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The Riverside Library for Young People
NUMBER 8
GIRLS AND WOMEN
BY
E. CHESTER
(Harriet E. Paine)
[Illustration: Publisher's logo]
_Copyright, 1890,_
BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
_All rights reserved._
_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. AN AIM IN LIFE 7
II. HEALTH 24
III. A PRACTICAL EDUCATION 38
IV. SELF-SUPPORT.--SHALL GIRLS SUPPORT THEMSELVES? 49
V. SELF-SUPPORT.--HOW SHALL GIRLS SUPPORT THEMSELVES? 63
VI. OCCUPATIONS FOR THE RICH 82
VII. CULTURE 99
VIII. THE ESSENTIALS OF A LADY 116
IX. THE PROBLEM OF CHARITY 127
X. THE ESSENTIALS OF A HOME 136
XI. HOSPITALITY 154
XII. BRIC-À-BRAC 165
XIII. EMOTIONAL WOMEN 173
XIV. A QUESTION OF SOCIETY 187
XV. NARROW LIVES 201
XVI. CONCLUSION.--A MISCELLANEOUS CHAPTER 218
GIRLS AND WOMEN.
I.
AN AIM IN LIFE.
For the sake of girls who are just beginning life, let me tell the
stories of some other girls who are now middle-aged women. Some of them
have succeeded and some have failed in their purposes, and often in a
surprising way.
I remember a girl who left school at seventeen with the highest honors.
Immediately we began to see her name in the best magazines. The heavy
doors of literature seemed to swing open before her. Then suddenly we
heard no more of her. A dozen years later she was known to no one
outside her own circle. She was earning her living as book-keeper in a
large five-cent store! She led the life of a drudge, and that was not
the worst of it. She was a sensitive woman, and there was much that was
mortifying in her position. All her Greek and Italian books were packed
away. She knew no more of science than when she left school. At odd
minutes she read good novels, and that was all she had to do with
literature. Those who had expected much of her thought her life was a
failure, and she thought so too.
Yet there is another side to the picture. The aim she had set for
herself in life was not to be an author, though that idea had taken
strong hold on her, and she tried to realize it in spite of great
discouragements. This was her minor aim, but the grand aim with her had
always been to lead the divine life at whatever cost. It proved to cost
almost everything. Her utmost help was needed for her large family,
which was poor. Unusual as her success with editors had been, no girl of
seventeen could depend on a large income from magazines. A good salary
was offered her as book-keeper, and she accepted it.
She tried to continue her favorite occupation by rising early, but she
was not strong enough to go on long in that way. She sometimes had an
hour in the evening, but when she saw the wistful look in her mother's
face she would not shut herself up alone. At the rare times when she was
still free to choose she went back to her books and her pen, but she
could not do much, and at last she felt it would be better not to try.
It was simply a source of vexation, and she needed a serene mind above
all things.
The only way her life could open towards beauty or happiness at all was
by putting the true spirit into her daily work. With a resolute heart
she did this. No books were ever more beautifully kept than hers; every
figure was clear and perfect; every column was added without a mistake.
In short, she did her work like an artist.
To the sales-girls she was like a guardian angel. She might have written
good stories all her life without helping others half so much. Little,
weak, frivolous girls became strong, fine women simply from daily
contact with her. She did not realize that. She only knew that she loved
the girls and that they loved her. She did know that she helped her
family--with her money. Her spirit helped them unconsciously still more.
When at last she gave up the minor aim of her life, and no longer tried
to be learned or famous, she had her energies set free for many little
things which had previously been crowded out. It was easy now to find a
leisure hour to help any one who needed sympathy. There was time to
watch the beauty of the sunset or of the falling snow. If she had no
time to scramble through a volume of a new poet, she could still learn
line by line some favorite old poem, and let it sink into her heart, so
that it did its work thoroughly. If she could not find time to learn the
history of all the artists from the time of Phidias to the last New York
exhibition, yet when a beautiful picture was before her she could look
at it thoughtfully without feeling that she must hurry on to the next.
In this way, perhaps, she gained a more absolute culture than in the way
she would have chosen, a culture of thought and character which told on
every one who came near her.
She was always climbing up towards God, and his help never failed her.
The climbing was hard, yet the pathway was radiant with light. Those who
were stumbling along in the darkness by her side saw the light and were
able to walk erect.
