The first look of finish depends more upon the help of the teacher than upon the efforts of children.

Their results must be waited for, and they will in the early years have a humbler, more rough-hewn look than those in which expert help has been given.

But the educational advantages are not to be compared.
A four years' course, two hours per week, gives a thorough grounding in plain needlework, and girls are then capable of beginning dressmaking, in they can reach a very reasonable proficiency when they leave school.

Whether they turn this to practical account in their own homes, or make use of it in Clothing Societies and Needlework Guilds for the poor, the knowledge is of real value.

If fortune deals hardly with them, and they are thrown on their own resources later in life, it is evident that to make their own clothes is a form of independence for which they will be very thankful.