"So build we up the being that we are,
Thus deeply drinking in the soul of things,
We shall be wise perforce." WORDSWORTH.
"The millstreams that turn the clappers of the world
arise in solitary places."--HELPS.
"In the course of a conversation with Madame Campan,
Napoleon Buonaparte remarked: 'The old systems of
instruction seem to be worth nothing; what is yet wanting in
order that the people should be properly educated?'
'MOTHERS,' replied Madame Campan. The reply struck the
Emperor. 'Yes!' said he 'here is a system of education in
one word. Be it your care, then, to train up mothers who
shall know how to educate their children.'"--AIME MARTIN.
"Lord! with what care hast Thou begirt us round!
Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters
Deliver us to laws. They send us bound
To rules of reason."--GEORGE HERBERT.
HOME is the first and most important school of character. It is there
that every human being receives his best moral training, or his worst;
for it is there that he imbibes those principles of conduct which endure
through manhood, and cease only with life.
It is a common saying that "Manners make the man;" and there is a
second, that "Mind makes the man;" but truer than either is a third,
that "Home makes the man." For the home-training includes not only
manners and mind, but character. It is mainly in the home that the
heart is opened, the habits are formed, the intellect is awakened, and
character moulded for good or for evil.
From that source, be it pure or impure, issue the principles and maxims
that govern society. Law itself is but the reflex of homes. The tiniest
bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards
issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion; for nations
are gathered out of nurseries, and they who hold the leading-strings
of children may even exercise a greater power than those who wield the
reins of government. [111]
It is in the order of nature that domestic life should be preparatory
to social, and that the mind and character should first be formed in the
home. There the individuals who afterwards form society are dealt with
in detail, and fashioned one by one. From the family they enter life,
and advance from boyhood to citizenship. Thus the home may be regarded
as the most influential school of civilisation. For, after all,
civilisation mainly resolves itself into a question of individual
training; and according as the respective members of society are well
or ill-trained in youth, so will the community which they constitute be
more or less humanised and civilised.
The training of any man, even the wisest, cannot fail to be powerfully
influenced by the moral surroundings of his early years. He comes into
the world helpless, and absolutely dependent upon those about him for
nurture and culture. From the very first breath that he draws, his
education begins. When a mother once asked a clergyman when she should
begin the education of her child, then four years old, he replied:
"Madam, if you have not begun already, you have lost those four
years. From the first smile that gleams upon an infant's cheek, your
opportunity begins."
But even in this case the education had already begun; for the child
learns by simple imitation, without effort, almost through the pores of
the skin. "A figtree looking on a figtree becometh fruitful," says
the Arabian proverb. And so it is with children; their first great
instructor is example.
However apparently trivial the influences which contribute to form the
character of the child, they endure through life. The child's character
is the nucleus of the man's; all after-education is but superposition;
the form of the crystal remains the same. Thus the saying of the poet
holds true in a large degree, "The child is father of the man;" or, as
Milton puts it, "The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day."
Those impulses to conduct which last the longest and are rooted the
deepest, always have their origin near our birth. It is then that
the germs of virtues or vices, of feelings or sentiments, are first
implanted which determine the character for life.
The child is, as it were, laid at the gate of a new world, and opens
his eyes upon things all of which are full of novelty and wonderment. At
first it is enough for him to gaze; but by-and-by he begins to see, to
observe, to compare, to learn, to store up impressions and ideas; and
under wise guidance the progress which he makes is really wonderful.
Lord Brougham has observed that between the ages of eighteen and thirty
months, a child learns more of the material world, of his own powers,
of the nature of other bodies, and even of his own mind and other minds,
than he acquires in all the rest of his life. The knowledge which a
child accumulates, and the ideas generated in his mind, during this
period, are so important, that if we could imagine them to be afterwards
obliterated, all the learning of a senior wrangler at Cambridge, or a
first-classman at Oxford, would be as nothing to it, and would literally
not enable its object to prolong his existence for a week.
It is in childhood that the mind is most open to impressions, and ready
to be kindled by the first spark that falls into it. Ideas are then
caught quickly and live lastingly. Thus Scott is said to have received,
his first bent towards ballad literature from his mother's and
grandmother's recitations in his hearing long before he himself
had learned to read. Childhood is like a mirror, which reflects in
after-life the images first presented to it. The first thing continues
for ever with the child. The first joy, the first sorrow, the
first success, the first failure, the first achievement, the first
misadventure, paint the foreground of his life.
All this while, too, the training of the character is in progress--of
the temper, the will, and the habits--on which so much of the happiness
of human beings in after-life depends. Although man is endowed with
a certain self-acting, self-helping power of contributing to his own
development, independent of surrounding circumstances, and of reacting
upon the life around him, the bias given to his moral character in early
life is of immense importance. Place even the highest-minded philosopher
in the midst of daily discomfort, immorality, and vileness, and he will
insensibly gravitate towards brutality. How much more susceptible is the
impressionable and helpless child amidst such surroundings! It is not
possible to rear a kindly nature, sensitive to evil, pure in mind and
heart, amidst coarseness, discomfort, and impurity.
Thus homes, which are the nurseries of children who grow up into men
and women, will be good or bad according to the power that governs them.
