This reminds me of a conversation I had with the proprietor of the shop
where I used to buy my daughters' school uniforms. Her family was from
India, and she herself had been to university and gained a degree in
Art. However, she said that the consequence of the girls being able to
be educated to university level was that they were no longer learning
the traditional embroidery skills from their mothers - she said that her
mother was a skilled embroideress, doing wonderful work with mirrors,
etc, but she had not had the time to learn any of these embroidery
skills from her.
Consider how many of us have learnt to make lace later in life than
childhood - some, I know, have learnt from mothers and grandmothers, but
many of us didn't have time until we had got our education, and in some
cases, young family, out of the way. Maybe the same will happen in terms
of the embroidery mentioned above, but do we need to think in terms of
education encompassing traditional skills as well as the academic
prowess our politicians and quangos think are far more important?
In message <[email protected]>, [email protected] writes
The claim is that apprenticeship is very long, 4 or 5 years, and must be
started very early. At 13 the girls leave school and have not time to
acquire the skills for lacemaking as they must go to work immediately,
and so
have to become housemaids instead. "The speech goes on to list the evident
advantages deriving from an industry that could solve the unemployment
problem, stop the depopulation of the countryside and, because it was made at
home, hold the family unit together."
--
Jane Partridge
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