52 FLIGHT FROM THE CITY 



methods of "occupational therapy" in the ever- 

 increasing number of institutions for nervous and 

 mental disorders which we are erecting all over the 

 country. The strain of repetitive work in our factories 

 and offices, and the absence of creative and productive 

 work in our homes, particularly for women, children, 

 and the aged, is turning us into a race of neurotics. 

 Weaving is being revived, after a fashion, as a thera- 

 peutic measure to restore these unfortunates to health. 

 What a ghastly commentary upon what we have 

 called progress. Having taken the looms out of homes 

 during the past century and transferred them to fac- 

 tories, we now find that the absence of the creative 

 work they used to furnish is producing an ever- 

 increasing number of neurotic men and women, and 

 an endless number of "problem" children. So our 

 physicians are putting the loom into their institutions 

 in order to make the victims of this deprivation well 

 again. Then they turn them, after curing them, back 

 into their loomless homes to break down again. 



The looms built for occupational therapy and hand- 

 weaving generally are deliberately designed to increase 

 the amount of manual work which those who operate 

 them have to perform for every yard of cloth pro- 

 duced. As a result the actual production of cloth is 

 slow and laborious. Yet there is no reason why this 

 should be so. The right kind of loom would enable the 

 average family to produce suitings, blankets, rugs, 

 draperies, and domestics of all kinds of a quality su- 

 perior to those generally produced in factories and on 