Where the spirit of love and duty pervades the home--where head and
heart bear rule wisely there--where the daily life is honest and
virtuous--where the government is sensible, kind, and loving, then
may we expect from such a home an issue of healthy, useful, and happy
beings, capable, as they gain the requisite strength, of following the
footsteps of their parents, of walking uprightly, governing themselves
wisely, and contributing to the welfare of those about them.
On the other hand, if surrounded by ignorance, coarseness, and
selfishness, they will unconsciously assume the same character, and
grow up to adult years rude, uncultivated, and all the more dangerous
to society if placed amidst the manifold temptations of what is called
civilised life. "Give your child to be educated by a slave," said an
ancient Greek, "and instead of one slave, you will then have two."
The child cannot help imitating what he sees. Everything is to him a
model--of manner, of gesture, of speech, of habit, of character. "For
the child," says Richter, "the most important era of life is that of
childhood, when he begins to colour and mould himself by companionship
with others. Every new educator effects less than his predecessor;
until at last, if we regard all life as an educational institution, a
circumnavigator of the world is less influenced by all the nations
he has seen than by his nurse." [112] Models are therefore of every
importance in moulding the nature of the child; and if we would have
fine characters, we must necessarily present before them fine models.
Now, the model most constantly before every child's eye is the Mother.
One good mother, said George Herbert, is worth a hundred schoolmasters.
In the home she is "loadstone to all hearts, and loadstar to all eyes."
Imitation of her is constant--imitation, which Bacon likens to "a globe
of precepts." But example is far more than precept. It is instruction
in action. It is teaching without words, often exemplifying more than
tongue can teach. In the face of bad example, the best of precepts are
of but little avail. The example is followed, not the precepts. Indeed,
precept at variance with practice is worse than useless, inasmuch as
it only serves to teach the most cowardly of vices--hypocrisy. Even
children are judges of consistency, and the lessons of the parent who
says one thing and does the opposite, are quickly seen through. The
teaching of the friar was not worth much, who preached the virtue of
honesty with a stolen goose in his sleeve.
By imitation of acts, the character becomes slowly and imperceptibly,
but at length decidedly formed. The several acts may seem in themselves
trivial; but so are the continuous acts of daily life. Like snowflakes,
they fall unperceived; each flake added to the pile produces no
sensible change, and yet the accumulation of snowflakes makes the
avalanche. So do repeated acts, one following another, at length become
consolidated in habit, determine the action of the human being for good
or for evil, and, in a word, form the character.
It is because the mother, far more than the father, influences the
action and conduct of the child, that her good example is of so much
greater importance in the home. It is easy to understand how this should
be so. The home is the woman's domain--her kingdom, where she exercises
entire control. Her power over the little subjects she rules there is
absolute. They look up to her for everything. She is the example and
model constantly before their eyes, whom they unconsciously observe and
imitate.
Cowley, speaking of the influence of early example, and ideas early
implanted in the mind, compares them to letters cut in the bark of a
young tree, which grow and widen with age. The impressions then made,
howsoever slight they may seem, are never effaced. The ideas then
implanted in the mind are like seeds dropped into the ground, which
lie there and germinate for a time, afterwards springing up in acts and
thoughts and habits. Thus the mother lives again in her children.
They unconsciously mould themselves after her manner, her speech, her
conduct, and her method of life. Her habits become theirs; and her
character is visibly repeated in them.
This maternal love is the visible providence of our race. Its influence
is constant and universal. It begins with the education of the human
being at the out-start of life, and is prolonged by virtue of the
powerful influence which every good mother exercises over her children
through life. When launched into the world, each to take part in its
labours, anxieties, and trials, they still turn to their mother
for consolation, if not for counsel, in their time of trouble and
difficulty. The pure and good thoughts she has implanted in their minds
when children, continue to grow up into good acts, long after she is
dead; and when there is nothing but a memory of her left, her children
rise up and call her blessed.
It is not saying too much to aver that the happiness or misery, the
enlightenment or ignorance, the civilisation or barbarism of the world,
depends in a very high degree upon the exercise of woman's power within
her special kingdom of home. Indeed, Emerson says, broadly and truly,
that "a sufficient measure of civilisation is the influence of good
women." Posterity may be said to lie before us in the person of the
child in the mother's lap. What that child will eventually become,
mainly depends upon the training and example which he has received from
his first and most influential educator.
Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain,
but woman is the heart of humanity; he its judgment, she its feeling;
he its strength, she its grace, ornament, and solace. Even the
understanding of the best woman seems to work mainly through her
affections. And thus, though man may direct the intellect, woman
cultivates the feelings, which mainly determine the character. While he
fills the memory, she occupies the heart. She makes us love what he can
only make us believe, and it is chiefly through her that we are enabled
to arrive at virtue.
