But while the general arrangements of family labor have been conformed to the true Christian principle, there have been certain extremes in our customs which it is important to remedy. This is often exhibited in houses when the members of a family assemble in an evening, and the girls all have some useful employment of the hands, while the boys look on and do nothing. Again, at other times, we see broken locks, windows unglazed, and furniture needing repair, all making necessary a kind of work women could easily perform, and yet left neglected because the men do not find time or are unskilled for the performance. In a country like ours, the emergencies of the family state often demand the exchange of the ordinary labor of men and women. Frequently, in newer settlements, no servants can be found, while the wife and mother is confined by sickness. In such emergencies, skill in performing woman’s work is a great blessing to a man and his family. So the soldiers, sailors, engineers, and all roving men need the skill of the needle that preserves clothing from waste. In our late war, millions would have been saved had all the soldiers been taught to sew in their boyhood. In this view of the case, industrial schools, to teach both boys and girls all the economic skill of the family state, are of great importance, and a department for this purpose should be connected with every school, especially the public schools, where most of the children will earn their own livelihood and be exposed to many chances of a roving life. Attempts have been made to introduce sewing into public schools, and usually with little or no success, from many combining difficulties. One of them arises from the increased number of classes for this purpose; which would be relieved by having boys taught to sew in the same class with girls. Another difficulty has been the providing of materials for sewing and the previous cutting and fitting needed, which the parents refuse to supply. A method which meets these and other difficulties, and which has been successfully tried in industrial schools in England, will now be described. Let a fund be provided by school officers, or by contribution, to provide needles, thread, scissors, and thimbles of various sizes, and place them in the care of the teacher. Let two half-days of the week be devoted to this and other industrial employments, giving, as a reward for success in careful, neat, and quick accomplishment of the duties, the time left beyond that used in the task as holiday hours. Let the first lesson be the use of scissors, in cutting straight slips of newspaper, thus training the eye and fingers to expert measurement and motion. Whoever excels in the performance of the allotted task in less than the allotted time is to be rewarded with the time, thus gained, for play.