Household Organization Part 11

Some careful mothers say, "I keep my girls exclusively at 'studies' for the piano; they make such a good groundwork." This may be so, but finger training is not everything. The poor girls have had their souls so sickened over melancholy minor "meditations," that their hearts are closed to the tender or joyous melodies of music, and its rich, majestic harmonies.

Point out these things to the young, who will love them, at first blindly, and afterwards with a gradually developing appreciation.

Here a little, there a little, is a true precept in education. A thing can never be completely taught, for there is infinity everywhere. How rarely we can begin at the beginning, or even the unit, of anything; multiplication and subdivision meet us at both ends, besides all the collaterals.

I have ever observed that those girls who have been the greatest number of years at the same school know the least, and are the most stupid. It is better to let children go to many different schools in succession, than to remain long in one: they gain more experience, while the chances of their learning evil are the same in both cases. In public schools as boys go up through the forms, they meet different sets of masters and subjects of study, so that these are, in fact, fresh schools.

To use a simile which will be intelligible to this generation, women have been treated as if they were stones. Left shapeless under the school-room prison system, they are only fit to be broken up for the roads, as they will fit in nowhere. Our well-educated ancestresses, down to the time of Hannah More, were formed into cubes, very solid and steady on either of their bases, and suitable for many buildings, though the finer kinds of stone are in this manner misapplied. Modern science gives the stones more sides, and, while seeming to round them into more adaptable forms, only produces a number of small facets, making a somewhat polished dodecahedron, which rolls about in any position and is of no particular service, except, maybe, to stick upon a gate-post at a girl's school, though it has given a great deal of trouble in the cutting. But the hourly guidance of the loving hands of father and mother, aided by raspings and filings of circ.u.mstances, and many blows from chisels more or less severe, produces at last a beautiful statue, well shaped in all its parts, which becomes a perfect and n.o.bly planned Galatea. What is the best training for girls? That is the question. What are they to be, or not to be?

We have tried hitherto to bring up our girls so that they may be fitted for the high position here that we all wish they may attain, making their education tend solely to pleasure; forgetting how easily the nature of woman adapts itself to any superior station, and how soon it seems like everyday life, however high the rank or great the wealth to which a girl may be suddenly raised.

We teach religion, when it is taught at all, under the head of "divinity," at school, where it is put on a par with the multiplication-table; or as a series of "religious duties," to be performed once a week and rendered as irksome as possible, quite ignoring that everything we do is our duty towards G.o.d, or towards our neighbour, which is part of the same duty; whereas we ought to train our girls for "duties" here, and give them joy in preparing for their high position as daughters of G.o.d in heaven. We should let our divine life so permeate through every hour of our stay here, that it may be the vivifying light shed upon everything we are concerned with, making the trifles of this life unfold their beauties, comforting sadness and gilding poverty, as the southern suns.h.i.+ne lights up squalid dwellings till they s.h.i.+ne like gold and silver, and makes rags glow with light and colour.

Our ideas have changed lately, and now we seem to think that all girls who are not born to high position here must of necessity be trained to professional life. But, after all, the demand for certified teachers, heads of ladies' colleges, doctors, and other learned professions, will never comprise the great bulk of the number of willing workers among the unmarried women of England: nor do these things const.i.tute a quarter of the work to be done.

Instances of marked talent or decided turn for some particular line of study should be furthered and fostered to the utmost, consistently with the possibility that after all the vocation may not be carried into effect; but women are really more valuable, and more likely to be happy, in what it is old-fas.h.i.+oned to call the sphere of a home.

And this is best prepared for by home training; which does not mean being pushed aside so as to be out of the way, and shut up in the nursery or school-room, but enjoying the companions.h.i.+p of a judicious and sensible mother, and the freedom of the house--where the child will be taught to behave herself properly, and be useful and obliging; where she will have regular hours of study with her mother, her governess, or at school, and yet have opportunities of seeing how everything is managed in the kitchen and throughout the house, being allowed occasionally to do some little thing herself, and so acquire some of the needful practice; where she can be taught needlework and the proper use of many tools; learn to carve, to cut bread and b.u.t.ter, to help dishes neatly at table, and gain a knowledge of gardening and green-house culture.

Children should be permitted to look on at the proceedings of all workmen employed in or out of the house: the glazier, gasfitter, gardener, carpet-stretcher, carpenter, locksmith, and piano-tuner; the exceptions being the dustman and the sweep, because of the dirt.

How much money might be saved in a house if people understood the use of a few tools, the construction of a few fittings, or could take a piano to pieces and tune it. If a bell-wire is broken, a man is sent for; he charges half a day's work and some materials, and generally makes a little bit of work for some other tradesman, whereas a knowledge of how to unscrew and take off the bell-cover would often enable a piece of copper wire to be joined, and the bell set in order.