I cannot say she was altogether happy with so many of her fine powers
unused. Perhaps she was not even quite right in sacrificing herself
completely. Sometimes she fostered selfishness in others while she tried
to cast it out of herself. But so far as she could see she had no
choice. If she had refused the sacrifice, it would have been by giving
up the grand aim of her life. Her minor aim was good in itself, but it
conflicted with something better. Those who did not know her life
intimately thought it a failure. Those who saw deeper knew that her
utter failure in what was non-essential had been the condition of
essential success.
I remember another brilliant girl who did win her way. She was poor and
plain and friendless, but she won wealth and fame and friends, and then,
with all this success, she blossomed into beauty. She had a struggle,
but she came out victorious. I think she was happy. She was glad to be
beautiful and to be loved. She had music and pictures and travel in
abundance, and she appreciated these things. She liked to give to the
poor, and she did give bountifully and with a grace and sweetness better
than the gift.
She painted pictures which everybody admired, and that pleased her. She
had dreamed of all this when a child. She had genius and she had
perseverance. Her aim was to be a famous artist, and she did not flinch
from any work or sacrifice which would help her to that end. So far all
was well, and she reached the goal. As there was nothing to prevent her
carrying out secondary plans at the same time, she could be cultivated
and charitable without giving up her great object.
She wanted to be good besides. She never deliberately decided for the
wrong against the right. And yet a noble life was not first in her
thoughts. When she was a school-girl she had a lover who was like a
better self. By and by he chose to study for the ministry, while she
went to the city to try her fortune. So far they shared every thought
and feeling and hope. She knew she was a better woman with him than with
any one else. But at last he was called to a remote country parish, and
for himself was satisfied with it. But she--how then could she be his
wife? Her heart was torn in the strife. Some women whose vision was
less keen would have married him, hoping that in some way they might
still carry out their own ambition. But she was at a critical point in
her career and she knew it. She had just begun to be known personally to
influential people, and her name was beginning to be known to the
public. She dared not risk leaving her post. She wrote her lover a
charming letter,--for she did love him,--and told him how it was. "When
I have won my victory," said she, "I shall be a free woman. And you will
love me just as much when I have more to give you than I have now. But
now I have my little talent confided to me, and I dare not fold it away
in a napkin." Her lover agreed to this, though it was hard for him. They
worked apart year after year. At last she was a free woman, with money
enough to live without work at all, and with fame enough to work when
and where she pleased. But gradually she cared less and less for the
objects of her lover's life. She would not own to herself that she had
failed in constancy to him. She always thought she was glad to see him
when he came to the city. But he felt the difference in her, though he
tried not to see it. She was far more beautiful than when he had first
loved her; but in the days when she was so plain and had worn shabby
dresses there had been an expression about her mouth which he missed
now. The lovely face was still eager with longing, but it had lost the
look of aspiration. Reluctantly, he admitted the change in her. At last
he told her what he felt, that she had ceased to love him. She had
deceived herself so far that she had not realized how idle her excuses
were for putting off the marriage from year to year. When the separation
came she felt a sharp pang--as much of mortification at her own failure
as of wounded love. Yet she consented to the separation, and she seemed
to be happy after it. She thought her life had been tragic, and that she
had made a heroic sacrifice of her love to the necessity which her
genius laid upon her to do a certain work in the world.
I should be afraid to say that she was altogether wrong. There are, no
doubt, some women who are meant to serve the whole world rather than the
little domestic circle. And yet she did give up what she had believed
the best part of herself. And her pictures, though they were admired,
lacked an indescribable something of which her first crude sketches had
given promise. I do not think that, after all, they did very much to
interpret beauty to the world. She had two aims in life, both good, but
she placed the first second, and the second first. Perhaps, on the
whole, she was happier for the choice she made. But she missed something
better than happiness which is always missed by those who make the lower
aim their object--she missed the aspiration for higher happiness.
I have seen many successful lives led by women who as girls showed very
moderate abilities, simply because they had one definite aim. I knew a
girl who became an excellent actress. She was a pretty girl with a
little talent. She was not poor, but she had an ambition to be on the
stage. She had the good sense to see that she was not a genius, but she
also had courage enough to persevere in using the ability she had. For
the first ten years she made so little apparent headway that even among
her acquaintances many people did not know she had ever acted at all. In
the mean time she had studied hard. She knew many popular plays by
heart, and had carefully watched other actresses. She was acquainted
with a number of theatrical people. She had always been at hand when a
manager wanted an extra peasant girl, or when a waiting maid was ill.
