HOME ARTS AND INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION. .
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
Stit,Many years ago in a Shropshire village Mrs. Jebb, of Ellesmere, taught a crippled boy to carve in wood, to his great pleasure and profit. From this small beginning grew the Cottage Arts Association, for reviving and teaching the practice of village arts and handiwork of all kinds, and for the encouragement of those who were glad to use their spare time in making useful and pretty things for their own homes. This small Association, which was run under the direct inspiration of Mrs. Jebb herself, quickly developed into a larger one with its centre at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and was renamed " The Home Arts and Industries Association" (not to be confounded, as I fear is often done, with the far greater " Arts and Crafts Society," founded by William Morris and carried on since his day by other distinguished men).
Beginning in 1884, under the presidency of Lord Brownlow, with about 40 branches and 320 students spread all over the United Kingdom, the progress of the Association has been rapid and continuous, and included in the year 1913 200 classes with about 5,000 students. Th9 handicrafts taught are as follows Simple carpentry, wood-carving, inlaying and veneering, wrought-iron work, hand-beaten silver and other metal work, basket-work, rush matting, hand-weaving and spinning, carpet
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