But such cases must have been rare; whereas in the days of exhibited garments, detection being almost impossible, anything may have been done. In one large town it was rumoured that there was a depôt which lent out on hire garments for the day of inspection. This may be regarded as evidence not so much of what was done, as of what was possible. It is certain that in some other schools the best girls made all the garments, and the work of the inefficient was suppressed. When the Code made fraud too easy, I blamed the Code. In those days every pupil-teacher, and every woman sitting for a certificate, had to present to the Inspector a garment as evidence of her skill as a needlewoman: and on this she got marks which counted for the examination. There was nothing on earth to show that the presenter of the garment had made it, and of course one could not ask questions. “I am surprised that Mary Jane has failed,” said a schoolmistress of my acquaintance, “she wasn’t that bad at sums, and it wasn’t for her needlework, for I did that myself.” Oh, Adam! When we remember that he had no one to associate with but Eve, we cease to wonder that his moral sense weakened. “She gave me of the tree.” One more reminiscence. Lady managers often would say to me, “Why don’t the girls learn to sew? They come here as servants, after having been in the school for years, and they can’t do a thing?” I heard this repeated for years, and could not reply. Nor indeed did I pay much heed: lady managers were always on the warpath. But one day I mentioned the gravamen to a colleague, and asked how he explained this failure of our system of education. “Pooh, pooh,” he replied, “did you ever hear of the monkeys on the West Coast of Africa, or somewhere, who, according to the natives, could talk if they liked, but they won’t, because, if they did, they would have to work? That is what is the matter with our girls. They go out to service, and if they confess that they can sew, they are put on to do all the household sewing, besides their regular work: so they pretend they are useless and the ‘missus’ gets a machine.” It may be so: it is only married men who are in a position to reveal the secret workings of domestic life. “When you’re a married man,” said Mr. Weller, “you’ll understand a good many things as you don’t understand now”--I commend the rest of his profound utterance to the attention of the reader. It occurs in Chapter XXVII. of _Pickwick_.[43] FOOTNOTES: [41] This form of double tapestry must have been difficult of execution. How did they hide the stitches on ‘the wrong side’? [42] Because to work cleanly counts for merit, and washing pre-supposes dirt. [43] “But vether it’s worth while goin’ through so much, to learn so little, as the charity-boy said ven he got to the end of the alphabet, is a matter o’ taste. _I_ rayther think it isn’t.” CHAPTER XXVIII UPHEAVAL “Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee, thou art translated.” _Midsummer Night’s Dream._