She had joined a small troupe traveling through the bleakest and
roughest parts of the Northwest in midwinter. By and by she was fitted
to be of use in a stock company. Then, after a few more years, she
achieved what she had been striving for. She was able to take the
slighter characters in the plays of Shakespeare. No one excelled her
here. No great actress would take so small a part, and no small actress
was willing to take such pains. Her power was unique and she was
indispensable. Her name was seldom on the play-bills, but she added
something to the culture of the world by making the interpretation of
Shakespeare more complete.
Her success came first from having a definite aim, and second, from
understanding herself sufficiently to aim at something within her power;
but happily it was also the highest thing within her power. She was both
humble and aspiring. She showed her humility in shrinking from no
drudgery, and satisfied her cravings for the ideal by doing the smallest
thing in the best way possible to her. She enjoyed even her drudgery
because she put the best of herself into it, but, more than that, she
knew it was leading her exactly in the direction she wanted to go. If
the drudgery had led to nothing she would have needed all the moral
power of our little book-keeper to save her from misery. Her own happier
life required some moral power, how much it is hard to say. A woman
might do all she did and be little the better for it. It would depend on
the aim she cherished in her heart. If she had no higher aim than to be
a good actress her life did not avail much. But if her acting was only
the minor aim, then her life was thoroughly noble as well as successful.
Her choice of a minor aim makes it probable that she also had the
highest aim. Otherwise she would have been either more or less humble.
She would either have wished to be a star actress or have been contented
with any trifling parts which brought her money and admiration.
The best happiness comes from our perseverance in following the grand
aim of life. But "the kind of happiness which we all recognize as such"
is generally that which comes from the successful pursuit of our minor
aim. Herbert Spencer says that every creature is happy when he is fully
using his powers. I have known a girl with a magnificent voice who
endured great hardships for a musical education, and who finally
accomplished her purpose and enchanted the world with her singing. She
was happy. Of course everybody expected her to be. But I have known
another girl, equally happy, carefully working in the laboratory to find
the water-tubes of a star-fish or the nerves of a clam. This girl said
to me with a face bright with enthusiasm, "When I first began to work
with Professor ---- in the laboratory it was as if I had been traveling
all my life in a desert land, and had suddenly come upon fountains of
fresh water." She was as poor and obscure as my singer was rich and
famous, but she was using her powers and was happy.
Of course the kind of happiness to be found even in secondary success
depends on the great aim of any life. In some cases it almost seems as
if the minor aim were the only one. The happiness it brings cannot go
very high, yet so far as a looker-on may judge it feels like happiness.
But most people--perhaps all, if we only knew it--do acknowledge the
grand aim in life, even though they make very little effort to reach
it. When they consciously neglect this for the minor aim, they are
uneasy and not thoroughly happy; but when the minor aim is good in
itself and is always made subservient to the higher, success there does
prove a well-spring of delight.
Spencer's remark is also true in the best sense, for no powers crave
exercise so much as the higher powers. If my singer had done a sinful
deed no applause could have made her happy. And, on a lower plane, if
she had lost the husband she dearly loved, even her art would not have
satisfied her.
It may seem as if I am choosing all my illustrations from among people
who have special gifts, and that nothing I say applies to the great army
of girls who will never be distinguished, and who are all the dearer for
not wishing to be so. I have not forgotten this, but I began with
striking illustrations because they are easiest to understand.
The grand aim of life should be the same for all, whether gifted or not.
But the particular aim must vary with the individual. Probably with five
girls out of ten the particular aim is to have a happy home. Once we
might have said nine girls out of ten, but the present tendency of
thought is to make girls ambitious,--too ambitious, it sometimes seems,
for the very best of life.
Of course selfishness shows itself in various ways, and the girl who
wishes to have a happy home without thinking how she shall make a happy
home may be more selfish than the girl who dreams of fame, but with the
understanding that the price of fame is, and ought to be, the giving of
some blessing to the world.
I know a delightful girl who seems to think of nothing but making others
happy from the moment when she meets her maid with a cheerful
"Good-morning," till she contrives that some less attractive girl shall
have the most desirable partner in the ball-room in the evening. She
gives her money and her time and her thought to the service of other
people. This is so natural to her that no one thinks of her as making it
a conscious aim, but the result is so beautiful as to suggest that it
would be the best aim for every girl. Nevertheless she has a still
higher aim, for sometimes the happiness of other people--at least their
visible happiness--clashes with some other duty. Then she does not fail.
She gives her hard refusal in pleasant but firm words, and she tells the
truth even if it makes some one wince. She is not a genius, but, on the
whole, I hardly know another girl so full of the best life. That her
highest aim is the true one is without question, and that her minor aim
is the true one for her must also be admitted. Whether it is so for all
is not quite clear. She has the natural gift which makes all her
ministrations to others acceptable, but every one is not so endowed.