The respective influences of the father and the mother on the training
and development of character, are remarkably illustrated in the life
of St. Augustine. While Augustine's father, a poor freeman of Thagaste,
proud of his son's abilities, endeavoured to furnish his mind with the
highest learning of the schools, and was extolled by his neighbours
for the sacrifices he made with that object "beyond the ability of his
means"--his mother Monica, on the other hand, sought to lead her
son's mind in the direction of the highest good, and with pious care
counselled him, entreated him, advised him to chastity, and, amidst much
anguish and tribulation, because of his wicked life, never ceased to
pray for him until her prayers were heard and answered. Thus her love
at last triumphed, and the patience and goodness of the mother were
rewarded, not only by the conversion of her gifted son, but also of her
husband. Later in life, and after her husband's death, Monica, drawn by
her affection, followed her son to Milan, to watch over him; and there
she died, when he was in his thirty-third year. But it was in the
earlier period of his life that her example and instruction made the
deepest impression upon his mind, and determined his future character.
There are many similar instances of early impressions made upon a
child's mind, springing up into good acts late in life, after an
intervening period of selfishness and vice. Parents may do all that they
can to develope an upright and virtuous character in their children, and
apparently in vain. It seems like bread cast upon the waters and lost.
And yet sometimes it happens that long after the parents have gone to
their Rest--it may be twenty years or more--the good precept, the good
example set before their sons and daughters in childhood, at length
springs up and bears fruit.
One of the most remarkable of such instances was that of the Reverend
John Newton of Olney, the friend of Cowper the poet. It was long
subsequent to the death of both his parents, and after leading a vicious
life as a youth and as a seaman, that he became suddenly awakened to
a sense of his depravity; and then it was that the lessons which his
mother had given him when a child sprang up vividly in his memory. Her
voice came to him as it were from the dead, and led him gently back to
virtue and goodness.
Another instance is that of John Randolph, the American statesman, who
once said: "I should have been an atheist if it had not been for one
recollection--and that was the memory of the time when my departed
mother used to take my little hand in hers, and cause me on my knees to
say, 'Our Father who art in heaven!'"
But such instance must, on the whole, be regarded as exceptional. As the
character is biassed in early life, so it generally remains, gradually
assuming its permanent form as manhood is reached. "Live as long as you
may," said Southey, "the first twenty years are the longest half of your
life," and they are by far the most pregnant in consequences. When the
worn-out slanderer and voluptuary, Dr. Wolcot, lay on his deathbed, one
of his friends asked if he could do anything to gratify him. "Yes," said
the dying man, eagerly, "give me back my youth." Give him but that, and
he would repent--he would reform. But it was all too late! His life had
become bound and enthralled by the chains of habit.' [113]
Gretry, the musical composer, thought so highly of the importance of
woman as an educator of character, that he described a good mother as
"Nature's CHEF-D'OEUVRE." And he was right: for good mothers, far more
than fathers, tend to the perpetual renovation of mankind, creating,
as they do, the moral atmosphere of the home, which is the nutriment of
man's moral being, as the physical atmosphere is of his corporeal frame.
By good temper, suavity, and kindness, directed by intelligence, woman
surrounds the indwellers with a pervading atmosphere of cheerfulness,
contentment, and peace, suitable for the growth of the purest as of the
manliest natures.
The poorest dwelling, presided over by a virtuous, thrifty, cheerful,
and cleanly woman, may thus be the abode of comfort, virtue, and
happiness; it may be the scene of every ennobling relation in family
life; it may be endeared to a man by many delightful associations;
furnishing a sanctuary for the heart, a refuge from the storms of life,
a sweet resting-place after labour, a consolation in misfortune, a pride
in prosperity, and a joy at all times.
The good home is thus the best of schools, not only in youth but in age.
There young and old best learn cheerfulness, patience, self-control,
and the spirit of service and of duty. Izaak Walton, speaking of George
Herbert's mother, says she governed her family with judicious care, not
rigidly nor sourly, "but with such a sweetness and compliance with the
recreations and pleasures of youth, as did incline them to spend much of
their time in her company, which was to her great content."
The home is the true school of courtesy, of which woman is always the
best practical instructor. "Without woman," says the Provencal proverb,
"men were but ill-licked cubs." Philanthropy radiates from the home as
from a centre. "To love the little platoon we belong to in society,"
said Burke, "is the germ of all public affections." The wisest and
the best have not been ashamed to own it to be their greatest joy and
happiness to sit "behind the heads of children" in the inviolable circle
of home. A life of purity and duty there is not the least effectual
preparative for a life of public work and duty; and the man who loves
his home will not the less fondly love and serve his country. But while
homes, which are the nurseries of character, may be the best of
schools, they may also be the worst. Between childhood and manhood how
incalculable is the mischief which ignorance in the home has the power
to cause! Between the drawing of the first breath and the last, how vast
is the moral suffering and disease occasioned by incompetent mothers and
nurses! Commit a child to the care of a worthless ignorant woman, and no
culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done. Let the mother
be idle, vicious, and a slattern; let her home be pervaded by cavilling,
petulance, and discontent, and it will become a dwelling of misery--a
place to fly from, rather than to fly to; and the children whose
misfortune it is to be brought up there, will be morally dwarfed and
deformed--the cause of misery to themselves as well as to others.
Napoleon Buonaparte was accustomed to say that "the future good or
bad conduct of a child depended entirely on the mother." He himself
attributed his rise in life in a great measure to the training of his
will, his energy, and his self-control, by his mother at home. "Nobody
had any command over him," says one of his biographers, "except his
mother, who found means, by a mixture of tenderness, severity, and
justice, to make him love, respect, and obey her: from her he learnt the
virtue of obedience."
