A BELGIAN SCHOOL EXHIBITION.

DURING

II.

Mademoiselle's conversation, Madame had

dozed and smiled by turns! but as the tram halted at the station where we were to dismount, she alertly collected her parcels and her children together, and took us under her guidance.

After ten minutes' walk we entered a pretty avenue, planted on either side by acacia trees, whose graceful foliage weaved a long archway of delicate design, outlined against the blue of the sky. At the end stood the convent-a modern building, but in richness of cut stone and red brick suggesting the quaintness of the Dutch Renaissance.

We passed through the great doorway, and merged ourselves in a long stream of visitors who were filing through the hallladies in daintiest gowns of Brussels workmanship, mingled with peasant dames who wore the picturesque dress of the Flemish peasant. Madame conducted us through the crowd to a bright-faced sister, to whose care she committed us and herself went in search of her daughter.

Guided by the sister we soon found ourselves in the first Exhibition room of the "Section Professionelle,"--that devoted to lingerie, lace, and embroidery. In the centre of the room stood a bed fully dressed, with linen of embroidered design and initiated ornament-the bed-spread in Renaissance lace.

On various tables were exhibited all descriptions of house linen-shirts, children's garments, a series of beautiful trousseaux, trimmed in some cases with hand-made lace, and rich in various kinds of fancy stitches, garments in embroidered linen, and more homely cotton, and samplers containing the various fancy stitches employed in the work. Near each article was a card, with a sketch in which the young worker had first drawn the garment which her skilful fingers had then fashioned.

In artistic finish, and delicate execution of the most intricate details, these sketches left nothing to be desired. Full-sized

drawings in shaded crayons of the same articles were there also. Books containing notes on the tracing of patterns, and the manner of making them up, also lay on the table; besides account-books giving details of the materials used in the several garments, with the price of each item, and the total cost of the whole.

The lace was specially worthy of note. The art of Bruges and the Renaissance were here represented in great beauty of design and deftness of execution. One could not help being struck by the graduated variety of the work, no less than by the merits of the details.

In reply to the inquiry whether much of the pupils' time was devoted to this work, the sister told us that the work had been executed by the pupils of the "école moyenne," who followed a fairly advanced course of general study in the mornings, and spent the afternoons first at practical housework, and then, according to their choice, in the sections of professional needlework or of agriculture,

Much importance was attached to the instruction in needlework. In some pupils it cultivated the aptitude necessary for the professions they were to follow; but in all it must affect a girl's material happiness and well-being, making her useful in her family, and teaching her love of work, order and forethought. In the teaching the intuitive and rational methods were both employed, so as to develop at once the faculties of observation and judgment. In this respect class collections and drawing were invariably brought into use, and the pupils were questioned as to the reason of everything they did, and trained to calculate relative economy and cost of materials.

We now passed into the room devoted to exhibits in dressmaking. Here were dresses for children, girls, and grown people, which displayed elegance of design, refinement of taste, and neatness of finish. Some visiting toilettes and evening bodices for young girls were models of artistic elegance, yet not so elaborate in costliness of material and ornament as those we had seen in some of the city exhibitions, where the price of these articles sometimes reached an extravagant figure. The girls making gowns for themselves and members of their family, aimed at the practical, but much attention was given to the formation of a correct taste; in the harmonious blending of colours and the like, the useful and beautiful were combined.

As in the first room, we had here also full-sized crayon drawings of the various costumes, in which perfection of proportions and details and the artistic "cachet" of the whole were very striking. Some were tinted in water-colours, and the tasteful mingling of colours in the various dresses was daintly reproduced. We were struck with the prominence given to this kind of drawing, which in Belgium is called "professional," and were naturally led to ask whether much time was given to it, and how it was possible for young girls to acquire such technical skill.

The sister, in answer, told us that the application of drawing to needlework was always insisted on, and that the exercises were combined so as to cultivate the pupil's taste, and to develop the sense of what is really artistic in woman's work. She reminded us of Fenelon's saying that "the needlework which is done without a knowledge of drawing and its rules is in bad taste, without harmony, design or proportion." "With regard to technical drawing," she added, "it is simply a matter of training. In the child's inclination to draw everything it sees and imagines, we find a natural indication that we must develop its taste; at their entrance to the Kindergarten we encourage the children to draw, as best they can, whatever they see and imagine. The results are corrected in class, and they are taught to distinguish between the elegant and the misshapen. From the earliest stages drawing is combined with other subjects, such as writing, object lessons, and history."

"Nor is purely artistic drawing neglected," said our guide, as she showed us a corner of the room in which were several beautifully shaded copies of Greek, Roman, Gothic and Renaissance architectural ornament. There were also some studies from nature and life.

"These," the sister explained, are works done by the older pupils. They represent our efforts after a higher cultivation of the aesthetic faculty. But in all our teaching of drawing, even in the professional, with its practical purpose, we do not lose sight of the value for mental culture of this branch of our work. The judgment and reasoning powers have constant exercise in the continual comparisons that must be made in these studies; reproductive imagination is developed in memory-drawing, while the creative faculty is cultivated in the original designs which our pupils are

encouraged to attempt. In our teaching we have frequent 'causeries,' familiar chats, on the various styles of art as displayed in the masterpieces of architecture, sculpture, and painting. Our young artists are thus led to understand, interpret, and admire the beautiful in art and nature, to form a correct taste and sound principles of judgment. It is surprising how quickly even the youngest child acquires a sense of the beautiful by means that appear so simple."

Before leaving the "professional section" of the exhibition we devoted a short time to another of its branches. In a room adjoining that occupied by the dressmaking exhibits we found a show of what I must describe as bewitching millinery-hats, exquisitely trimmed, and adorned with flowers whose artificial beauty rivalled that of nature. In this art of flower-making these Belgian school-girls display extraordinary skill; every detail of their work bears evidence of cultivated taste, and marvellous deftness of execution.

HOUSEKEEPING SECTION.

"We

Quitting the "section professionelle," we were introduced to a spacious kitchen furnished with all the appropriate appliances. On the walls we read mottoes in French and Flemish, which testified to the importance attached to this branch of the school work. "Les femmes font ou défont les maisons"; "Une femme économe est un tresor dans la maison," etc. This kitchen was a schoolroom for the pupils. We were curious to know whether the practical work done here consisted in the preparation of the meals of the school community. train our girls to cook for their families," the sister explained ; "and there are few families that have, like ours, from 800 to 1,000 members, The girls are taught to prepare a dinner for a family of four, six, or eight persons. We have, as you may observe, separate sets of cooking appliances, and several groups of girls can prepare their several dinners at the same time. The menu in each case is that of the ordinary household. We teach the girl of the middle-class to provide such a meal as the income of her family will allow. The girl who is to be the wife of a small farmer or labourer is instructed in the art of making the most of very small resources; in her case the skill of the housewife will be as important to the well-being of the family as the earning capacity of the husband."

On tablets round the walls were menus drawn up by the pupils for the various meals which they were taught to prepare. Here is one which represents the dinner of a middleclass family:

MENU OF DINNER FOR MIDDLE-CLASS FAMILY OF SIX PERSONS.

The dishes named in this menu were set on a dinner table close by, simply adorned with flowers, and the daintiness of the whole told of a simplicity that was the acme of good taste.

This was the style of dinner to be given in an ordinary middle-class family on a Sunday or small occasion of ceremony, the menu being regulated according to resources and number of guests and their position.

In composing a menu the girls are taught to arrange the contents so that they shall be neither insufficient nor too expensive. They must provide seasonable dishes at a small cost, and select these for their nutritive, reparative, and