Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/835

Rh colored boy too old for his class, who was supposed to be simpleminded. A boy who was sure he could not make anything brought a wire hanging-basket filled with wood-moss and ferns and a blossoming anemone.

The girls' work of this grade begins to show the effect of training at home, and is more conventional than that of the boys. The specimens included white undergarments, neatly made and trimmed; aprons of various styles; knitted dolls' hoods, lace and crochet work; baby's clothes, crazy-work mats, dressed dolls, bean-bags, pen-wipers, and pin-cushions.

Of the third school year, the children being seven and eight years old, the girls' work did not differ materially from that last described. In the boys' department, wheelbarrows appeared to be a specialty, but we found also saw-bucks, bedsteads, boot-jacks, a gunboat, a cross of wood mounted for wax-work, a fort, and mounted drawings; many houses, made of common pasteboard, with doors, bay-windows, dormer-windows, and porticoes; a boat, noticeable for its neat oars, and its row-locks made of black dress-eyes.

In the products of the next two years, by children from eight to ten years old, while the boys' work was still mainly confined to toys, that of the girls appeared to be growing more practical. Pride in execution was shown in both.

Boys' work: A velocipede, small but complete, with hubs, spokes, felloes, and tires represented by lines of black; a substantial and neatly finished wagon; clothes-horses, step-ladders, saw-bucks, easels, ocean-steamers, and catamarans, seemed to be favorites; several forts were exhibited; a curious vase was ingeniously made from a tomato can, with a large black spool serving as pedestal, the whole decorated with gilt paper and bright-colored pictures.

Girls' work: Sofa-cushions, pillow-shams, aprons; a white Mother Hubbard dress; machine-work, tucking, lace, darned socks, splashers, a quilt, crazy-work, albums of stamps, and pictures.

In the sixth and seventh years, representing children from ten to fourteen years old, all the work was elaborate and well done, but was participated in by a smaller proportion of the pupils. The work of the boys was less prominent than that of the girls, but was more practical than in previous years.

The boys' work comprised chiefly cabinet-work (book-cases, easels, checker-boards, a table), a door-mat of coffee-sacking tufted with rope ends.

The girls' work included excellent plain sewing, exemplified in children's dresses, fine aprons, and underwear; fancy-work (painted cards, embroidered banner-screens, lace, a crib-quilt, an embroidered table-scarf); bread, cakes, pickles, etc. There were many hundreds of other articles in the exhibition, a large majority of them creditable productions, and all representing earnest effort.