattern, as in the craft of mosaic, also appeals to children. The material which they will collect for the purpose may range from seeds, pebbles, grain and other natural forms to torn paper shapes; the latter will be applied to card or paper, but the former will be pressed into place in some easily yielding background such as a thin layer of white plasticine. While it is clear that an activity of this kind can have only a limited value it must be admitted that there are some children who gain confidence more readily through constructing a design by this concrete means than by any other. If pattern-making is seen as an action, or sometimes as a game, and is never restricted to work on paper, it can then take its proper place as an enjoyable element in everyday life. The arrangement of flowers, to take one example, might well be thought of as making a design; the decoration of the Christmas cake, the laying of a meal, planning a harvest festival, even the arrangement of the seating in a classroom, all involve the making of patterns. The same is true of weaving. When a child first attempts to weave, taking a strand over, under, over, under

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other strands, he sees unmistakably how this repeated pattern becomes the very fabric itself.

Fascination with the way materials can be used is one of the most noticeable characteristics of children. Throughout the primary stage they show eager interest in anyone who is making anything; their absorption in whatever they themselves attempt to make and the lengths to which they are prepared to go in order to achieve their end, may surprise and even confound the inexperienced teacher. All the great universal crafts compel their attention. But their degree of manual capacity and their interest do not suggest that they should themselves learn to practise any one of these crafts further than to satisfy their own enquiring minds: they must all learn handwriting, and there are other reasons besides historical ones why needlework may still be regarded as a craft to be learnt as a separate accomplishment. For the most part, however, to learn something about the nature of certain basic materials and methods and the nature of certain traditional crafts, rather than to acquire any specialised skill in their practice, should be the aim. Above all, children need opportunities for personal experiment and expression; the results they achieve must be viewed in this light, for what they do should be appraised by the teacher in his knowledge of each child's capacity, rather than according to some preconceived standard.

In the nursery and infant school many opportunities can be found for giving children that broad experience of materials which may later serve them more specifically in connection with a craft.

No age is too young for a child to handle clay. Potter's clay of good quality and in ample quantity, stored under damp cloths in a galvanised metal bin, is now regarded by many schools as an essential part of their equipment. The act of pounding, kneading, and shaping this amenable substance carries with it a unique satisfaction. What is 'made' with it seems far less important: something that is first called a boat may the next minute be a bowl or father's hat and when the session is over it becomes once more a part of the half-hundredweight lump in the bin. Seldom, indeed, even at the top of the junior school - except in special

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circumstances where a suitable kiln is available - will there be any need or reason to preserve an object beyond the normal life of a piece of unfired clay. Though children will put a great deal of themselves into making pots, both coiled and pressed, usually at the suggestion of the teacher, their modelling is more likely to take the form of figures and animals and other objects connected with whatever is the most absorbing interest of the moment. Where soft stone is ready to hand, or in downland country where there are lumps of chalk in plenty, older children may choose to carve rather than to model, using the simplest of improvised tools for the purpose.

From early childhood, boys and girls will construct houses, buses, ships, tractors, and the like, quickly seeing the potentialities of whatever materials can be gathered together. Laths, planks, blocks, and odd pieces of timber, with appropriate tools for shaping and construction, together with strawboard, corrugated card, hessian and other sorts of cloth, wire, rope, rubber tubing, gauze, dowel rods, boxes of all shapes and sizes, sheets of polythene, and whatever clean waste material can be found, will all serve their purpose. Girls as well as boys will want the pleasure of discovering how things are made and the satisfaction of seeing an ambitious piece of work through to its conclusion. There are some who will always prefer to work alone, but much will be done in groups, usually with one child recognised by the others as the leader.