How often people fail to force down a window whose weights are just over-lapping, where a blow with a mallet on the shutterbox would have shaken them into their places; or, failing that, the box containing the sash-weights might be opened by taking off the beading near the window-sash, the cords and weights put straight, and the beading replaced by hammering the brads. But no; we send for a man.

Our water-pipes burst in winter, because during a hard frost we have not taken the precaution to turn the taps so that a few drops may pa.s.s to relieve the pressure in thawing.

We cannot even frame and hang up a picture when we have painted it, or cover a chair with the piece of needlework we have made. We do not know how to renew the cord of a spring blind, nor many a little thing besides; and yet any one who keeps a house in order knows how constantly these things are recurring, and what a source of expense they are.

Girls should be taken out shopping that they may learn the names and qualities of things, the quant.i.ties of material required for different purposes, and the value of money. The knowledge of how much it costs to clothe a child will teach them more practical arithmetic than any amount of extraction of the square root, and give an interest to their tables of weights and measures besides. Let Euclid be learnt by all means, if desired; but if it is only done for the sake of training, and not to aid some particular purpose, as good, if not as exact, training may be found in some study leading to a pleasing result, such as music, drawing, or knowledge of architecture, as from the pure mathematics.

Let the girls learn to fit their clothes exactly, estimate the needful quant.i.ty of material, and calculate the cost of the quality. When the mother is considering the size and price of a new carpet, if she consult with her daughters about it, it will help their judgment at the same time that it improves their arithmetic. Let girls learn to write notes of invitation and letters of business, and write orders to tradespeople; let them accompany their parents on house-hunting expeditions--it is a school in itself--or when furniture is bought.

Elder girls may go with their mothers when they are treating for schools for little brothers, and when servants are hired, or evening parties catered for; when lodgings are taken for friends, and a thousand and one other circ.u.mstances.

It is all experience, and of the kind those girls never gain who are always at school-work; so that those who have not this knowledge begin life many years behind the home-trained girls, and commit many follies owing to their want of it. It need not be feared that this experience will destroy a girl's charm of manner. Ignorance is not simplicity, nor silliness a grace, neither are awkwardness and affectation as dignified as self-possession.

I would on no account depreciate the efforts made for the higher education of women. No one rejoices more than I do at seeing things more thoroughly taught. Still, we cannot rest content with crumbs of science; female education must be filled with the milk of human kindness. It is not the nature of woman to stand Alp-like alone, with one peak seeming to pierce the heavens; she should be like the spreading tree which gives shelter and enjoyment to all within its influence, its roots being firmly fixed in the good ground.

The nursery training for children is merely repressive. They are told not to be naughty, not to be greedy, not to break their toys, not to be noisy. Whereas a teaching more calculated to develop their intelligence would subst.i.tute some interesting occupation to counteract their naughtiness; such as mending a toy they have broken, which would delight them more than any new toy; and having seen the trouble it took to mend it, and the time it took to dry it, they would learn carefulness. If they wish to shout at inconvenient times and places, teach them to sing a chorus, and if the noise is too great, let them sing one at a time. If they are greedy, which often means hungry, for children need frequent feeding, give them a piece of bread.

But although tender kindness is the best of nurture, on no account let it degenerate into weak indulgence. Compel instant obedience to the slightest word, the minutest direction, enforcing habits of attention and discipline. Never let children be obtrusive or feel that they are a power in the house; and require of them the utmost respect to elders.

The good example of parents is the safeguard of the children. If they show reverence to all that is lovely, children will do so too. Above all, parents should never break a promise, nor ever deceive their children, even in play, or children will not honour their word.

I do not like to see mothers or nurses take away from a child something they do not wish it to have, and hide it, and pretend not to know where it is gone; yet this is a very favourite form of play, and deemed quite innocent. Surely it were better kindly, but firmly and openly, to remove the object and turn the attention from the loss.

I hope these few remarks will be found useful. I have tried to keep them brief, but in writing on so important a topic as that of education, it is difficult to bear in mind the clever old French saying, "Woe to him who says all that can be said."

SUNDAY.

Children's Sundays made wearisome--Sunday precious to workers--Moral workers--Moral vices--Our gifts--Misuse of them--Necessary work on Sunday--Diminished by management--Sunday prevents us living too fast--The rest must be earned--Sunday repairs the human machine.

Do not let Sunday be turned into a day of dread to the children. It is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. For years I lived in terror of the Sunday, and I feel for children who, being brought more into the presence of their elders on that day, are consequently more exposed to reproof for their natural animal spirits, which are trying to jaded and irritable persons. An only child, I was taken twice a day to a church built in the dismal style of the reign of George III., and put into a high pew, "shut up in a cupboard," as I have heard a little child express it, where I could only see a frightful ornament like a row of teeth in painted woodwork that ran round the upper part of the church. I sat contemplating this through the long low church service and sermon, of which I was too young to understand a word. The remainder of the day was filled up with collect, epistle, and catechism, Bible questions to write and answer, the text to remember, hymns to repeat to visitors, and a prolonged dessert, with half a gla.s.s of sherry, which was like a dose of physic to me. The "Life of Joseph" was my only recreation.