A curious illustration of the dependence of the character of children
on that of the mother incidentally occurs in one of Mr. Tufnell's school
reports. The truth, he observes, is so well established that it has even
been made subservient to mercantile calculation. "I was informed," he
says, "in a large factory, where many children were employed, that the
managers before they engaged a boy always inquired into the mother's
character, and if that was satisfactory they were tolerably certain that
her children would conduct themselves creditably. NO ATTENTION WAS PAID
TO THE CHARACTER OF THE FATHER." [114]
It has also been observed that in cases where the father has turned out
badly--become a drunkard, and "gone to the dogs"--provided the mother is
prudent and sensible, the family will be kept together, and the children
probably make their way honourably in life; whereas in cases of
the opposite sort, where the mother turns out badly, no matter how
well-conducted the father may be, the instances of after-success in life
on the part of the children are comparatively rare.
The greater part of the influence exercised by women on the formation of
character necessarily remains unknown. They accomplish their best work
in the quiet seclusion of the home and the family, by sustained effort
and patient perseverance in the path of duty. Their greatest triumphs,
because private and domestic, are rarely recorded; and it is not often,
even in the biographies of distinguished men, that we hear of the share
which their mothers have had in the formation of their character, and
in giving them a bias towards goodness. Yet are they not on that
account without their reward. The influence they have exercised,
though unrecorded, lives after them, and goes on propagating itself in
consequences for ever.
We do not often hear of great women, as we do of great men. It is of
good women that we mostly hear; and it is probable that by determining
the character of men and women for good, they are doing even greater
work than if they were to paint great pictures, write great books, or
compose great operas. "It is quite true," said Joseph de Maistre, "that
women have produced no CHEFS-DOEUVRE. They have written no 'Iliad,' nor
'Jerusalem Delivered,' nor 'Hamlet,' nor 'Phaedre,' nor 'Paradise Lost,'
nor 'Tartuffe;' they have designed no Church of St. Peter's, composed
no 'Messiah,' carved no 'Apollo Belvidere,' painted no 'Last Judgment;'
they have invented neither algebra, nor telescopes, nor steam-engines;
but they have done something far greater and better than all this, for
it is at their knees that upright and virtuous men and women have been
trained--the most excellent productions in the world."
De Maistre, in his letters and writings, speaks of his own mother with
immense love and reverence. Her noble character made all other women
venerable in his eyes. He described her as his "sublime mother"--"an
angel to whom God had lent a body for a brief season." To her he
attributed the bent of his character, and all his bias towards good;
and when he had grown to mature years, while acting as ambassador at the
Court of St. Petersburg, he referred to her noble example and precepts
as the ruling influence in his life.
One of the most charming features in the character of Samuel Johnson,
notwithstanding his rough and shaggy exterior, was the tenderness
with which he invariably spoke of his mother [115]--a woman of strong
understanding, who firmly implanted in his mind, as he himself
acknowledges, his first impressions of religion. He was accustomed, even
in the time of his greatest difficulties, to contribute largely, out of
his slender means, to her comfort; and one of his last acts of filial
duty was to write 'Rasselas' for the purpose of paying her little debts
and defraying her funeral charges.
George Washington was only eleven years of age--the eldest of five
children--when his father died, leaving his mother a widow. She was a
woman of rare excellence--full of resources, a good woman of business,
an excellent manager, and possessed of much strength of character. She
had her children to educate and bring up, a large household to govern,
and extensive estates to manage, all of which she accomplished with
complete success. Her good sense, assiduity, tenderness, industry, and
vigilance, enabled her to overcome every obstacle; and as the richest
reward of her solicitude and toil, she had the happiness to see all her
children come forward with a fair promise into life, filling the spheres
allotted to them in a manner equally honourable to themselves, and to
the parent who had been the only guide of their, principles, conduct,
and habits. [116]
The biographer of Cromwell says little about the Protector's father, but
dwells upon the character of his mother, whom he describes as a woman of
rare vigour and decision of purpose: "A woman," he says, "possessed
of the glorious faculty of self-help when other assistance failed her;
ready for the demands of fortune in its extremest adverse turn; of
spirit and energy equal to her mildness and patience; who, with the
labour of her own hands, gave dowries to five daughters sufficient to
marry them into families as honourable but more wealthy than their
own; whose single pride was honesty, and whose passion was love; who
preserved in the gorgeous palace at Whitehall the simple tastes that
distinguished her in the old brewery at Huntingdon; and whose only care,
amidst all her splendour, was for the safety of her son in his dangerous
eminence." [117]
We have spoken of the mother of Napoleon Buonaparte as a woman of
great force of character. Not less so was the mother of the Duke of
Wellington, whom her son strikingly resembled in features, person, and
character; while his father was principally distinguished as a musical
composer and performer. [118] But, strange to say, Wellington's mother
mistook him for a dunce; and, for some reason or other, he was not such
a favourite as her other children, until his great deeds in after-life
constrained her to be proud of him.