It is regrettable that for many children, as soon as they cease to be called infants, these experiences, with all the endeavour and learning involved, must cease. Such things as wood and woodworking tools are no longer considered fit for girls to handle, and instead they ply the needle; boys are no longer expected to tack or hem, but pursue some restricted geometrical exercises, or at best follow a graded course in a particular craft. With changing interests some change of approach and organisation is obviously necessary. But a vigorous life in the junior school can hardly be lived without a great deal of simple constructional work, the making of models, designing and sewing, and much else that involves - albeit at a different level - the kind of experience with materials associated with the infant school, and this experience will need to be continued by both boys and girls. At the junior stage, however, children's interests penetrate more deeply. For example, interest in making puppets, in

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dressing up, together with a growing knowledge of substances such as wool, linen, cotton and modern fibres, may lead to closer enquiry and experiment. A boy may prepare raw wool, spin it with a spindle of his own making, dye it with plants he has himself collected, and weave it on a loom which he has constructed. A girl may want to know how patterns on cottons are printed. She may print a fabric with a block; she may produce another pattern by applying it to white cloth in a dye-resisting wax, plunge it into blue dye, and finally iron out the wax to reveal her design, white against a blue ground; or she may experiment with an equally old method by which she first dyes her cloth and then applies the pattern with a bleaching agent; she will not employ the materials of industry but use instead permanganate of potash as a dye and lemon juice to discharge the pattern. After such experiments children will look at textiles with a closer and more critical attention.

Any small child likes to be taught the proper way to fold a large sheet of paper, first folio, then quarto, then octavo, to make a book, stitching it in the traditional way of the professional bookbinder. If from their early years children are shown how to work in this way they will make books and folders as they need them, without fuss or the need for apparatus. There are countless occasions for producing books for special purposes, when the kind of paper, the size, the cover, and the layout of the pages must all be considered as a whole. The arrangement of writing or lettering upon a single or double page, the margins, and the illustrations are all matters of intelligent concern that can be taught by day to day familiarity; constant reference to good examples - which are fortunately abundant today, and many of which can be collected without cost - is perhaps the best teacher. In schools where boys and girls habitually make records of what they do in the form of books, and where at an early stage they become practised in dealing with paper and card, in tearing and cutting it, in stitching and in using adhesives, there is a craftsmanlike approach to work and a real sense of accomplishment.

It is tempting to measure the success of Art and Craft teaching solely by the quality of the drawings and paintings, models, puppets, and books that the children make: the charm of young children's work can easily cloud the judgement of adults. Where Art and Craft are realised not as an isolated 'subject' but as an

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integral part of the school's life and learning then what is produced is a reflection of the school's whole attitude of mind. Art and Craft are thus seen as a part and function of the whole curriculum, just like reading and writing.

'At needlework in the afternoon she was no better. The girls around her in the class were making pinafores for themselves, putting in tiny stitches and biting off their cotton like grown women, while she was still struggling with her first hemming strip. And a dingy, crumpled strip it was before she had done with it, punctuated throughout its length with blood spots where she had pricked her fingers'.*

'would never pass that eagle eye without stern criticism. She would work slowly along the form, examining each piece, and exclaiming that the sewing was so badly done that she did not know what the world was coming to. Stitches were much too large; buttonholes were bungled and tapes sewn on askew; and the feather-stitching looked as though a spider had crawled over the piece of work. But when she came to examine the work of one of the prize sewers her face would light up. "Very neat! Exquisitely sewn!" she would say, and have the stitching passed round the class as an example.'**

*Lark rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson (OUP 1945) p. 178.

**Ibid., p. 190.

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Arnold, in his General Report for 1878 - that is, some sixteen years after the introduction of needlework into the curriculum - regrets that 'the bulk of the secular education given in our elementary schools has nothing of that formative character which in education is demanded', and goes on to say, 'As regards sewing, calculating, writing, spelling, this is self-evident. They are necessary, they have utility, they are not formative'. Behind those words there is the feeling of one who must often have seen six year olds at their weary, profitless task of trying to acquire proficiency in 'thimble and needle drill' and endeavouring to perform complicated feats of stitchery on unyielding scraps of fabric. It is not strange that in the tedium of minute stitching - seam-and-fell, run-and-fell, stroking of gathers, setting into a band, tucking and frilling - he could find little that was reassuring. Every technique had to be separately mastered before a child was judged competent to begin the hand-sewing of a garment, cut and fixed by the teacher, which would ultimately be assessed as a compendium of stitches rather than as a piece of clothing to be worn.

