It is a delightful and scientifically correct principle which those
Utopia builders have embodied in their schemes of world-making who have
advocated the restriction of matrimony to those women who have undergone
a thorough course of education and training in eugenics and household
economy. Most persons will agree that such a system of education for
maternal and wifely duties would be a great boon, if practicable. But so
long as hearts are swayed by passion, and the subtle currents of human
love remain uncontrolled by law, such proposals must remain dreams. Even
the modest suggestion of Mrs. Parsons that a “matrimonial white list” be
created by establishing continuation schools for training young women in
the domestic arts and the principles of child-rearing and giving them
certificates or diplomas, as well as certificates of health,[165] is so
far in advance of anything yet attempted that it sounds almost Utopian.
Still, there is nothing fanciful or impossible in the proposal itself.
The preservation of child life must depend largely upon the dissipation
of maternal ignorance. Until mothers are enlightened, the infantile
death-rate must remain needlessly and unnaturally heavy. And so long as
industrial occupations absorb our young girls in the very years which
should be spent at home in practical training for the responsibilities
of wifehood and motherhood, there must continue to be a very large
number of marriages productive of poverty, misery, and disease, because
of the ignorance and inefficiency of the wives. So the fight against
maternal ignorance, the ignorance which breeds disease and poverty,
appears as an almost Sisyphean task. So long as such industrial
conditions prevail, ignorance will continue to sap the foundations of
family life and mock our efforts at reform. In such important matters of
domestic economy as knowledge of food values and how to spend the family
income to the best advantage, what but failure can be expected when a
young woman worker graduates from mill labor to wifehood? Even where
such a young woman, or girl growing into womanhood, feels the need of
training in these important matters of domestic economy, she is
prevented by the fact that the family cooking and buying are necessarily
done during the hours she is at work. By the time she returns home after
her day’s labor, little or nothing remains to be done except washing the
dishes. Even were it otherwise, she would in most cases be too tired to
help. After confinement in a shop or factory for ten or twelve hours, at
monotonous tasks entirely devoid of interest or attractiveness, it is
natural and right that she should seek recreation and pleasure. Further
confinement, either in the home or a school, is extremely liable to
prove injurious.
[Illustration:
PACKING BOTTLES OF “CLEAN MILK” IN ICE BEFORE SENDING THEM TO THE
CITY, ROCHESTER, N.Y.
]
For these reasons, and others obvious to the reader, I am not very
sanguine that much can ever be accomplished by evening classes for
working girls. The British Interdepartmental Committee suggests that
“continuation classes for domestic instruction” should be formed, and
attendance at them, twice each week during certain months of the year,
made obligatory, only those employed in domestic service being exempted
from compulsory attendance. Realizing that it would be an injury to the
girls to impose this attendance and study upon them in addition to their
already too long hours of employment, the committee very properly
suggests that some modification of the hours of work would have to be
introduced, so that in fact the hours of instruction would have to be
taken out of their ordinary working time.[166] With such a provision as
this, a system of compulsory instruction in domestic science might very
well be adopted. It is probable, however, that the principal effect
would be a considerable diminishing of the employment of girls and young
women within the ages prescribed for compulsory attendance at the
continuation classes.
The suggested curriculum for such classes is interesting. “The courses
of instruction at such classes should cover every branch of domestic
hygiene, including the preparation of food, the practice of household
cleanliness, the tendance and feeding of young children, the proper
requirements of a family as to clothing—everything, in short, that would
equip a young girl for the duties of a housewife.”[167] The further
suggestion is made that the members of these continuation classes should
visit from time to time the municipal _crèches_—the establishment of
which is strongly recommended—and receive there practical instruction in
the management of infants. This is such a comprehensive and courageous
proposal that one would like to see it given a fair trial.