She has a cousin as unselfish as she is whose capacity is entirely
different. She is a quiet, reserved, thoughtful girl, who always speaks
slowly. She is just and good-tempered, and is ready to give her time and
money when she sees she can be of use. But her thoughts move in other
channels. She has excellent mathematical abilities, and she is always
resolving some difficult problem. She hopes some day to do some work in
astronomy. Of course she would be glad to do some great work and be
known as a benefactor to mankind, but probably she works from love of
her work more than from the hope of doing good. She, too, is charming,
but it takes a long time to know her well.
Should one of these girls try to do the work of the other? Or is one
better than the other? I think not, since both look so steadily towards
the highest star in their field of vision. The minor aim of life must
always have reference to the gifts of the individual. Even visiting the
poor would become absurd if nobody did anything else.
If we believe in an overruling Providence we cannot of course say that
anything is by chance; but so far as we can see, failure in this
world--that is, failure to reach our minor aim--does sometimes seem to
be due to a trifling accident. Yet success is not so. If Byron, for
instance, awoke one morning and found himself famous, it was because he
had previously done the work which was suddenly recognized by the world.
Indeed, none of us need look for success who does not choose a definite
aim in life. And, more than that, no discouragement must turn us aside
from it. We may fail in the end then, but we shall have followed the
only possible path to success.
How shall we choose our aim? We know what our grand aim must be, and
that if we do our part there we shall not fail, for we shall have God to
help us; and we know that our minor aim must never be opposed to this.
But what shall our minor aim be, or shall we be content to drift without
any at all?
We must try to understand ourselves so far at least as to know what our
own powers and tastes are, and choose accordingly. A young girl hardly
knows her own bent. Then the uncertainty in regard to her marriage and
the great change that necessarily makes in her pursuits renders the
problem harder for her than for her brothers.
Most girls wish to be the centre of a happy home, but many of them are
very careless about the means of making themselves fit to be such a
centre. They think when love comes it will do everything, and it is true
that it will do wonders. But suppose a girl remembers that if she is
well she can make her family happier then if she is always
ailing,--suppose she remembers how much good housekeeping does to make a
home attractive; that if she is musical her singing will calm the
troubled waters, while if she is not her practicing will be a burden;
that there are some studies which bear directly on life and some others
which will be of infinite use to a mother in training her children,--is
she not more likely to have a happy home than if her aim had been less
definite?
But what of the girls who choose this aim and who never have a home?
Their lot is hard, but they may add happiness to some home not their
own. If they are not obliged to support themselves, they can probably
create some kind of a home for themselves, though not that of their
ideal. If they must earn their living, the problem is harder.
Circumstances may force them into a widely different path from that they
would have chosen. Then they must remember the grand aim of their lives,
and do the best work they can for the sake of it. Still, they may use
the home-making faculty in some measure in the humblest attic.
But there is a large and ever larger class of girls with other tastes
than domestic ones. Here, I think, the danger is greater than in case of
even the most unfortunate girls with domestic tastes; for tastes and
talents do not always agree. We have all known girls willing to practice
six hours a day who could never be musicians, and most girls think they
could write a book. Many people who are quite free to choose make too
ambitious a choice. It seems a part of the office of culture to correct
such ambitions. I have in mind a class of half-taught school-girls many
of whom fondly hoped to be poetesses; and I remember a class of highly
cultivated girls, who had had every advantage of education which money
could buy, who were full of anxiety on leaving school because they could
not see that they had capacity enough to do any work worth doing in the
world. The general verdict among them was that as they had money they
could give it to the poor, but that they had nothing in themselves. They
were as much too timid as the others were too confident.
A girl who has to earn her living has a safeguard, for which few are
very thankful. No one will pay her to indulge her tastes without
reference to her talents. She finds out gradually what _ought_ to be her
minor aim, for she discovers the special service she can render to the
world in return for what it offers to her. In most cases she wins a
reasonable measure of success and happiness.
But some of us are obstinate. We see one pathway we long to tread even
though it is beset with stones and briers. We are determined to take
that way, even if we never climb high enough to penetrate the low-lying
mists which darken it. We would rather pursue even a little way the
painful pathway which leads to the glorious mountain-top than to follow
an easier path to some lower summit. If we truly feel that, we do well
to take the path, for we have a right to forget ourselves for the sake
of our aim. But if we ask for success after all, it is mere blind vanity
which makes us so obstinate in our choice.
