Chapter XVIII: Handwork

“No line of culture is complete until it issues in motor habits
and makes a well-knit soul texture that admits concentration
series in many directions and that can bring all its resources to
bear on any point.

“Fully assimilated knowledge that becomes a part of life is
strength—but that which is undigested and not transformed into
carrying power, but is a burden to be carried in memory, is an
added cause of tension and fatigue.”

—G. STANLEY HALL.

Three fundamental principles are to be noted:

1. All is grist that comes to the mill of the handworker.

2. The one element that will transform any object or combination of
objects into a created product is imagination.

3. The purpose in the children’s handwork is not the production
of finished products, but creative self-activity, invention,
self-reliance, the making of things to use, the utilizing of
materials found in the environment, the putting of ideas into
concrete form, the acquisition of dexterity with the hands, the
development of brain centers through use of the hands.

The nursery, playroom or yard should have a corner for tools
and materials adapted to the muscles of small hands and arms. A
workbench of a height adapted to the child at each stage of his
development, can be purchased at the large hardware stores, or can
be made from a heavy packing box. Tools should be kept in good
condition, and materials neatly shelved. The child at two years
can begin to keep his workshop in good order.

=Forms of handwork.= The suggested list begins with the simpler
forms and continues to the more difficult, in each group.

Painting: using a house-painter’s brush for real or imaginary
(with water) painting; freehand painting of pictures; painting in
of large, simple drawings, made with heavy line

Drawing: freehand drawing of known or imagined objects;
illustrating stories; copying simple borders or geometric
designs; creating borders, patterns for wall paper, or other
decoration

Paper tearing: simple circles, household utensils, tools,
animals, trees, dolls

Paper cutting: as in paper tearing, when child can easily handle
blunt-pointed scissors (about five years); cutting out pictures
with heavy outline (not under five years)

Modeling: moldings and forms, learning to manipulate soft
material; making beads, nests, dishes, furniture, dolls, animals

Carpentry: hammering, sawing, planing; making simple dolls’
tables, chairs, furniture; making dolls’ houses, children’s
furniture, wagons, toys

=Tools.=

Hammer, light weight
Wooden mallet
Small size, sharp saw
Coping saw
Small size, sharp plane
House-painter’s brush
Vise
Gimlet
Screwdriver
File
Small, blunt scissors
Weaving frame

=Materials.= Whatever the habitat and environment provides.

The country child is the more blessed of the gods, for he has
Twigs, branches
Corncobs, silk
Acorn cups
Straw, hay
Milkweed pods

The city child can more readily find

Spools
Pasteboard boxes
Wooden boxes
Wooden buttons

Every child has at hand

Clothespins
Wrapping paper
Corrugated pasteboard
Match boxes
String, rope
Leaves
Vegetables
Scraps of cloth and leather

Purchasable material which may be useful, to be bought as needed,
will include:

Whitewood, ¼ inch, in assorted widths and lengths

Whitewood, cut in circles, assorted sizes

Water colors, dyes, dry colors and shellac, large crayola

Glue, paste

Modeling clay, plasticine, plaster of Paris, Portland cement

Paper: bogus, cartridge, book-cover, Manila, builders’, water
color, drawing, colored, gold, silver, crêpe, tissue

Nails, tacks, and screws in assorted sizes

Cloth, yarn, leather, raffia

Board: bristol board, cardboard, binder board

Hinges, locks, staples

Brass paper fasteners

Paint boxes should contain only the three primary colors (red,
yellow, blue) and black, so the child can learn to mix his own
colors.

Labeled boxes for materials should be kept on the play shelves,
and scraps of everything usable from the household kept in these.

Dry clay powder is the cheapest form of modeling material;
composition clay or plasticine are cleaner.

Plaster of Paris and Portland cement are easy material for
children to work with. They should be mixed with lukewarm water
until the consistency of thick cream.

Dry colors purchased at the paint shop may be mixed with the dry
clay powder, plaster of Paris, or cement, for color effects.

Children who live in the vicinity of a pottery can have their
clay pieces fired. Enamel paint or water glass will waterproof
clay. Decorations may be made with water colors or shellac
varnish mixed with dry colors.