Comfort lies in the fact that then, as now, fortunate children enjoyed valuable experience at home by watching the skilled woman at work, by playing with the household piece-bag and dressing dolls and dressing up, and so gradually acquiring the wish to make things themselves and the ability to match the wish. If ribbons and lace and all the delightful printed stuffs were denied them in the schoolroom, at least at home many were able to realise something of the intense pleasure of a craft that has always played a large part in the lives of people of all ages in all countries and in all cultures.

The Report on Children under five years of age in Public Elementary Schools by Women Inspectors which the Board of Education published in 1905 is illuminating. It shows that still in some schools there was sewing for four to five year olds for three hours per week 'with No. 6 needles', though in others 'Needlework and knitting and their attendant drills are practically absent from the teaching of children under five'. The chief fact that an investigation into children's eyesight brought forth was that the number of girls with bad sight was very much in excess of that of the boys, in fact nearly twice as many. The Report observes, 'As needlework and knitting are the only occupations indulged in by girls and not by boys, the above facts

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seem to point to this subject as the probable cause of the mischief'.

As a result of such investigations much bigger tools (too big, many would say) were introduced into the schools. With the use of larger tools there was unfortunately a corresponding loss of rhythm in much of the sewing. Most schools shared a set, universal scheme, in which processes were taught and then applied to the making of 'garments' carefully graduated in difficulty. For the most part the planning and cutting out were still done by the teacher, who by now, however, had access to a pleasanter variety of textiles from which to choose. Calico and flannel gave place to some of the attractive newer materials; coloured underclothes and printed cotton dresses became the fashion, and the market was filled with gay and inviting fabrics. Probably the most powerful influence was the great change that took place in children's clothing as the mass of garments of Edwardian days gave place to simpler, lighter, well-cut clothes. The schemes of needlework in the schools reflected the change and some of the obsolete processes were abandoned and simpler, bolder work was attempted.

By the early twenties the use of brightly coloured fabrics (including extremely coarse hessian and canvas), large needles and coarse threads were firmly established. This was an era of 'decorative stitchery': it gave joy and satisfaction to the children because for the first time their thirst for colour was met and they were able to execute the work with reasonable speed. At its worst the work was ungainly and superficial; the large stitches and over-embellished surfaces were often quite unsuited to any everyday use. The work was not always related to the experiences of children but was thought of rather as a preliminary stage to learning to sew - though it often failed in this objective because the tools were ill chosen. At their best, however, the results were delightfully fresh and spontaneous and reflected the children's own pleasure. The craft was thus freed from the limitations of mere utility and the way was opened for much that is done in primary schools today.

(a) Children up to seven

Needlework is much more than using needle and thread to

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sew; and it is hardly possible either to think of it or to teach it in isolation from other activities.

The materials of the craft are part of the children's earliest experience and touch their lives at many points. They are dressed and help to dress themselves in clothes that are variously fashioned and made of different fabrics. They handle the furnishings around them and get to know the materials of which their soft toys are made. They watch people knit and sew by hand or by machine. Both at home and at school, in young children's play the devising and wearing of clothes, veils and headgear often take a prominent place. Children seem to enjoy the contrast between different textures, and they use eagerly all kinds of braids, tapes, laces, buttons, pins and beads. They never tire of wearing cloaks and hats and flowing robes and trains.

The infant school recognises the value of such early experience and seeks to extend it by helping children to find their way further into the craft. Besides the costumes for dressing up there should be attractive boxes for pieces of cloth of all kinds, which the children sort and arrange as well as use for their own purposes. Bits of fur, velvet, feathers, ribbon, paper and card of different colours and textures, cord and balls of wool and whatever stimulating materials of this kind may come to hand should also be saved and made available for the children to use.

