attached in a variety of ways. In open work nothing was needed but the
end of the fillet or part inserted; again, in close work, perforations
were made as in leather work, and the threads were inserted as are the
waxed ends of the shoemaker.

The importance of this class of decorative devices to primitive
peoples will be apparent if we but call to mind the work of our own
Indian tribes. What a vast deal of attention is paid to those classes
of embroideries in which beads, feathers, quills, shells, seeds,
teeth, &c., are employed, and to the multitude of novel applications
of tassels, fringes, and tinkling pendants. The taste for these things
is universal and their relation to the development of esthetic ideas
is doubtless very intimate.

Needlework arose in the earliest stages of art and at first was
employed in joining parts, such as leaves, skins, and tissues, for
various useful purposes, and afterwards in attaching ornaments. In
time the attaching media, as exposed in stitches, loops, knots, and
the like, being of bright colors, were themselves utilized as
embellishment, and margins and apertures were beautified by various
bindings and borders, and finally patterns were worked in contrasting
colors upon the surfaces of the cloths and other materials of like
nature or use.

No other art so constantly and decidedly suggested embellishment and
called for the exercise of taste. It was the natural habitat for
decoration. It was the field in which technique and taste were most
frequently called upon to work hand in hand.

With the growth of culture the art was expanded and perfected, its