=Handwork that is Injurious.= The fine muscles of the fingers and
eyes are undeveloped in the child under six years, and the nervous
system is easily fatigued or overstrained. Handwork that involves
use of small objects, as toothpicks, straws, lentils, peas, tiny
beads, cambric needles, thread, 1-inch blocks, small papers, is
a nervous strain upon the child. Fine lines, dots, holes, the
following of a fine line in cutting or coloring, are also injurious
to the eyes. Such fine material and work is no longer used in
kindergartens that have respect for child hygiene.

Too long seated application to work at a table is also injurious.
Half an hour is long enough for any child under nine years to sit
still at work. If he is voluntarily absorbed longer, some active
diversion should be arranged for a quarter hour, at least.

Work suggested that is too difficult for the child to do alone
either discourages him by its impossibility, or develops dependence
upon others.

=Educational Values.= The handwork is, educationally, a means of
giving concrete expression to imaginative ideas, and of making the
experience of the child more vivid. Stories, scenes from history,
records of the child’s own experience, can be portrayed. The child
does not naturally copy literally from objects.

In the School of Mothercraft Child Garden.]

No effort should be made, before six years, to produce finished
products. Technique or skill in production do not belong to this
period. Vividness, self-expression, development of motor control
of arms and hands, coördination of eye and hand, the joy of
workmanship, the confidence in creating,—these are the purposes of
handwork in early childhood.

The genetic method in handwork is to start with your idea of what
you want to make, and then make it of such material as you can
find. This is Nature’s process, the child’s process, of creating.

The list of ideas to be realized will fall into a few groups:

Dolls in great variety
Animals
Trains
Wagons and other vehicles
Boats
Houses, animal cages, churches, barns, stores
Doll clothes
Furniture
Dishes
Toys for store-keeping—all lines of merchandise
Toys for playing at occupation—all lines of industry
Games

If any genius is involved in handwork, it is in adapting any kind
of material to the realization of any one of these ideas.

=Dolls.= Clothespins with cloth or paper tied on are about the
simplest.

Corncobs, with “real” silk hair, clothes of corn husks or cloth
make popular dolls. Arms may be made of cloth bags stuffed with
paper, cotton, cloth, and sewed into the shoulder seam of the dress.

Rag dolls stuffed with cloth, the features and fingers marked in
with ink or water color. Any one can cut a rag doll pattern from
muslin. (For sanitary reasons, rag dolls are not so popular as they
used to be.)

Nut dolls. Peanut dolls are made by using double nuts, sewed
together to make the head, arms, legs and body; the features and
hair marked with ink. Almond, hickory, hazel and walnut heads are
used, attached to sticks or rag bodies. Corks, clay pipes, bone
buttons, raffia, yarn, may be used for doll heads with these bodies.

Vegetable dolls. Carrots, potatoes, cucumbers, squashes may be
used, and the features marked with ink or knife.

The temporary possibility of vegetable, nut, and other “stunt”
dolls does not add to their popularity. They are of interest
chiefly after nine years, when the doll interest is waning.

Paper dolls. Bodies made of stiff paper or pasteboard, with clothes
that can be taken off and put on. Faces can be drawn with ink or
water colors, or heads from pictures may be pasted on.

Such paper dolls must be of a size to handle with ease.

Paper dolls cut singly or in chains, by folding paper and cutting,
are a source of amusement to children about five, and of creative
enjoyment about eight, when there is the motor ability and
imagination to create them in great variety.

=Animals and Birds.= Vegetable. Use large vegetables for body;
twigs or toothpicks for legs; straw, string, yarn, for tails; pins,
beads, buttons, cloves, currants, raisins, for eyes; leaves, paper,
cloth, for nose and ears; gashes for mouth.

Paper. Cut out freehand, or from heavy outline, in newspaper,
drawing paper, wrapping paper.

Pasteboard. Cut with strong scissors or with coping saw. These
may have legs, heads, and tails made separately and attached with
thread, string, or fine wire so they will move.

Wooden. Draw from paper designs, cut from whitewood or other soft
wood, with coping saw. These, too, may have movable limbs.

* * * * *

Kindergarten supply houses publish a set of paper patterns for
animals and one for birds.

Animals and birds may be colored with water colors. Or wooden ones
may be painted “true to life”, using the shellac and colors; about
three coats are required. They are then waterproof, and the colors
will not run. A paper or pasteboard support can be fastened to the
back side of animals so they will stand up. Birds may be hung by a
thread from the ceiling or window frame.

Boys who can whittle can carve out animals, thus providing some
with three dimensions.

