Introduction

"We are of no sect or creed, or perhaps, of all sects and creeds. Protestants, Catholics, Jews, children of any or no persuasion, and of as varying race, meet on the common basis of childhood’s need. And that need is surely for conditions in which the inner promise of each may be so nurtured as to unfold most perfectly." (Rivett, 1926: p. 11).

Mary Rivett, her sister Elsie, along with Mary Matheson, formed the Children’s Library and Crafts Club in 1922. In these years after world-war-one such initiatives were not unusual. Beatrice Ensor had founded the New Education Fellowship (NEF)in 1921 as a reaction to the war and this organisation was to be strictly non-sectarian and to encourage creativity and self expression (White, 2001). NEF included such well known scholars as A.S.Neill,John Dewey and Jean Piaget. Concepts of freedom and control were a preoccupation and the idea of the importance of process over product was promulgated. It was thought that teachers should not expose children to adult models of the world but allow children to develop their own perceptions of the world through the observation of natural objects. Children should not be “made to see with other people’s eyes before they have learnt to see with their own” (Morris, cited in White, 2001: p. 73).
 

These principles were echoed in pre-war organisations that were responding to the misery experienced by many during the depressions of the 1990s. In 1908 the Free Kindergarten Union of Victoria was formed. The first president was the wife of the Prime Minister, Alfred Deakin. Pattie Deakin presided over the Free Kindergarten Union until 1911 when she resigned in part because the joint staff training relationship that had been developed with the Education Department was a cause of concern to her. She disapproved of the increased formality of children’s programs as she was an adherent of encouraging the ‘play’ instinct in children (Gardiner, 1982). In 1909 however the stated intentions of the Free Kindergarten Union of Victoria seemed very similar to Elsie Rivett’s quote above. The following is from the 1909 Annual Report of the organisation:
"The Kindergarten is a nation-building institution. It knows no sect, no creed and no distinction. It goes out to save and protect children against the evils of the present time. It is a preventative work of the highest value. We, therefore, confidently appeal to all lovers of child-life to support this movement."

Another influential association established in 1908 was the Arts and Crafts Society of Victoria. Frances Derham, famous for her book ‘Art for the Child under Seven’, joined this society in 1915 (Parsons, 1989). Derham taught at the Melbourne Kindergarten Training College and had strong philosophical views, based upon Lowenfeld’s theories, about children’s art. Derham was strictly anti-interventionist, believing in “natural unfolding” and “self expression” (McArdle & Piscitelli, 2002) and these were ideas that she passed on to generations of kindergarten teachers. Importantly Derham was also an advocate for high quality provision of craft experiences and as early as 1929 wrote an article for The Recorder that “voiced regret over the decline of skilled craftwork caused by the introduction of mechanical reproduction” (Parsons, 1989: p. 41).

The histories of groups that lobbied for children’s rights and self expression in the twentieth century were often those of the new pedagogy. Depression and war framed many of their efforts but they were also imbued with the idea that industrialisation, with all its drawbacks, should bring leisure to all (Cross, 2006). The use of this leisure as an institution for social development was an underlying aim of the creative leisure movement.

"If, however, we are to hope for national fitness in its most complete sense we must train minds as well as muscles, and realize that the quiet activities of nursery school, free kindergartens, Boy Scout and Girl Guide and children’s library movements must eventually play an important part in producing better citizens, whose social spirit, self-respect and love of beauty and of order have been fostered and fully developed." (Editor, 1939).
 
Theories of leisure and the children’s craft movement

"The world is too much with us; late and soon." (William Wordsworth, 1807).

In the early part of the 20th century there was a strong belief that a changing economic system, due to industrialisation, mass production and cheaper commodities would provide all with leisure time. This was a time to embrace the idea of lifelong learning. How to fit individuals with the means to employ their leisure gainfully was seen as an educational challenge. Schools must help children develop dispositions to learn and community organisations could provide valuable opportunities to engage these dispositions.

Mary Rivett had trained in psychology, taking a first at Cambridge, in 1921. She lectured at Bedford College in London and became aware of the Children’s libraries movement. She was impressed by the work conducted at the David Copperfield library, set up near Kings Cross Station, while she was working in London in 1921. This was an impetus to combine a children’s club, run by Elsie in Sydney, with the idea of a children’s library. In 1922 the sisters, established The Children’s Library and Crafts Club (ANU, 2006) in Surry Hills. Library movements had sprung up across the western world and from these movements in Australia came institutions like the children’s book council, children’s book week and by the 1950s free public libraries. In the world of 2008 literacy seems to have become an end in itself with politicians seeing it as adding value to the individual as an economic unit (DPC, 2007). However, in the early days of the children’s libraries the world of books was seen as a vicarious lens onto a larger world. “We are more and more alive in so far as we are in touch with the larger and larger environment” (Raymond, 1939). The emphasis on children’s craft in the clubs also had a greater aim than the development of fine motor control or eye hand co-ordination.
 

