EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN. 



89 



schools for little girls, from six years old and upwards, to teach 

 them to spin, and so to bring their tender fingers by degrees to 

 spin very fine, which being young are easily fitted for that use, 

 whereas people overgrown in age cannot so well feel the 

 thread. Their wheels all go by the foot, made to go with 

 much ease, whereby the action or motion is very easy and 

 delightful. And in all towns there are schools according to the 

 bigness or multitude of the poor children. I will here show 

 the way, method, rule, and order how they are governed. 



First, there is a large room, and in the middle thereof a 

 little box like a pulpit. Secondly, there are benches built 

 round about the room as they are in our playhouses ; upon the 

 benches sit about two hundred children spinning, and in the 

 box in the middle of the room sits the grand mistress with a 

 long white wand in her hand. If she observes any of them 

 idle, she reaches them a tap ; but if that will not do, she rings 

 a bell which by a little cord is fixed to the box, and out comes 

 a woman ; she then points to the offender, and she is taken 

 away into another room and chastised. And all this is done 

 without one word speaking. And 1 believe this way of order- 

 ing the young women in Germany is one great cause that the 

 German women have so little of the twit-twat. And I am 

 sure it would be well were it so in England. And it is clear 

 that the less there is of speaking, the more there may be of 

 working. In a little room by the school there is a woman that 

 is preparing and putting flax on the distaffs, and upon the 

 ringing of the bell and pointing the rod at the maid that hath 

 spun off her flax, she hath another distaff given her, and her 

 spool of thread taken from her, and put into a box unto others 

 of the same size to make cloth. 



" And observe what advantages they make of suiting their 

 threads to make cloth, all being of equal threads. First, they 

 raise their children as they spin finer, to the higher benches. 

 Secondly, they sort and size all the threads so that they can 

 apply them to make equal cloths. Whereas, here in England, 

 one woman or good housewife hath it may be six or eight 

 spinners belonging to her, and at some odd times she spins, and 

 also her children and servants, and all this thread shall go 

 together, some for woof, some for warp, to make a piece of 