=Houses.= Houses are easily made from boxes by cutting out or
drawing on doors and windows, with slanting or flat roofs of
pasteboard or corrugated board. Porches, lean-tos, extensions,
chimneys, steeples, gables, can be added by gluing or sewing on
additional pasteboard. Castles, forts, silos, water towers are made
from round boxes. Houses may be decorated with water colors.

Animal and menagerie cages are made by cutting out strips from one
side of a box. Staircases are made of folded paper or bristol board.

Paper houses can be made from stiff paper, with doors and windows
drawn or cut out. These are easily made, and a source of amusement
for a rainy day, but not highly valued because not enduring.

Wooden houses are the joy of childhood. A house small enough to be
convenient indoors, or large enough to play in outdoors, is one
of the chief rights of childhood. For children under six or seven
years, a packing box can be used. Two boxes of the same size make
a two-story house. The children can scrub, sandpaper, paint, the
outside and floors, design or saw out windows, put in partitions to
divide into separate rooms, add a slanting roof and chimney. Doors
may be added with hinges. Bricks may be made of clay and fastened
together with cement or glue for a tiny brick house. Staircases are
made of strips or blocks of the wood.

Children over seven can build a real wooden house with a little
suggestion. They are also able to make small cement blocks for a
block house. Boys of ten or twelve can make a log hut.

=Trains, Wagons, Boats, Vehicles.= Pasteboard vehicles can be made
from spool boxes, candy boxes, match boxes. For wheels use spools,
round wooden buttons, round box covers, milk bottle covers, circles
cut from pasteboard. For axles use skewers, toothpicks, nails.
Axles and wheels may be tacked, sewed, or pasted to the wagon.
Axles may be dispensed with, and the wheels pasted directly to the
wagon box. Dashboards, seats, canopies, foot rests, smokestacks,
cowcatchers of paper or pasteboard can be pasted on, or attached
with brass paper fasteners.

Paper wagons and cars can be made from a paper square folded into
sixteen small squares, the sides and ends turned up and pasted, and
paper circles pasted on for wheels. Paper seats and canopies can be
added. The proportions can be changed by cutting out some of the
squares.

Wooden vehicles are most satisfactory, because they can be made to
really go, and boats can be sailed,—which is a boat’s very reason
for existing.

For wagons or cars, a soap box or starch box is very satisfactory.
The axles should be securely nailed on, absolutely straight.
Material for axles and wheels will depend upon the size of the
wagon and degree of efficiency desired. For small, crude vehicles,
large wooden button molds, wooden spools (possibly sawed in half)
may be utilized for wheels, and toothpicks, kindergarten sticks, or
twigs for axles. A small nail or small circle of pasteboard, wax,
or plasticine slipped on to the axle, each side of the wheel, will
keep the latter in place. For more efficient and finished work,
wooden disks of a suitable size and with the hole bored through,
and the round sticks of a size to fit them, may be purchased from
the carpenter shop or planing mill. Or the holes may be bored with
the gimlet and filed out to size. The axles are glued into the
disks, then glued, nailed, or screwed to the wagon or car body,
and the edges filed or sandpapered so the wheels will turn. Or the
disks may be nailed at the end of the axle, using a heavy nail
with large head. For nicer work, regular wheels and axles may be
purchased at the hardware store.

The engine smokestack is made from an empty spool or round box
glued on. The cars are coupled together with string, wire, rope, or
tiny chains purchased at the hardware store.

The simplest boat is merely a raft with a string tacked on, a spool
smokestack, or a sail of paper on a wooden toothpick or skewer,
tacked on one end or put into a nail hole. Beyond this is the two
or three-decked boat made by fastening small wooden fig boxes or
cigar boxes to the four pillars made from slats of a fruit crate,
the first deck tacked to a thick block of wood for a keel. This
boat will carry real cargoes.

A raft, either doll size or real size, of half-inch board nailed
to two parallel joists, can be made by the six-year-old. With the
coping saw, a sailboat deck with pointed ends can be made from the
whitewood, a block nailed beneath for keel, a sailcloth of muslin
hemmed and fastened with cord or small rope to a mast that fits
into the hole bored by the gimlet.

Any number of tiny boats may be made of corks, nutshells,
eggshells, with sails of paper and cloth, masts and oars of
toothpicks, skewers or twigs, seats of paper or pasteboard.

Rafts may be made of sticks, corncobs, or strips of bark bound
together with raffia, grasses, or cord. A canoe may be made of
birch bark or leather sewed together at the ends, and lined with
oiled paper, rubber cloth or oilcloth to make it water-tight. This
will carry dolls and cargo.

