ONE CAUSE OF THE SITUATION.--A PART OF "WOMAN'S MISSION" CONSIDERED.
The question, How may work and culture be combined? was recently
submitted, in my hearing, to a highly intelligent lady. She answered
with a sigh, "It can't be done. I've tried it; but, as things are now,
it can't be done." By "as things are now" she meant, with the
established ideas regarding dress, food, appearance, style, and the
objects for which woman should spend her time and herself. Suppose we
investigate the causes of the present state of things, which, as being
a hinderance to culture, is to us so unsatisfactory. A little
reflection will enable us to discover several. Chief among them all, I
think, is one which may require close inspection before it is
recognized to be such. It seems to me that the great underlying
cause--the cause of all the other causes--is the want of insight, the
unenlightemnent, which prevails concerning, not what woman's mission
is, but the ways and means by which she is to accomplish it. Let us
consider this.
Those who claim the right of defining it never can say often enough
that the true, mission of woman is to train up her children rightly,
and to make home happy; and no doubt we all agree with them. But have
we, or have they, a full sense of what woman requires to fit her even
for the first of these duties? Suppose a philosopher in disguise on a
tour of observation from some distant isle or planet should favor us
with a visit. He finds himself, we will say, on a spot not a hundred
miles from New York or Boston or Chicago. Among the objects which
attract his attention are the little children drawn along in their
little chaises.
"Are these beautiful creatures of any value?" he asks of a bystander.
"Certainly. They are the hope of the country. They will grow up into
men and women who will take our places."
"I suppose there is no danger of their growing up any other than the
right kind of men and women, such as your country needs?"
"On the contrary, there is every danger. Evil influences surround them
from their birth. These beautiful creatures have in them the
possibilities of becoming mean, base, corrupt, treacherous, deceitful,
cruel, false, revengeful; of becoming, in fact, unworthy and repulsive
in many ways. Why, all our criminals, our drunkards, liars, thieves,
burglars, murderers, were once innocent little children like these!"
"And whether these will become like those, or not, depends on chance?"
"Oh, no! It depends largely on training, especially on early training.
Children are like wax to receive impressions, like marble to retain
them."
"Are they constituted pretty nearly alike, so that the treatment which
is best for one is best for all?"
"By no means. Even those in the same family are often extremely
unlike. They have different temperaments, dispositions, propensities.
Some require urging, others checking. Some do better with praise,
others without; the same of blame. It requires thought and discernment
to know what words to speak, how many to speak, and when to speak
them. In fact, a child's nature is a piece of delicate, complex
machinery, and each one requires a separate study; for, as its springs
of action are concealed, the operator is liable at any time to touch
the wrong one."
"And mistakes here will affect a child through its whole lifetime?"
"They will affect it through all eternity."
"But who among you dare make these early impressions which are to be
so enduring? Who are the operators on these delicate and complex
pieces of mental machinery?"
"Oh! the mothers always have the care of the children. This is their
mission,--the chief duty of their lives."
"But how judicious, how comprehensive, must be the course of education
which will fit a person for such an office!"
"Do you think so? Hem! Well, it is not generally considered that a
woman who is going to marry and settle down to family life needs much
education."
"You mean, doubtless, that she only receives the special instruction
which her vocation requires."
"Special instruction?"
"Yes. If woman's special vocation is the training of children, of
course she is educated specially with a view to that vocation."
"Well, I never heard of such a kind of education. But here is one of
our young mothers: she can tell you all about it."
We will suppose, now, that our philosopher is left with the young
mother, who names over what she learned at the "institute."
"And the training of children--moral, intellectual, and physical--was
no doubt made a prominent subject of consideration."
"Training of children? Oh, no! That would have been a curious kind of
study."
"Where, then, were you prepared for the duties of your mission?"
"What mission do you mean?"
"Your mission of child-training."
"I had no preparation."
"No preparation? But are you acquainted with the different
temperaments a child may have, and the different combinations of them?
Are you competent to the direction and culture of the intellectual and
moral nature? Have you skill to touch the hidden springs of action?
Have you, thus uninstructed, the power, the knowledge, the wisdom,
requisite for guiding that mighty force, a child's soul?"
"Alas! there is hardly a day that I do not feel my ignorance on all
these points."
"Are there no sources from which knowledge may be obtained? There must
be books written on these subjects."
"Possibly; but I have no time to read them."
"No time?--no time to prepare for your chief mission?"
"It is our mission only in print. In real life it plays an extremely
subordinate part."
"What, then, in real life, is your mission?"
"Chiefly cooking and sewing."
"Your husband, then, does not share the common belief in regard to
woman's chief duty."
"Oh, yes! I have heard him express it many a time; though I don't
think he comprehends what a woman needs in order to do her duty by her
children. But he loves them dearly. If one should die he would be
heart-broken."
"Is it a common thing here for children to die?"
"I am grieved to say that nearly one-fourth die in infancy."
"And those who live,--do they grow up in full health and vigor?"
"Oh, indeed they do not! Why, look at our crowded hospitals! Look at
the apothecaries' shops at almost, every corner. Look at the
advertisements of medicines. Don't you think there's meaning in these,
and a meaning in the long rows of five-story swell-front houses
occupied by physicians, and a meaning in the people themselves?
There's scarcely one of them but has some ailment."
"But is this matter of health subject to no laws?"
"The phrase, 'laws of health,' is a familiar one, but I don't know
what those laws are."
"Mothers, then, are not in the habit of teaching them to their
children?"
"They are not themselves acquainted with them."
"Perhaps this astonishing ignorance has something to do with the
fearful mortality among infants. Do not husbands provide their wives
with books and other means of information on this subject?"
"Generally speaking, they do nothing of the kind."
"And does not the subject of hygienic laws, as applied to the rearing
of children, come into the courses of study laid out for young women!"
"No, indeed. Oh, how I wish it had!--and those other matters you
mentioned. I would give up every thing else I ever learned for the
sake of knowing how to bring up my children, and how to keep them in
health."
"The presidents and professors of your educational institutions,--do
they share the common belief as to woman's mission?"
"Oh, yes! They all say that the chief business of woman is to train up
her children."
(_Philosopher's solo_.)
"There seems to be blindness and stupidity somewhere among these
people. From what they say of the difficulty of bringing up their
children, it must take an archangel to do it rightly; still they do
not think a woman who is married and settles down to family life needs
much education! Moreover, in educating young women, that which is
universally acknowledged to be the chief business of their lives
receives not the least attention."
If our philosopher continued his inquiries into the manners and
customs of our country, he must have felt greatly encouraged; for he
would have found that it is only in this one direction that we show
such blindness and stupidity. He would have found that in every other
occupation we demand preparation. The individual who builds our ships,
cuts our coats, manufactures our watches, superintends our machinery,
takes charge of our cattle, our trees, our flowers, must know how,
must have been especially prepared for his calling. It is only
character-moulding, only shaping the destinies of immortal beings, for
which we demand neither preparation nor a knowledge of the business.
It is only of our children that we are resigned to lose nearly
one-fourth by death, "owing to ignorance and injudicious nursery
management." Were this rate of mortality declared to exist among our
domestic animals, the community would be aroused at once.