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Last updated 9/8/2025

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'Enseignement du Travail Manuel' by G Salicis was published in Paris in 1889.

The purpose of this booklet was 'to deal with the teaching of manual work from an elementary point of view'.

It contains several references to pliage and decoupage:

Page 18 states that 'Paper work includes all the useful or recreational objects that can be obtained by folding and that require precision' and a footnote clarifies that these are 'Carres exact, polygones reguliers, sabliers, ballons, bonnets d'eveques, plumiers, prisons a mouches' (exact squares, regular polygons, hourglasses, balloons, bishop's caps, pencil cases, fly traps). Michel Grand has suggested to me that ,since it is otherwise not clear what is meant by 'hourglasses', 'sabliers' could be a misprint for 'salieres' (salt cellars). 'Prisons a mouches' is almost certainly a reference to waterbombs, but in this case it is then odd that 'ballon'. presumably another name for the same design, also appears in the list.

Pages 24 onwards set out a plan of manual work teaching used in the Ecole Ccommunale de Sailly-Saillisel as an example of manual work taught in a school without a workshop. Most of the syllabus is decoupage and work with paper strips but section 3 refers to 'Pliage de rectangles et de carres: chapeau de gendarme, table, portefeuille, cocote, dix genres de rosaces' (gendarme's hat, table, portfolio, cocotte, six types of rosette).

A full copy of the work can be accessed online here.

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