=Furniture.= This can be made by the wholesale.

Paper. The easiest way is to use the paper square, folded into
sixteen squares, folding and cutting away to get the desired
proportions. Paper circles are used for wheels, rockers, mirrors,
stove lids; silver paper for mirrors; gilt paper for brass
ornaments. Water color gives realistic touches.

Pasteboard. Sheet bristol board may be used, first drawing the
design carefully, providing for lapping, folding along the marked
lines, and pasting the laps. In this way any desired size can be
had. The designs can first be made in paper.

Pasteboard boxes require less work. Spools may be glued to a box
cover as legs for a table or chair. Small spools for legs, or
pasteboard semicircles fastened on for rockers, transform a box
into a cradle. Safety match boxes glued on top of each other,
with a paper fastener or button attached as a knob to the sliding
sections, make a tiny chiffonier; a pasteboard frame attached to
the back has a silver paper mirror or even one of the tiny real
glass pocket mirrors. Beds may be made by fastening a pasteboard
strip for head and foot board to the ends of a shallow oblong box.
A poster bed is made from an oblong box and cover, sticking four
skewers at the corners for legs and posts.

Crude wooden furniture can be made from soft blocks of wood
fastened together with small wire nails. Chairs are made by nailing
a back strip to a block seat; tables by nailing a square or round
top to a center block or to blocks at each corner for legs.

Grocery boxes, shoe boxes, cigar boxes, fruit crates, will furnish
cheap material of pine wood. This, however, splits easily, has
knotholes and splinters, and is a last resort. An assortment of
whitewood, one-half inch thick, in one, two, three and four-inch
width strips, will be much more satisfactory. Patterns and
dimensions should first be made.

=Dishes.= Nutshells, sea shells, acorn cups, leaves, gourds, chips,
corn husks, pea pods, milkweed pods, eggshells, hollowed out
apples, potatoes, squashes are the merest suggestion of the natural
dishes suitable to a primitive and child life society.

Modeling clay or plasticine are the most satisfactory materials for
dishes. Many dishes and utensils can be cut freehand in outline
from Manila or silver paper, tin foil, bristol board. Children at
nine or ten can work in hammered brass and bent iron.

=Games.= Ringtoss. Glue a small, straight stick, as a piece of
a broom handle, upright to a flat board or disk. Make rings of
several sizes from willow or other flexible branches, tied with
raffia or cord; or use embroidery hoops, or rims from cheese boxes,
hat boxes, small kegs. Any of these may be wound with raffia,
strips of colored cloth, or ribbon.

Faba Gaba. Make bean bags of different sizes. Make a frame by
nailing four strips together and nailing two strips across this
square to divide it into four holes. This may be varied by (a)
making the holes of uneven dimensions; (b) making a larger frame
and dividing into six or nine even or uneven dimensions; (c) making
three or four concentric or contiguous circles.

Grace Hoops. Make hoops as for ringtoss, about twelve inches in
diameter. Make sticks about two feet long, half-inch diameter, of
straight young branches, old toy brooms, old curtain rods; or buy
them at the carpenter shop. Rings and sticks may be wound as in
ringtoss.

Colored balls. Crochet covers of colored string or embroidery silk
for rubber balls, or sew segments of colored linen or silk together
for cover. Select carefully a series of true prismatic colors,—red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. Attach a string of the braided
cord, silk or fabric. These are washable and more sanitary than the
worsted balls.

=Toys.= Mechanical toys _that children make themselves_ are of
educational value, as well as interest. In making their own
mechanical toys the children learn the significance of many
principles in physics, and are able to apply these in a variety of
ways. Some children will thus discover principles for themselves.

* * * * *

Toy theaters, with shifting scenery and curtains that can be pulled
back or rolled up and down

Toy elevators that will work up and down to carry passengers

Toy pendulum clocks that will tick

Toy derricks that will haul up a load of sand, coal, or bricks, and
empty these

Woodchoppers, scissor-grinder men, acrobats, blacksmiths at their
anvils, bell ringers, carpenters, laundresses, cooks, housekeepers,
all made to work by the manipulation of strings, springs, or
cleverly balanced and counterbalanced weights, shot or marble

Toy telephones, electric bells, wireless telegraph systems

Automobiles and engines that will go, the motor power furnished by
a spring, windlass, or tiny, homemade electric battery.