Birmingham age-herald., 1895-06-23


 | practice of a few months, acquire cer- l tain handicrafts. Such an institution is | the Victoria Stiff of Berlin. established
 under the patronage of the crown prin- cess of Prussia. The objection to this worthy mode of assisting women to be , self-supporting is. that what is rapidly learned never permeates, and becomes so completely a part of ones self as that which is more slowly and gradually ac- l quired. Pour water on the sand rap l idly and it runs off; pour slowly and it l soaks in
 A third plan, and it seems to me the ! best of all, being free from the defects of the two systems just mentioned, is that l adopted in the Ecoles Professionelles of | Paris These schools owe their origin to r the efforts of a noble woman of France. | of whom American teachers should know | more, Mme Elise Lemonnier They are sustained by the efforts of a society which she organized for this purpose. Of Mime. Lemonnier herself I cannot here speak further, however inviting the theme. Of her work I will give a very brief account. During the revolution of 1848 thousands of the worlSingmen of Par is, whose families depended for daily bread upon the daily work of their fa- ther were thrown out of employment, owing to the cessation of many large public and private enterprises. The mothers of the hungering children at tempted to supply the necessity, but it
 
 | paid labor for which they longed as for their husbands to get their usually we'll paid employment Mime. Lemonnier at tempted to assist the suffering mothers around her by organizing, in connection with other benevolent ladies, a labor bu-
 reau, where work such as they said they could do, was given out to all women
 who applied for it, and a regular, if
 scanty, support provided for them. Mime.
 Lemonnier, herself a most skillful house. e. oil an Y1tr ciple of St. simon, and an enthusiastic political economist, was surprised and distressed to find how many of the women who applied to her for employ
 ment were utterly ignorant of the sim 1 plest sorts of handiwork. Their hands | were as clumsy and awkward as if they l were tools of which they had never l learned the skilful use. The simplest 1 needlework given out, stitching by hand l the covers for common mattresses, was 1 found to be beyond many of them Mime.
 Lemonnier believed that she saw in this l inability to perform any but the coarsest | and heaviest mechanical work the
 reason. not only of much of the
 suffering and poverty of large | cities, but of much of their deg
 radiation and vice Herself happy 1 wife and mother, her warm heart | yearned over the comfortleSS homes and hapless lives of so many of her country | women. It seemed to her duty laid upon InGSe WOIueIl WHOSt 1lNCo d SOOd providence had placed in shelter from | want and care and degradation to make | some earnest effort to bring to their less l fortunate sisters some of the same bless | ings For some years, with the assist | ance of a few like-minded women, she
 selected promising young girls and placed | them as apprentices to learn various | handicrafts in institutions of France and l Germany, paying all their expenses. In 1 1856 this work was systematized ana or l ganized as "A Society for the Maternal 1 Protection of Young Girls" Societe pour l la protection maternelle des jeunes files. l Eighteen ladies met in the parlor of Mime. | Lemonnier and organized themselves un- | der this name. But the new society soon 1 found the existence of the objection
 which I have mentioned regarding ap- l premiership. The resulting working l working women were too literally
 hands" Neither head nor heart would
 receive systematic cultivation. AS re- | suit of this experience the Soclete pour 1 la protection maternelle deS jeunes niles l was changed in 1862 to "Societe pour 1 penseignement Professionelle des | Femmes" that is, an Association for the
 Promotion of the Technical Education of
 Women. This society proceeded at once | to open schools under it's own care. The
 first was opened and began with six pu- l pills At the close of the scholastic year l there were forty; at the beginning of the
 next year there were eighty; so that the l school had to be removed to larger 1 building where it now numbers 220 pu- l pils-all that can be accommodated.
 Three other schools have since been be- l gun with equal success. This rapid in
 crease shows that these schools had met l deep-seated want. 1t should be re- l marked that this society must be credited
 not only with the good done by the four
 large schools under it's care, but also | much that has been accomplished by ef- 1 forts in imitation of theirs by other as l sociations. For instance, the largest l protestant church in Paris, through the l exertions of it's pastor, M. Berrier, at l present the most distinguished of French l protestant ministers, opened during the
 year of 1878 school of this character in | buildings attached to the church. This l school, to which I paid an interesting visit, is adapted to supply the needs Of | the lower and middle classes of society. But women feel the need of self-sup- l porting in the highest rank as well as in 1 the lowest, and I visited also very fine institution designed to supply this need. | In the institution dedicated to "Notre I Dame des Beaux Arts" Our Lady of l Fine Arts, the daughters of noblemen and government officials, reduced in for tune and other decayed gentry, have | the opportunity, among elegant and re- l fined surroundings to learn many beau | tiful and tasteful occupations. by which l they can afterwards earn a comfortable i support without going out from the shel- ter of their own homes. The painting or l miniatures, China painting, carving in 1 ivory, wood engraving, artificial flower | making, are some of the occupations which can be there pursued. But to return to the regular Ecoles Pro fessionelles of Mme Lemonnier, of which l the two just mentioned are worthy ini- l tations The fundamental idea under l lying the plan of these schools is, that it l is possible to teach a handicraft while | giving the pupil good general eduea- l tion and that this wider and more va l ried culture. far from interfering with 1 the mechanical skilfulness of the pupil l will make her better workwoman. The
 society had an exhibit of their work and I methods in the pedagogical department
 of the Universal exposition of 1878 at l Paris, among many other industrial l schools of various countries. The high | est honors, gold medal and a golden l diploma, were awarded to their display
 The course of study embraces three | years; the literary course is that laid
 down by the French government for