To the discovery of the nature of materials is added the discovery of tools and what they will do. Children want to emulate grown-ups, and, working in homely fashion, they are as eager to use scissors, thread and needle as paint brush, rolling pin or saw. If they are given the chance and suitable tools with which to work, boys and girls in the infant school plan, cut out and make clothes for dolls and articles for their play ranging from the strip of cloth, loosely tied and crudely tacked, to the simple garment perhaps of magyar shape. In so doing there is no conscious disregard for niceties of finish or wear: the whole aim is to contrive something to serve an immediate and usually urgent purpose.

Perhaps because of its association with grown-ups at home knitting is often a favourite pursuit among both boys and girls in infant schools and in spite of its complicated movements they achieve a considerable degree of success.

In all this the teacher gives the kind of help a mother gives: the occasional word and suggestion, unobtrusive guidance, or

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direct help, and always the opportunity of seeing her at work herself. It is probably from this last that most is learnt. If the teacher sees her part as not primarily instruction in technique but as helping children to employ fabric and thread to make what they have set out to make she will find the best time and the most appropriate way of giving help or of showing how something is done.

(b) Children from seven to eleven

Boys and girls entering the junior school with a background of craft experience of the kind described are ready to go further and deeper as their interests change and their powers grow; if they have not had such experience in the infant school, what has been described above makes a good starting point, even in the junior school, if allowances are made for the greater range of the children's interests and the growth of their powers of dexterity. Children in the first year or two of the junior school continue to enjoy using fabrics in many ways, cutting, shaping and sewing, dressing dolls, making puppets, furnishing and equipping many things used in their work. They often print patterns on the material they use. Much of what they do will grow out of the day to day experiences of the classroom, and many children write about the things they make. They need and like to finish their work quickly using the kind of technique that suits the purpose of the moment. At the same time, much teaching and guidance can be given individually and in groups. It is not always realised how much is achieved by children in this way. At this stage foundations are laid for future development of the craft: stitches and processes are mastered as they are needed in situations understood by the children. Many of the exercises in the teaching of sewing sometimes found in the lower classes of junior schools have been found to be unnecessary; such repetitive exercises may be at the expense of the children's planning, measuring and cutting for themselves. Even at this age, when children are interested, they are prepared to repeat and practise whatever skill they need to achieve their aim.

Boys and girls should continue to work together at this stage. The recommendations of the Cross Commission of 1888 that instituted 'linear drawing for boys' as a proper alternative to plain sewing for girls, has been unfortunate both for the boys and the girls. There are schools where the teaching of art and

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craft is planned as a whole, and on any one occasion boys and girls, working singly or in groups, may be modelling, painting, sewing, weaving, making models or puppets, printing patterns, or making simple books. In such schools there may be no special periods set aside for teaching this or that particular craft and, at least in the first two years of the junior school, boys and girls share in them all.

In the later years of the junior school, however, boys and girls begin unmistakably to show differences in their interests. Yet many girls continue to enjoy handling clay, cardboard and sometimes wood, and boys still turn to fabrics, needle and thread as they need them. In a minority of schools, therefore, boys and girls remain together for craftwork, including needlework, even at the top of the school. Much depends upon the accommodation and equipment available, though most depends upon the point of view of the teachers.

However the junior school is organised, it is comparatively easy to allow for a great variety of effort and achievement in the lower classes, but, as in other fields of work, as children grow to the top of the school they become more skilful in the use of tools and materials and want their work to approximate much more closely to adult standards; the girls like to make simple garments and articles which they can wear and use with pride. This is the most difficult stage in the teaching of needlework. It is essential that whatever is produced should be planned and made from start to finish by the girl herself, and therefore a scheme of work should show progression in all sides of the work and not in sewing only. Too often progress is measured only by increasing skill in stitchery or by more difficult construction. The same progression should be found in the choice of material, ability to measure and cut, and skill in all that goes to the making of what is undertaken.

Sometimes the children make simple paper patterns and occasionally they use bought patterns. From time to time they need to make things quickly and without much finish, and here there might be greater use of a sewing machine since children today often use one at home long before they meet it in school. There must be time too for continuing experiments with material, including the making of things of perhaps little lasting use in themselves, but of great value to the girl herself at that particular stage of her progress.