The Napiers were blessed in both parents, but especially in their
mother, Lady Sarah Lennox, who early sought to inspire her sons' minds
with elevating thoughts, admiration of noble deeds, and a chivalrous
spirit, which became embodied in their lives, and continued to sustain
them, until death, in the path of duty and of honour.
Among statesmen, lawyers, and divines, we find marked mention made of
the mothers of Lord Chancellors Bacon, Erskine, and Brougham--all women
of great ability, and, in the case of the first, of great learning;
as well as of the mothers of Canning, Curran, and President Adams--of
Herbert, Paley, and Wesley. Lord Brougham speaks in terms almost
approaching reverence of his grandmother, the sister of Professor
Robertson, as having been mainly instrumental in instilling into his
mind a strong desire for information, and the first principles of that
persevering energy in the pursuit of every kind of knowledge which
formed his prominent characteristic throughout life.
Canning's mother was an Irishwoman of great natural ability, for whom
her gifted son entertained the greatest love and respect to the close of
his career. She was a woman of no ordinary intellectual power. "Indeed,"
says Canning's biographer, "were we not otherwise assured of the fact
from direct sources, it would be impossible to contemplate his profound
and touching devotion to her, without being led to conclude that the
object of such unchanging attachment must have been possessed of rare
and commanding qualities. She was esteemed by the circle in which she
lived, as a woman of great mental energy. Her conversation was animated
and vigorous, and marked by a distinct originality of manner and a
choice of topics fresh and striking, and out of the commonplace routine.
To persons who were but slightly acquainted with her, the energy of her
manner had even something of the air of eccentricity." [119]
Curran speaks with great affection of his mother, as a woman of strong
original understanding, to whose wise counsel, consistent piety, and
lessons of honourable ambition, which she diligently enforced on the
minds of her children, he himself principally attributed his success
in life. "The only inheritance," he used to say, "that I could boast of
from my poor father, was the very scanty one of an unattractive face
and person; like his own; and if the world has ever attributed to me
something more valuable than face or person, or than earthly wealth, it
was that another and a dearer parent gave her child a portion from the
treasure of her mind." [1110]
When ex-President Adams was present at the examination of a girls'
school at Boston, he was presented by the pupils with an address which
deeply affected him; and in acknowledging it, he took the opportunity
of referring to the lasting influence which womanly training and
association had exercised upon his own life and character. "As a child,"
he said, "I enjoyed perhaps the greatest of blessings that can be
bestowed on man--that of a mother, who was anxious and capable to form
the characters of her children rightly. From her I derived whatever
instruction [11religious especially, and moral] has pervaded a long
life--I will not say perfectly, or as it ought to be; but I will say,
because it is only justice to the memory of her I revere, that, in the
course of that life, whatever imperfection there has been, or deviation
from what she taught me, the fault is mine, and not hers."
The Wesleys were peculiarly linked to their parents by natural piety,
though the mother, rather than the father, influenced their minds and
developed their characters. The father was a man of strong will, but
occasionally harsh and tyrannical in his dealings with his family; [1111]
while the mother, with much strength of understanding and ardent love
of truth, was gentle, persuasive, affectionate, and simple. She was the
teacher and cheerful companion of her children, who gradually became
moulded by her example. It was through the bias given by her to her
sons' minds in religious matters that they acquired the tendency which,
even in early years, drew to them the name of Methodists. In a letter to
her son, Samuel Wesley, when a scholar at Westminster in 1709, she said:
"I would advise you as much as possible to throw your business into a
certain METHOD, by which means you will learn to improve every precious
moment, and find an unspeakable facility in the performance of your
respective duties." This "method" she went on to describe, exhorting
her son "in all things to act upon principle;" and the society which the
brothers John and Charles afterwards founded at Oxford is supposed to
have been in a great measure the result of her exhortations.
In the case of poets, literary men, and artists, the influence of the
mother's feeling and taste has doubtless had great effect in directing
the genius of their sons; and we find this especially illustrated in the
lives of Gray, Thomson, Scott, Southey, Bulwer, Schiller, and Goethe.
Gray inherited, almost complete, his kind and loving nature from his
mother, while his father was harsh and unamiable. Gray was, in fact,
a feminine man--shy, reserved, and wanting in energy,--but thoroughly
irreproachable in life and character. The poet's mother maintained the
family, after her unworthy husband had deserted her; and, at her death,
Gray placed on her grave, in Stoke Pogis, an epitaph describing her as
"the careful tender mother of many children, one of whom alone had the
misfortune to survive her." The poet himself was, at his own desire,
interred beside her worshipped grave.
Goethe, like Schiller, owed the bias of his mind and character to his
mother, who was a woman of extraordinary gifts. She was full of
joyous flowing mother-wit, and possessed in a high degree the art of
stimulating young and active minds, instructing them in the science
of life out of the treasures of her abundant experience. [1112] After a
lengthened interview with her, an enthusiastic traveller said, "Now do
I understand how Goethe has become the man he is." Goethe himself
affectionately cherished her memory. "She was worthy of life!" he
once said of her; and when he visited Frankfort, he sought out every
individual who had been kind to his mother, and thanked them all.