Too often is Sunday given up to the display of toilet vanities out of doors and listlessness at home. Those who have been really working during the week know well what a blessing the Sunday rest is. Those who have been idle cannot expect to feel this, and they experience such a flatness in the quietly kept Sunday that they regard it as a weekly penance which interrupts their pleasures. But they ought not to have allowed themselves to get into this condition of feeling. There is work for all in the world; none but the dead have a right to be idle.

As Kingsley justly asks: "If vanity, profligacy, pride, and idleness be not moral vices, what are?" What is more common than to find pride and vanity leading our women to idleness, and that extravagance and craving after gaiety which are the feminine form of profligacy? And Kingsley goes on to show that beneath these vices, and perhaps the cause of them all, lies another and deeper vice--G.o.dlessness, atheism.

"I do not," continues he, "mean merely the want of religion, doctrinal unbelief. I mean want of belief in duty, in responsibility. Want of belief that there is a living G.o.d governing the universe, who has set us our work, and will judge us according to our work."

Why are our n.o.ble gifts given to us; such gifts as these--

"The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill."

Is it that we may become "tolerably harmless dolls?" How shall we answer for having used our endurance only so much as may make us wait with common patience for next month's number of _Belgravia_; our foresight in choosing a pattern for a mantle which shall be fas.h.i.+onable enough to be worn next autumn; our skill in crochet-work, and our strength in skating on the outside edge.

No wonder we do not value the Sunday rest. We know that heavenly mansions are being prepared for us to enjoy the heavenly rest in, and that we must prepare ourselves for these mansions, or we shall not be permitted to enter them. Then let us take pains to prepare our earthly houses for the right use of the day of rest, and be able to go up to the house of the Lord with the mult.i.tude that keep holy-day.

We should so put our houses in order on Sat.u.r.day that we may really be able to rest on Sunday. Some works of necessity must be done, such as the dinner prepared; but by dining early, and doing as much as possible on the previous day towards its preparation, the labour may be reduced to a minimum.

There will be no needlework, no cleaning or dusting, no marketing to be done on Sunday. Pies and tarts should have been made on Sat.u.r.day, a double quant.i.ty of potatoes and other vegetables prepared, and a general foresight used.

Sunday is a good day for sending out a large joint to be baked, and a pudding also; indeed, this seems the opportunity for the national roast beef and plumpudding dinner. So that, in fact, beyond laying the cloth and removing the things used at meals, there is absolutely no work to be done beyond the five minutes' daily occupation of each person in making his or her own bed, as the re-arrangement of the used dinner things may be left till the following morning. The table is cleared as if by magic, if every child is told to put in its place two things, or three things, according to the number of things used and the number of children to put them back. Each person replaces his or her own chair, and the Sunday work is over. Life is not so hard to us as it was to the country squire's wife half a century ago, who always gave her servants physic on a Sunday because it was no loss of time. To us the Sunday is very helpful in another way: it keeps us from living too fast; without this wholesome stop we might drive ourselves on to frenzy.

Many if not most of us feel lazy and desultory on Monday morning (which therefore had better be employed on some kind of desultory and irregular work), and we only get ourselves warm in the harness by the middle of the week. We go on working with gradually increasing excitement until Sat.u.r.day night, when some sensible friend hints that it is too late to make a bad week's work good; precious Sunday comes to ease the strain, and the human machine is oiled and cooled.

Let us be diligent during the week, and lengthen our days by beginning them earlier, so as to do most of our work in the morning; then with a clear conscience we may leave off our play as early as we please and go to rest: we shall enjoy the Sunday repose which we have earned, and find ourselves refreshed instead of wearied by it.

I will conclude this essay in the words of Macaulay--words which he considers among the very best he ever wrote. "Man, man is the great instrument that produces wealth. The natural difference between Campania and Spitzbergen is trifling when compared with the difference between a country inhabited by men full of bodily and mental vigour, and a country inhabited by men sunk in bodily and mental decrepitude.

Therefore it is that we are not poorer but richer, because we have, through many ages, rested from our labour one day in seven. That day is not lost. While industry is suspended, while the plough lies in the furrow, while the Exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends from the factory, a process is going on quite as important to the wealth of nations as any process which is performed on more busy days. Man, the machine of machines, the machine compared with which all the contrivances of the Watts and Arkwrights are worthless, is repairing and winding up, so that he returns to his labours on the Monday with clearer intellect, with livelier spirits, with renewed corporal vigour.

Never will I believe that what makes a population stronger and healthier and wiser and better can ultimately make it poorer.

"If ever we are forced to yield the foremost place among commercial nations, we shall yield it not to a race of degenerate dwarfs, but to some people pre-eminently vigorous in body and in mind."

THE END.