MISS JEAN NICOLSON, M.A.
THERE has been a great deal of quiet, helpful work done by ladies of the Church at home and abroad in supplying our South African Schools with garments, sewing materials and knitting wool. Many of these ladies are known by name, others are not, but we wish to thank them all most sincerely for their help.
It is often asked what materials prove most useful. Prints, Ginghams, white and unbleached Calico, and ordinary knitting wool are the materials chiefly used. The girls take great pleasure in choosing a length of print from the cloth on hand, and quite soon develop a taste for what is fresh, pretty and good wearing. Even the little girls tip-toe to test the material between finger and thumb, and ask in broken English, “Is it coming out?” meaning will the pattern wash out. Their print dresses have to stand a great deal of hard wear. At school the dresses are always washed once a week, and when there is an unexpected shower during the rainy season, no one can resist having an extra washing day, and every available bush around Ingwenya School is hung with drying garments. When, in addition, one remembers the heat of the African sun, the scarcity of soap, and that when, too worn and thin for outer use, and with patches more in evidence than the original, the print dress becomes an undergarment it can be seen how much appreciated really good prints are!
As has often been mentioned before the knitting class is the most popular of all, and the girls think it a great triumph to take home a pair of socks for father or brother, a present much appreciated by the menfolk, and a more convincing argument than any other that it pays to educate the girls!
Because Ingwenya is the biggest school it requires most material but a great deal of important work is done in the out-schools, at Shangani, Libeni, Murray Farm, etc., where often the sewing lessons are given by the native teacher’s wife, if she is able to sew, or even supervised by the native teacher himself, very painfully, no doubt, and examined with an equal amount of pain by Mfundisi Tallach, who must be master of all trades, on his inspection visits!
During the past year all the responsibility for sewing and the other domestic subjects has been borne by Mrs. Tallach and Mrs. Macdonald who go up to school each morning for two hours, despite the care of home and children. That this is no easy task will be appreciated by mothers at home.
To all those ladies who have done so much already we would say as the native people do when they are given something nice, “Linga dinwa,” “Don’t be tired.” To the few who haven’t yet begun we would commend those loveable children who are often enticed to school by seeing a pretty garment on a neighbouring child, apparently so small a thing bringing them within reach of all those good things which they so often learn to love and treasure.