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To plan for such work makes great demands on the teacher. A good scheme of work provides for great variation in the children's skill and leaves opportunities to pursue unforeseen interests. Sometimes the class may work as one, perhaps in the discussion of materials or in the enjoyment of a small exhibition. More often the children work in groups receiving as much teaching as they need at the time, while a few girls may work individually each on her own separate job.

Whatever the planning of the work may be there are certain principles to be considered. A child needs to be helped to give shape to her ideas and to see a piece of work through to a satisfying end. At the same time it is out of her acquaintance with interesting well-made things that, in a large measure, she learns discrimination and builds up standards of judgement. While few schools, perhaps, are able to acquire a wide collection of first range examples of needlework, all can from time to time borrow a few and display them well. Perhaps the work that is indigenous to the British Isles is our most natural source of inspiration even in the junior schools. Though this work does not include the kinds of things which the children themselves are likely to make, it is good for them to see the fine examples of needlework from other times and places. Such displays might include a smock, a patchwork quilt from Wales or Durham, a Shetland shawl, lace from Devon or Buckinghamshire, fishermen's jerseys, or a christening robe of an earlier time; to these may be added the beautifully hand-sewn clothing of Victorian and Edwardian days, and good examples of our own time from countries other than our own. In homes and private collections and in our local museums are countless pieces of needlework of great interest and a school should help the children to know any of these which are accessible.

Secondly, if children are to cultivate their power to select the right material for the right purpose they must be given the chance to choose from as great a variety of materials as possible. The initial selection must of course be the responsibility of the teacher, who needs always to be on the look out for what is stimulating and fresh and suitable for them to handle. Besides traditional materials - wool, cotton, silk and linen - the teacher will need to explore the possibilities of fabrics woven from some of the man-made fibres and yarns.

As in the infant school, the piece bag - or, better still, the

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collection of attractive boxes to hold fabrics and oddments of many different kinds - will continue to be a very necessary part of the equipment. This may contain materials which the children cannot yet handle with technical skill, though they learn a great deal from using them in their own way. In addition to, and often alongside, this experimental work children need to be helped to use a more restricted range of fabrics, attractive in colour, plain or simple in design, and of such textures that the handling of them is easy. They must have appropriate tools: needles of suitable length and thickness that can easily be threaded, scissors that cut efficiently; pins with good points, thimbles that fit, and an iron to smooth and press. There should be a variety of suitable sewing threads. As in any other subject there must be books to turn to for pleasure and information - books which are dictionaries for sewing, with good photographs, patterns, charts and diagrams. One of the useful developments in the teaching of needlework in recent years has been the greater use of self-teaching apparatus in which stitches and processes are shown, stage by stage, in the actual size likely to be used in the articles which the children are making. Children need to be taught how to use these aids but, having learnt, they are much more independent of the teacher.

Thirdly, competence only comes through a certain amount of trial and error, and it must be recognised that when children cut cloth they may sometimes spoil it. A supply of cheap experimental material is therefore needed, and it should not be expected that, with children of this age, needlework in schools can pay for itself out of the sale of its products.

As they grow older children will become more critical of their work and increasingly aware of the standards generally accepted by their elders. By the age of eleven many of the abler girls will be competent in a variety of ways. They will have some genuine understanding of the nature and inherent qualities of many different materials and they will plan, select, cut and use them in a craftsmanlike way. They will have mastered some of the established processes of construction and decoration, and may be able to use a sewing machine. Their own stitchery can be expected to have an easy rhythmical flow. It is possible that they will have made fabrics themselves, either by weaving or knitting; they may also have spun and dyed some of the threads they use. They may have printed fabrics with blocks they themselves have

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cut, or have embroidered cloth with coloured wools and threads. Their experience of the craft of needlework will in no sense have been a watered-down version of that of adults; from the start they will have been taught time-honoured ways and means that they can go on using all their lives.

As in other subjects, the children at the end of their junior schooling will vary greatly in their achievements. While the best may be working with the dexterity and confidence of their sisters in the secondary schools, others may still be finding the use of needlework tools and materials a difficult art and will need much more help and encouragement before they master it.