THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
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nize the value of these native industries, the sympathy to understand their usefulness and profitableness to the peasants, and the skill and patience to initiate and perpetuate a scheme for their resuscitation ere it was too late, were found in three successive duchesses of Sutherland. Forty-four years ago Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, the beautiful daughter of the Earl of Carlisle, and Queen Victoria’s chosen friend, organized an Industrial Society at Golspie, a little town on the southeast coast of Suther- landshire, close to her Highland home, Dunrobin Castle. Four hundred people attended its first exhibition in September, 1850, and prizes to the value of ten pounds were awarded to the fancy tartans, tweeds, plaids, blankets and hose exhibited. For several years a similar annual exhibition was held in a pavilion erected for the purpose, until it was no longer in the Duchess’ power to give such active evidence of her regard for the welfare of the Highlands. Rut the Scottish wife of her eldest son— who was Countess of Cromartie in her own right—became the patron of a second series of exhibitions, of which the first was held in August, 1886. The sales realized over two hundred pounds, and thirty pounds were given in prizes. The present Duke of Sutherland, then Marquis of Stafford, had recently married Lady Millicent St. Clair Erskine, daughter of the Earl of Rosslyn, and she, supported by many other ladies well-known in Scotland, and aided by Miss Joass, the indefatigable secretary of the Highland Home Industries, has from the first thrown her whole heart into this work. In 1887 the exhibition at Golspie represented the whole of Sutherland, and men’s carvings were added to women’s spinnings, sales and prizes bringing the exhibitors over three hundred and seventy-seven pounds. In 1888 it was transferred to the Town Hall of Inverness, and not only the number and variety, but the quality of the articles exhibited, indicated the progress made. The exhibitors gained about four hundred pounds, and received orders enough to keep them busy throughout the following winter. Two months later, on November 25, Anne, Duchess of Sutherland, to whose patriotic zeal and untiring effort this success was largely due, entered into rest. In 1889 the exhibition was held in the Earl of Dudley’s London house, opened by Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lome, and presided over by the Countess of Rose- berry. Over six hundred pounds were realized, the exhibits coming from many parts of Scotland, and equally successful sales were held at Inverness and London in 1890 and 1891. Out of this pioneer scheme in Sutherlandshire other schemes have grown, such as those at Beaufort and Gairloch, and Lady Dunmore’s work in Harris. The time-honored distaff and spinning-wheel reject altogether the inferior materials which undiscriminating machines turn into shoddy, and amply vindicate botfTthe artistic and the useful qualities of hand-work.
That civilization means more, even for the poorest, than mere “creature comfort’’ was the thought that led a woman to organize, in 1885, the Home Arts and Industries Association. Its fourfold aim is to train eye and hand, and thus fit for many callings; to fill the idle hours of working people happily; to foster sympathetic intercourse between rich and poor, and to revive good old handicrafts. Its classes, to the number of between four and five hundred, are held all over the country for girls and lads and men, chiefly by lady volunteers; and the London central ofifice, which is managed by a female staff, supplies these classes with suitable designs and organizes instruction for their teachers. Their pupils are drawn from the ranks of unskilled as well as of skilled labor, and are always forthcoming in large numbers. The street arab who came at first “just for a lark,” comes again and yet again for the growing interest of the work, and it has its own quiet influence in civilizing him. Moreover, this unostentatious work must develop some of the latent artistic talent that here, as elsewhere, only waits to be called out and do something to remove the reproach that in matters artistic we are an uneducated nation—a reproach justified not only by the vulgar delights of “ the masses,” but by the prevalent drawing-room “ art criticism ” of “ the classes.”
A wood-carving class for working lads in Ratcliff, one of the poorest parts of East London, was organized in 1884 by the Hon. Beatrice de Grey, and is now carried