CULTURE PROVED TO BE A NEED OF THE CHILD-TRAINER.
Perhaps some day the community may come to perceive that woman
requires for her vocation what the teacher, the preacher, the lawyer,
and the physician, require for theirs; namely, special preparation and
general culture. The first, because every vocation demands special
preparation; and the second, because, to satisfy the requirements of
young minds, she will need to draw from almost every kind of
knowledge. And we must remember here, that the advantages derived from
culture are not wholly an intellectual gain. We get from books and
other sources of culture not merely what informs the mind, but that
which warms the heart, quickens the sympathies, strengthens the
understanding; get clearness and breadth of vision, get refining and
ennobling influences, get wisdom in its truest and most comprehensive
sense; and all of these, the last more than all, a mother needs for
her high calling. That it is a high calling, we have high authority to
show. Dr. Channing says, "No office can compare in importance with
that of training a child." Yet the office is assumed without
preparation.
Herbert Spencer asks, in view of this omission, "What is to be
expected when one of the most intricate of problems is undertaken by
those who have given scarcely a thought as to the principles on which
its solution depends? Is the unfolding of a human being so simple a
process that any one may superintend and regulate it with no
preparation whatever?... Is it not madness to make no provision for
such a task?"
Horace Mann speaks out plainly, and straight to the point. "If she is
to prepare a refection of cakes, she fails not to examine some
cookery-book or some manuscript receipt, lest she should convert her
rich ingredients into unpalatable compounds; but without ever having
read one book upon the subject of education, without ever having
sought one conversation with an intelligent person upon it, she
undertakes so to mingle the earthly and celestial elements of
instruction for that child's soul that he shall be fitted to discharge
all duties below, and to enjoy all blessings above." And again,
"Influences imperceptible in childhood, work out more and more broadly
into beauty or deformity in after life. No unskilful hand should ever
play upon a harp where the tones are left forever in the strings."
In a newspaper I find this amusingly significant sentence:
"Truthfully, indeed, do the Papists boast that the Episcopal Church is
training-ground for Rome. The female mind is frequently enticed by
display of vestments and music; and, if the Ritualists can pervert the
mothers, they know that the next generation is theirs." This is
significant, because it signifies that, however weak and easy of
enticement the "female mind" may be, it has a mighty power to
influence the young.
But we can show not only opinions and prophecies, but the results of
actual scientific experiments. A recent number of "The Popular Science
Monthly" contains an account of experiments made in Jamaica upon the
mental capacity for learning of the different races there existing.
The experimenter found, he says, "unequal speed," but saw "nothing
which can be unmistakably referred to difference of race. The rate of
improvement is due almost entirely to the relative elevation of the
home circle in which the children live. Those who are restricted to
the narrowest gauge of intellectual exercise live in such a material
and coarse medium that their mental faculties remain slumbering; while
those who hear at home of many things, and are brought up to
intellectual employments, show a corresponding proficiency in
learning."
This, and the editor's comments, bear directly on our side, that is to
say, the culture side. The editor says it is inevitable "that the
medium in which the child is habitually immersed, and by which it is
continually and unconsciously impressed, should have much greater
value in the formation of mental character than the mere lesson
experiences of school. Home education is, after all, the great fact;
and it is domestic influences by which the characters of children are
formed. Where men are exhausted by business, and women are exhausted
by society (or other means), we may be pretty sure that but little can
be done to shape and conduct the home with a reference to the higher
mental needs of the children who live in it."
Now, who, more than any one, "shapes and conducts the home"? Who
creates these "domestic influences," this "medium in which the child
is habitually immersed"? Woman. In the name of common sense, then,
throw open to woman every avenue of knowledge. Surround her with all
that will elevate and refine. Give her the highest, broadest, truest
culture. Give her chances to draw inspiration from the beautiful in
nature and in art. And, above all, insure her some respite from labor,
and some tranquillity. Unless these conditions are observed, "but
little can be done to shape and conduct the home with reference to the
higher mental needs of the children who live in it."
I once heard "Grace Greenwood" tell a little story which ought to come
in here, for our own object is to make out as strong a case as we
possibly can. We want to prove that mothers must have culture because
they are mothers. We want to show it to be absolutely necessary for
woman, in the accomplishment of her acknowledged mission. When this
fact is recognized, then culture will take rank with essentials, and
receive attention as such.
"Grace Greenwood" said that a friend of hers, a teacher "out West,"
had in her school four or five children from one family. The parents
were poor, ignorant, and of the kind commonly called low, coarse sort
of people. The children, with one exception, were stupid,
rough-mannered, and depraved. The one exception, a little girl, showed
such refinement, appreciation, and quickness of apprehension, that the
teacher at last asked the mother if she could account for the striking
difference between this child and its brothers and sisters. The mother
could not. The children had been brought up together there in that
lonely place, had been treated alike, and had never been separated.
She knew the little girl was very different from her brothers and
sisters, but knew not the reason why. The teacher then asked, "Was
there any thing in your mode of life for the months preceding her
birth, that there was not in the corresponding time before the births
of the others?" The mother at first answered decidedly that there was
nothing; but after thinking a few moments said, "Well, there was one,
a very small thing, but that couldn't have had any thing to do with
the matter. One day a peddler came along; and among his books was a
pretty, red-covered poetry book, and I wanted it bad. But my husband
said he couldn't afford it, and the peddler went off. I couldn't get
that book out of my mind; and in the night I took some of my own
money, and travelled on foot to the next town, found the peddler,
bought the book, and got back before morning, and was never missed
from the house. That book was the greatest comfort to me that ever
was. I read it over and over, up to the day my child was born."
Also would come in well here that oft-told story of a pauper named
"Margaret," who was once "set adrift in a village of the county ...
and left to grow up as best she could, and from whom have descended
two hundred criminals. The whole number of this girl's descendants,
through six generations, is nine hundred; and besides the 'two
hundred' a large number have been idiots, imbeciles, drunkards,
lunatics, and paupers."
Friends, to say nothing of higher motives, would it not be good policy
to educate wisely every girl in the country? Are not mothers, as
child-trainers, in absolute need of true culture? In cases where
families depend on the labor of their girls, perhaps the State would
make a saving even by compensating these families for the loss of such
labor. Perhaps it would be cheaper, even in a pecuniary sense, for the
State to do this, than to support reformatory establishments, prisons,
almshouses, and insane-asylums, with their necessary retinues of
officials. Institutions in which these girls were educated might be
made self-supporting, and the course of instruction might include
different kinds of handicraft.
It was poor economy for the State to let that pauper "grow up as best
she could." It would probably have been money in the State's pocket
had it surrounded "Margaret" in her early childhood with the choicest
productions of art, engaged competent teachers to instruct her in the
solid branches, in the accomplishments, in hygiene, in the principles
and practice of integrity, and then have given her particular
instruction in all matters connected with the training of children.
And had she developed a remarkable taste for painting, for modelling,
or for music, the State could better have afforded even sending her to
Italy, than to have taken care of those "two hundred criminals,"
besides "a large number" of "idiots, imbeciles, drunkards, lunatics,
and paupers."