Craft was seen to have two values for the early craft movement. One was that craft and craftsmanship was associated with skill, application of technique and involved cognitive engagement and mind, hand and tool (Dutton, 1990). Craft was seen as intergenerational, as having historical and cultural significance and the product should be something useful. Dutton (1990) cites the British philosopher R.G. Collingwood in his attempt to identify what craft is. The most important criteria to differentiate craft from art that Collingwood offered was that:
“there is a distinction between planning and execution” such that the “result to be obtained is preconceived or thought out before being arrived at. The craftsman Collingwood says, knows what he wants to make before he makes it”. (Collingwood, cited in Dutton, 1990).

In the first Children’s Library and Crafts Club that the Rivett sisters established there were a large range of activities on offer. Tuesday was the night for the girls craft club and on offer was “cane-basketry, stencilling, embroidery, huckaback, leather, gesso and raffia work; wax-bead and glass-bead work; poker work and wood painting; and in sewing aprons, dolls’ clothes and the like” (Rivett, 1926: p. 7). Drama was also offered on Tuesday and two eurhythmic classes for older and younger girls. The dance teacher had trained at the Dalcroze School in Geneva. On Thursdays the boys were offered “[D]drawing, basketry, leather and fret work, wood-carving, poker work and wood-painting, book-binding and carpentry, toy and mat making (Rivett, 1926: p. 7).  On Sunday night girls and boys joined together in discussion and debate and were encouraged to develop and articulate informed opinions. After two years about 350 children, mainly from Surry Hills and Redfern, were attending this club.
 

"In response to those who suggested that fees should be waived only in the case of genuinely poor families, he commented: ‘What does that mean? It degrades the children of poor people, in the eyes of their neighbours, into paupers; it turns them into the recipients of alms …’ " (Stephen, cited in Larkins & Howard, 1981:71.)

After the second-world-war the Children’s Library and Craft Movement was active in most states. Just before the war activities had begun to extend to include radio and cinema (Lang, 1939). Films made by the movement in the 1940s include The children’s travelling library and in 1963 a record of children’s experiences in the Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre titled, A World for Children. Based on the emphasis still placed on creative free expression, the importance of play and the connection between good citizenship and a disposition towards leisure and learning the craft centre in the Bonegilla centre is depicted in the film. Whilst skill acquisition was paramount the children were encouraged to discover the properties of materials in their own way.

"I use the term ‘playing’ deliberately in connection with painting and clay-modelling. At first the children do play with these materials, experimenting with colour and form, and pounding, banging and rolling their clay. Later, when their ability in handling the materials has developed, they continue to use their chosen medium with the keenest enjoyment." (Marjorie Bell of the Phillip Park children’s library cited in Australian Artist 2, 1948).

The clay house

When Mary Rivett died in 1969 the Children’s Library and Crafts Movement became the Creative Leisure Movement. This more generic name exists into the present. Community activists and authors like Nan Bosler were prominent in the movement. From 1971 – 1994, with Nan Bosler as co-ordinator, the Northern Beaches Creative Leisure Movement had established centres utilised by some 2000 adults and children each week. Training was provided for playgroup leaders on the creative growth of pre-schoolers and craft training for staff working in after-school-care programs (Maddocks, 1991). The Creative Leisure Movement still exists in pockets. One example is the ‘North Sydney Community Centre’. Through its history this centre has followed the movements and trends of the times. In the 1970s the Community Centre set up an after-school care program and creative play activities for children under-five, became embroiled in a community fight with big developers and established an adventure playground. As community needs changed the centre expanded activities to include festivals and markets and has hosted some artists in residence (North Sydney Community Centre, 2005).
 
Discussion

There are a number of implications for the present in the story of the Children’s Library and Craft Movement and these include concerns about a narrowing of curriculum that reflects present attitudes to children that appears often to put economic considerations before humanist ones, concerns about present relationships with technology, the idea of tool use, imagination and creativity which leads to the question of the role of the crafts in the present day.