It was Ary Scheffer's mother--whose beautiful features the painter so
loved to reproduce in his pictures of Beatrice, St. Monica, and others
of his works--that encouraged his study of art, and by great self-denial
provided him with the means of pursuing it. While living at Dordrecht,
in Holland, she first sent him to Lille to study, and afterwards to
Paris; and her letters to him, while absent, were always full of sound
motherly advice, and affectionate womanly sympathy. "If you could but
see me," she wrote on one occasion, "kissing your picture, then, after
a while, taking it up again, and, with a tear in my eye, calling you 'my
beloved son,' you would comprehend what it costs me to use sometimes the
stern language of authority, and to occasion to you moments of pain. *
* * Work diligently--be, above all, modest and humble; and when you find
yourself excelling others, then compare what you have done with Nature
itself, or with the 'ideal' of your own mind, and you will be secured,
by the contrast which will be apparent, against the effects of pride and
presumption."
Long years after, when Ary Scheffer was himself a grandfather, he
remembered with affection the advice of his mother, and repeated it to
his children. And thus the vital power of good example lives on from
generation to generation, keeping the world ever fresh and young.
Writing to his daughter, Madame Marjolin, in 1846, his departed mother's
advice recurred to him, and he said: "The word MUST--fix it well in
your memory, dear child; your grandmother seldom had it out of hers. The
truth is, that through our lives nothing brings any good fruit except
what is earned by either the work of the hands, or by the exertion of
one's self-denial. Sacrifices must, in short, be ever going on if we
would obtain any comfort or happiness. Now that I am no longer young, I
declare that few passages in my life afford me so much satisfaction
as those in which I made sacrifices, or denied myself enjoyments. 'Das
Entsagen' [11the forbidden] is the motto of the wise man. Self-denial is
the quality of which Jesus Christ set us the example." [1113]
The French historian Michelet makes the following touching reference to
his mother in the Preface to one of his most popular books, the subject
of much embittered controversy at the time at which it appeared:--
"Whilst writing all this, I have had in my mind a woman, whose
strong and serious mind would not have failed to support me in
these contentions. I lost her thirty years ago [11I was a child
then]--nevertheless, ever living in my memory, she follows me from age
to age.
"She suffered with me in my poverty, and was not allowed to share my
better fortune. When young, I made her sad, and now I cannot console
her. I know not even where her bones are: I was too poor then to buy
earth to bury her!"
"And yet I owe her much. I feel deeply that I am the son of woman.
Every instant, in my ideas and words [11not to mention my features and
gestures], I find again my mother in myself. It is my mother's blood
which gives me the sympathy I feel for bygone ages, and the tender
remembrance of all those who are now no more."
"What return then could I, who am myself advancing towards old age, make
her for the many things I owe her? One, for which she would have thanked
me--this protest in favour of women and mothers." [1114]
But while a mother may greatly influence the poetic or artistic mind
of her son for good, she may also influence it for evil. Thus the
characteristics of Lord Byron--the waywardness of his impulses, his
defiance of restraint, the bitterness of his hate, and the precipitancy
of his resentments--were traceable in no small degree to the adverse
influences exercised upon his mind from his birth by his capricious,
violent, and headstrong mother. She even taunted her son with his
personal deformity; and it was no unfrequent occurrence, in the violent
quarrels which occurred between them, for her to take up the poker or
tongs, and hurl them after him as he fled from her presence. [1115] It was
this unnatural treatment that gave a morbid turn to Byron's after-life;
and, careworn, unhappy, great, and yet weak as he was, he carried about
with him the mother's poison which he had sucked in his infancy. Hence
he exclaims, in his 'Childe Harold':--
"Yet must I think less wildly:--I have thought
Too long and darkly, till my brain became,
In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought,
A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame:
And thus, UNTAUGHT IN YOUTH MY HEART TO TAME,
MY SPRINGS OF LIFE WERE POISONED."
In like manner, though in a different way, the character of Mrs. Foote,
the actor's mother, was curiously repeated in the life of her joyous,
jovial-hearted son. Though she had been heiress to a large fortune,
she soon spent it all, and was at length imprisoned for debt. In this
condition she wrote to Sam, who had been allowing her a hundred a year
out of the proceeds of his acting:-"Dear Sam, I am in prison for
debt; come and assist your loving mother, E. Foote." To which her son
characteristically replied--"Dear mother, so am I; which prevents
his duty being paid to his loving mother by her affectionate son, Sam
Foote."
