The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1911-09-14
Blind, Deaf and Dumb Girls Skill
ed in Tapestry.
Miss Clyde 6ayley Teaches AFFLICTED
Young Women to Become Flnan.
cIaIIy Independent-They Arc
Under Care Of the State.

rs SNN - SSoANO q
from Standardization, a wise and
clever woman has made a corner Of
?eace and sunshine where some of the
weak may slip out of the ranks that
ire marching too fast for their
strength-a little space where the
grind of competition does not enter,
nor the jar and clang of the Industries
If the great world; a space where the
crippled and dumb and blind may
develop their powers and quietly grow,
sheltered from the oppression Of the
struggle for bread between weak and
strong.
The old cottage, with its beams dat
ing back to Saxon times, It's smart new
hatch and lavender bordered garden,
Is the studio where are shown the
products of a factory none Of whose
workers is fully equipped for life, yet
their powers have been SO drawn out
and developed under the guidance of
Miss Clyde Bayley, the foundress of the
Industry, that they not only produce
work Of artistic value and lay the
foundations of future financial indie
pendence, but may claim through her
Instruction to be pioneers in the re-
vival Of British art.
For round the walls of the little cot
tage hang sumptuous hand-woven tap
estr1es, here a proud display of armo-
rial bearings, there a subject picture
Of great decorative value, and beyond
q rug of eastern design and color
Ing. On the floor lie strips and frag.
ments of carpet, made after the man.
ner OF those which the girls Of Tabriz
and Kurdistan have knitted with pa
hent fingers through the centuries of
labor, to the accompaniment of monot-
onous chant and song; on the table
lies a figure subject finely woven in
silks, beautiful in texture and strange
color, the work of the lame girl who
met us at the door.
In a neighboring cottage live the
weaver girls of Shottery, and strange
Is the silence of the long room where
they bend over their frames. No laugh
ter, none Of the light, foolish chat
ter of girlhood rises above the sound
Of knots and strings. Before one large
frame; four girls are seated; one is
blind, onessdeaf and dumb, another
crippled, and the fourth can. neither
read, write nor spell, though she is Of
full age.
Other girls work singly' at smaller
strips and panels, and as we pass one
looks up with unseeing eyes, n or
two smile as they see us, but can
make nOsreply to our greeting or ques-
lions. ii an adjoining room a girl
of 16. painfully stunted in growth,
sits cheefully drawing a design for the
next large panel the school will under
take, and we leave her intent over a
branch of may, our queens emblem.
And SO they work in the sunshine
with the wide green country about
them, a fortunate few of the many in
firm who pass perhaps their whole
lives in state institutions, where ne
cessarily but little chance exists of
developing what powers they may pos
sess. Here at Shottery, under the care
Of the committee which receives them
from the state, they spend three years
learning to draw, to spin, to dye their
woods and to weave, to study plant
forms for new designs. and if at the
end of this time they have become eff
Gent workers, they are taken on as
weavers for a regular wage.
n lame girl, for instance, former.
ly a sufferer from hip disease and in
fantile paralysis. has become a weaver
Of some note and is actually the most
skilled worker in the school at pres
ent. She has just invested in gov.
eminent stock the second $500 that
her W labor has won.