In relation to a narrowing of the scope of children’s formal learning experiences curriculum statements and practices have increasingly become focussed on literacy and numeracy skills in recent years. To cite Nagel:
"‘schooling’ has become increasingly competitive, assessment oriented and task driven. Empirically and anecdotally, it appears education’s growing preoccupation with ‘academic’ success has marginalised many, diminished creativity and contributed to stress and anxiety related disorders." (2008: 5).

A controversy that has grown out of this emphasis is that in many states homework is now compulsory and there is growing research to suggest that the benefits, or disadvantages, of homework are by no means clear cut. Another issue highlighted in a Queensland report on homework was the issue of children’s leisure time and a loss of skills through extending schoolwork into ‘free’ time (2004). In the early childhood years, an age group that received lots of attention from the Creative Leisure Movement, curriculum frameworks and statements in recent years have the potential to also impact on children’s opportunities for self expression based on discovery learning as these policies reflect the same interest in ‘academic’ performance that is evident in school documents.

Technology was the second concern listed. Interestingly in an argument that goes full circle it is the NEF (New Education Fellowship) that picks up this issue. Stephenson, (2006) in an article on the decline of the World Education Fellowship, describes how the world has changed. Internet, google, migration and cheap travel have widened the world whilst religious fervour and mass poverty in large areas has helped create mutual misunderstanding across many parts of the globe. Governments, as mentioned above, view reading, writing and arithmetic as the necessary skills for a productive life. Already the skills for living, community, creativity and craft lack status in the curriculum (Stephenson, 2006). New technology has the potential to make the experience of learning participatory, egalitarian, relevant, and also learners can take responsibility for their own learning. In the same way that the NEF espoused imaginative and creative use of materials at the beginning of the twentieth century the same message, inclusive of new technology, could be the challenge of the twenty-first century.

Following Stephenson’s argument that links the ideals of the craft movement across a century and across very changing contexts it is worth revisiting one of the important educational theorists of the 1920s, a person who is extremely influential in educational circles today. Vygotsky was a major component of experiential learning through his theories of the social nature of learning, the role of culture and language and the idea of joint activity (Engestrom et al, 1999). He used a quote from Bacon translated in the volume, Thought and language, as “neither hand nor mind alone suffices: the tools and devices they employ finally shape them” (Vygotsky, 1962). This is a concept that relates well to the craft movement and the value of such activity in the experience and learning of the child. An example that it still has resonance is a project carried out in a second grade class in America in 2006, 2007. Kneller, the grade teacher,  was influenced by educational ideas like those of Levy and Freire and the understanding that literacy per se is not empowering, it is what you do with your ability to read that turns it into meaningful social practice (Kneller & Boyd, 2008). In this case Kneller decided to teach her class to crochet in an attempt to encourage fine motor skills and to be engaged in a reading aloud exercise at the end of each day. As the year progressed she described how the crocheting became a central literacy event in the classroom. Children read aloud, became adept at crocheting and started to design their own projects. Journals were kept. A child wrote in a journal:
"For me the best part of crocheting is having fun and thinking of new ideas. I like to make things for my family. They like when I give them presents." (Kneller & Boyd, 2008: 139).

From the crocheting project Kneller concluded that these children were able to use their crocheting activities as a literacy event. They wrote about their experiences and plans, they discussed their work, they produced gifts for other people, they raised money for materials and wrote thankyou letters to donors. The crocheting gave community connection and gave the class a sense of belonging to a group, the “crocheting class” and eventually empowering as the crocheting became a “student-owned activity”  (Kneller & Boyd, 2008: 146).

This paper has taken a snapshot of the children’s craft and leisure movement in the twentieth century and finished with a brief discussion on how many of the underlying ideas and practices in this movement have potential relevance for the present. Also mentioned is the difficulty in bringing craft and the arts to prominence in many educational endeavours as politicians rely on the ‘science’ of economics to make decisions about what is important in human development. To conclude this paper we return to earlier ideas of the movement espoused by Frances Derham.

"I believe that the best answer to any threat of a totalitarian society is a better democracy, and that we can have only by being better democrats.
To this end, the education of children for self-control, sensitivity, both to others, and their own achievement, and for clear and imaginative thinking, is best achieved through the arts." (1961: 8).

The Authors

Berenice is a senior lecturer at RMIT who has published widely in the field of early childhood, with a specific focus on language and the arts, especially music. She has a long time interest in the early childhood programs of Reggio Emilia where craft and fine arts are a feature.

Maryellen is an historian who has worked in education for many years. She has published historical and education reports and in 2006 co-authored an Australian history text book titled Imagining Australia.

Acknowledgements

Photographs from Elsie and Mary Rivett’s book are taken from the original in the Rare Book & Special Collections, University of Sydney.

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