A foolish mother may also spoil a gifted son, by imbuing his mind with
unsound sentiments. Thus Lamartine's mother is said to have trained him
in altogether erroneous ideas of life, in the school of Rousseau and
Bernardin de St.-Pierre, by which his sentimentalism, sufficiently
strong by nature, was exaggerated instead of repressed: [1116] and he
became the victim of tears, affectation, and improvidence, all his life
long. It almost savours of the ridiculous to find Lamartine, in his
'Confidences,' representing himself as a "statue of Adolescence raised
as a model for young men." [1117] As he was his mother's spoilt child, so
he was the spoilt child of his country to the end, which was bitter
and sad. Sainte-Beuve says of him: "He was the continual object of the
richest gifts, which he had not the power of managing, scattering
and wasting them--all, excepting, the gift of words, which seemed
inexhaustible, and on which he continued to play to the end as on an
enchanted flute." [1118]
We have spoken of the mother of Washington as an excellent woman of
business; and to possess such a quality as capacity for business is not
only compatible with true womanliness, but is in a measure essential to
the comfort and wellbeing of every properly-governed family. Habits of
business do not relate to trade merely, but apply to all the practical
affairs of life--to everything that has to be arranged, to be organised,
to be provided for, to be done. And in all these respects the management
of a family, and of a household, is as much a matter of business as
the management of a shop or of a counting-house. It requires method,
accuracy, organization, industry, economy, discipline, tact, knowledge,
and capacity for adapting means to ends. All this is of the essence of
business; and hence business habits are as necessary to be cultivated
by women who would succeed in the affairs of home--in other words, who
would make home happy--as by men in the affairs of trade, of commerce,
or of manufacture.
The idea has, however, heretofore prevailed, that women have no concern
with such matters, and that business habits and qualifications relate to
men only. Take, for instance, the knowledge of figures. Mr. Bright has
said of boys, "Teach a boy arithmetic thoroughly, and he is a made man."
And why?--Because it teaches him method, accuracy, value, proportions,
relations. But how many girls are taught arithmetic well?--Very few
indeed. And what is the consequence?--When the girl becomes a wife,
if she knows nothing of figures, and is innocent of addition and
multiplication, she can keep no record of income and expenditure, and
there will probably be a succession of mistakes committed which may
be prolific in domestic contention. The woman, not being up to her
business--that is, the management of her domestic affairs in conformity
with the simple principles of arithmetic--will, through sheer ignorance,
be apt to commit extravagances, though unintentional, which may be most
injurious to her family peace and comfort.
Method, which is the soul of business, is also of essential importance
in the home. Work can only be got through by method. Muddle flies
before it, and hugger-mugger becomes a thing unknown. Method demands
punctuality, another eminently business quality. The unpunctual woman,
like the unpunctual man, occasions dislike, because she consumes and
wastes time, and provokes the reflection that we are not of sufficient
importance to make her more prompt. To the business man, time is money;
but to the business woman, method is more--it is peace, comfort, and
domestic prosperity.
Prudence is another important business quality in women, as in men.
Prudence is practical wisdom, and comes of the cultivated judgment. It
has reference in all things to fitness, to propriety; judging wisely of
the right thing to be done, and the right way of doing it. It calculates
the means, order, time, and method of doing. Prudence learns from
experience, quickened by knowledge.
For these, amongst other reasons, habits of business are necessary to
be cultivated by all women, in order to their being efficient helpers in
the world's daily life and work. Furthermore, to direct the power of the
home aright, women, as the nurses, trainers, and educators of children,
need all the help and strength that mental culture can give them.
Mere instinctive love is not sufficient. Instinct, which preserves the
lower creatures, needs no training; but human intelligence, which is in
constant request in a family, needs to be educated. The physical health
of the rising generation is entrusted to woman by Providence; and it is
in the physical nature that the moral and mental nature lies enshrined.
It is only by acting in accordance with the natural laws, which before
she can follow woman must needs understand, that the blessings of health
of body, and health of mind and morals, can be secured at home.
Without a knowledge of such laws, the mother's love too often finds its
recompence only in a child's coffin. [1119]
It is a mere truism to say that the intellect with which woman as well
as man is endowed, has been given for use and exercise, and not "to fust
in her unused." Such endowments are never conferred without a purpose.
The Creator may be lavish in His gifts, but he is never wasteful.
Woman was not meant to be either an unthinking drudge, or the merely
pretty ornament of man's leisure. She exists for herself, as well as
for others; and the serious and responsible duties she is called upon to
perform in life, require the cultivated head as well as the sympathising
heart. Her highest mission is not to be fulfilled by the mastery of
fleeting accomplishments, on which so much useful time is now wasted;
for, though accomplishments may enhance the charms of youth and beauty,
of themselves sufficiently charming, they will be found of very little
use in the affairs of real life.
The highest praise which the ancient Romans could express of a noble
matron was that she sat at home and span--"DOMUM MANSIT, LANAM FECIT."
In our own time, it has been said that chemistry enough to keep the pot
boiling, and geography enough to know the different rooms in her house,
was science enough for any woman; whilst Byron, whose sympathies for
woman were of a very imperfect kind, professed that he would limit
her library to a Bible and a cookery-book. But this view of woman's
character and culture is as absurdly narrow and unintelligent, on the
one hand, as the opposite view, now so much in vogue, is extravagant and
unnatural on the other--that woman ought to be educated so as to be as
much as possible the equal of man; undistinguishable from him, except
in sex; equal to him in rights and votes; and his competitor in all that
makes life a fierce and selfish struggle for place and power and money.
Speaking generally, the training and discipline that are most suitable
for the one sex in early life, are also the most suitable for the other;
and the education and culture that fill the mind of the man will prove
equally wholesome for the woman. Indeed, all the arguments which have
yet been advanced in favour of the higher education of men, plead
equally strongly in favour of the higher education of women. In all the
departments of home, intelligence will add to woman's usefulness and
efficiency. It will give her thought and forethought, enable her to
anticipate and provide for the contingencies of life, suggest
improved methods of management, and give her strength in every way. In
disciplined mental power she will find a stronger and safer protection
against deception and imposture than in mere innocent and unsuspecting
ignorance; in moral and religious culture she will secure sources of
influence more powerful and enduring than in physical attractions; and
in due self-reliance and self-dependence she will discover the truest
sources of domestic comfort and happiness.
