HIS SISTER'S WORK. 



107 



In another circular he mentions that in the first five months 

 of the Female Industrial School, 269 had been taught to sew, 

 and a most beneficial influence had been exerted over them. 

 To this school his sister Susan devoted herself. She had been 

 an invalid for many years, before she went to live with him at 

 Stand ; but the bracing air there, and the mode of life, had 

 restored her, and though she, like her brother, suffered greatly 

 from the unhealthiness of Warrington, all her powers were called 

 out by this emergency. She had been warned that with the 

 lower classes of female operatives nothing could be done ; but 

 she would not let herself be daunted, and her courage and tact, 

 and the great interest she took in their welfare, were not lost 

 upon them. She wrote : " Could we have been allowed to 

 continue on the Sunday the good influences of the week, I feel 

 satisfied that ten times the good would have been done. We 

 see it in the Sunday scholars who attended the Industrial 

 School. ... I can do more in the hour and a half in which I 

 * stay in ' with our Sunday school during chapel-time, than at 

 any other time." She and Philip united in improving the sing- 

 ing, both in the school and the chapel ; they not only taught 

 many to sing correctly who had not known that they could sing 

 at all, but they cultivated and refined their taste and feeling ; 

 and exercised due care, not only as to how they sang, but as to 

 what they sang. 



Philip's practical talent now did good service. As before 

 mentioned (p. 9), he had learnt the rudiments of bookbinding, 

 and had been familiar with the printer's office. The follow- 

 ing account is from a paper in "The Helper" (1850), in which 

 he recounts the origin of his " Oberlin Press " (so called after 

 the philanthropist of the Ban de la Roche) : — 



"We began [the Industrial Schools] hastily with the means 

 immediately within reach. Having some bookbinders' tools, 

 Ave collected all our old books, and set several to work, mend- 

 ing, folding, sewing, etc. The younger ones made all the waste 

 paper into spills, for lighting candles (not pipes !). All were 

 under the schoolmaster's care half of their time. Soon we got 

 an empty house for a workshop. In one room, a dozen book- 