But while the mind and character of women ought to be cultivated with
a view to their own wellbeing, they ought not the less to be educated
liberally with a view to the happiness of others. Men themselves cannot
be sound in mind or morals if women be the reverse; and if, as we hold
to be the case, the moral condition of a people mainly depends upon the
education of the home, then the education of women is to be regarded as
a matter of national importance. Not only does the moral character but
the mental strength of man find their best safeguard and support in the
moral purity and mental cultivation of woman; but the more completely
the powers of both are developed, the more harmonious and well-ordered
will society be--the more safe and certain its elevation and
advancement.
When about fifty years since, the first Napoleon said that the great
want of France was mothers, he meant, in other words, that the French
people needed the education of homes, provided over by good, virtuous,
intelligent women. Indeed, the first French Revolution presented one of
the most striking illustrations of the social mischiefs resulting from
a neglect of the purifying influence of women. When that great national
outbreak occurred, society was impenetrated with vice and profligacy.
Morals, religion, virtue, were swamped by sensualism. The character of
woman had become depraved. Conjugal fidelity was disregarded; maternity
was held in reproach; family and home were alike corrupted. Domestic
purity no longer bound society together. France was motherless; the
children broke loose; and the Revolution burst forth, "amidst the yells
and the fierce violence of women." [1120]
But the terrible lesson was disregarded, and again and again France
has grievously suffered from the want of that discipline, obedience,
self-control, and self-respect which can only be truly learnt at home.
It is said that the Third Napoleon attributed the recent powerlessness
of France, which left her helpless and bleeding at the feet of her
conquerors, to the frivolity and lack of principle of the people, as
well as to their love of pleasure--which, however, it must be confessed,
he himself did not a little to foster. It would thus seem that the
discipline which France still needs to learn, if she would be good and
great, is that indicated by the First Napoleon--home education by good
mothers.
The influence of woman is the same everywhere. Her condition influences
the morals, manners, and character of the people in all countries.
Where she is debased, society is debased; where she is morally pure and
enlightened, society will be proportionately elevated.
Hence, to instruct woman is to instruct man; to elevate her character is
to raise his own; to enlarge her mental freedom is to extend and secure
that of the whole community. For Nations are but the outcomes of Homes,
and Peoples of Mothers.
But while it is certain that the character of a nation will be elevated
by the enlightenment and refinement of woman, it is much more than
doubtful whether any advantage is to be derived from her entering into
competition with man in the rough work of business and polities. Women
can no more do men's special work in the world than men can do women's.
And wherever woman has been withdrawn from her home and family to enter
upon other work, the result has been socially disastrous. Indeed, the
efforts of some of the best philanthropists have of late years been
devoted to withdrawing women from toiling alongside of men in coalpits,
factories, nailshops, and brickyards.
It is still not uncommon in the North for the husbands to be idle at
home, while the mothers and daughters are working in the factory; the
result being, in many cases, an entire subversion of family order, of
domestic discipline, and of home rule. [1121] And for many years past, in
Paris, that state of things has been reached which some women desire
to effect amongst ourselves. The women there mainly attend to
business--serving the BOUTIQUE, or presiding at the COMPTOIR--while
the men lounge about the Boulevards. But the result has only been
homelessness, degeneracy, and family and social decay.
Nor is there any reason to believe that the elevation and improvement
of women are to be secured by investing them with political power.
There are, however, in these days, many believers in the potentiality
of "votes," [1122] who anticipate some indefinite good from the
"enfranchisement" of women. It is not necessary here to enter upon the
discussion of this question. But it may be sufficient to state that
the power which women do not possess politically is far more than
compensated by that which they exercise in private life--by their
training in the home those who, whether as men or as women, do all the
manly as well as womanly work of the world. The Radical Bentham has said
that man, even if he would, cannot keep power from woman; for that
she already governs the world "with the whole power of a despot," [1123]
though the power that she mainly governs by is love. And to form the
character of the whole human race, is certainly a power far greater than
that which women could ever hope to exercise as voters for members of
Parliament, or even as lawmakers.
There is, however, one special department of woman's work demanding the
earnest attention of all true female reformers, though it is one
which has hitherto been unaccountably neglected. We mean the better
economizing and preparation of human food, the waste of which at
present, for want of the most ordinary culinary knowledge, is little
short of scandalous. If that man is to be regarded as a benefactor of
his species who makes two stalks of corn to grow where only one grew
before, not less is she to be regarded as a public benefactor who
economizes and turns to the best practical account the food-products
of human skill and labour. The improved use of even our existing supply
would be equivalent to an immediate extension of the cultivable acreage
of our country--not to speak of the increase in health, economy, and
domestic comfort. Were our female reformers only to turn their energies
in this direction with effect, they would earn the gratitude of
all households, and be esteemed as among the greatest of practical
philanthropists.