Let us remember that our direct usefulness in the world and most of our
conscious happiness will depend on our choosing and steadily pursuing as
our minor aim that for which our nature fits us, even if we wish our
nature had been different; while our utmost usefulness and our highest
happiness will depend on our clearness of vision in seeing, and our
unwavering fidelity in following, the grand aim of life.
II.
HEALTH.
Mr. Clapp says enthusiastically that we cannot imagine Rosalind or
Portia or Cordelia or Juliet with neuralgia or headache. And I believe
that Shakespeare's women have now taken the place of the more
lackadaisical and sentimental heroines of the past in the minds of many
girls.
Now that girls wish to be well, it is worth while to consider two
questions. First, why is health so important? Unless the answer to this
question is clear, how can any one be ready to sacrifice health to any
higher duty? Girls do sacrifice it frequently even when they know what
they are doing, but it is generally for a caprice, because they want to
dance later or skate longer, or study unreasonably; or sometimes they
cannot resist the temptation of food which is not convenient for them,
or they are willing to indulge their nerves too much, or it is too much
trouble not to take cold.
I wish every girl who knows that she does not live up to her light in
this respect would say to herself once a day for a month, "I ought to be
vigorously well if I want to do my part in the world, or to be in
thoroughly good spirits." I wish she would think of the meaning of what
she says, and then see if she does not do some things she is loth to do
and avoid some pleasing temptations. I believe a month's application of
this formula would give her a new insight into the value of health. I
speak not only of health, but of _vigorous_ health. We want to do our
part in the world, and that part ought to be our utmost. Agassiz could
work fifteen hours a day. Most of us could never do anything so
magnificent as that, and the attempt to do it would probably end in our
being unfitted to do any work at all. But suppose Agassiz had said,
"Twelve hours is too much for most men to work, so I can afford to be
careless of my surplus health as long as I have strength to work twelve
hours." The world would not only have lost much in the matter of his
discoveries, but the spirit of all his work would have been different. I
do not mean that it was necessarily the best thing for Agassiz even to
work fifteen hours a day on fishes. He might have given part of his time
to music, or friends, or novels, because he saw that, on the whole, such
recreation met the higher needs of life. But I mean that he was a man to
whom a full life was possible for fifteen hours a day, and that he would
have been wrong to be satisfied with less.
And now, second, _how_ shall girls be thoroughly well? The laws of
health are few and simple. They are so well understood by the parents
of this generation that it may seem a waste of time to allude to them
here. Yet I am writing for girls whose ideas are often vague.
One word in regard to the study of Physiology. It is a fine study. If a
girl thoroughly understands how her body ought to work in health, how
one organ acts with another, then, in case of any local disturbance, she
will probably be capable of seeing how, if the general tone of the
system is raised, the particular difficulty will disappear, and she will
no longer follow blindly rules she has learned by rote. Yet people learn
more by practice than by theory, and it is probable that the fascinating
study of Physiology is of more use intellectually than physically to
most school-girls. If they are allowed to dwell much on diseases of the
body instead of on its normal action, the study may be a positive injury
to them by leading to morbid conditions.
And now again, What are the essentials of health? Several things may be
regarded as equally necessary, so that I cannot lay down rules in
exactly the order of importance, yet it is purposely that I begin with
_Breathe fresh air._
Food is important, but we can live hours without taking food, while we
must have air every moment. Moreover, the oxygen of the air actually
nourishes the body as food does, by forming a part of the blood.
How shall we get fresh air? First, by spending all the time possible out
of doors, both in summer and winter, in storm and sunshine. Every one
acknowledges the advantage of exercise in the open air for its own sake;
but in New England we have not yet learned how far it is possible to
live in the open air. I was once at a country-house in Switzerland which
illustrates this ideal. The breakfast-table was spread on a terrace
shaded by plane-trees, outside the dining-room door. The table was then
cleared and books and work brought out. The family devotions were
conducted there. The students studied and wrote, the ladies sewed and
knit, and the maids prepared the vegetables for dinner which was also
eaten there. For six months in the year this was the ordinary course of
life. It would not, to be sure, be possible in all climates, but oftener
than we think.
Yet two thirds of our life must be passed in the house, and usually in
closed rooms on account of the cold. Now two persons cannot sit an hour
in one room before the air becomes vitiated. Most forms of ventilation
prove inadequate. M. was a vigorous young lady who made it a rule to
leave a window slightly open all the time she was at work, being careful
not to sit in the draught. But where this is not convenient, it is a
good plan to open a window wide every hour or two for a minute. I knew a
girl who tried that plan, but gave it up because it seemed so
ridiculous to jump up from her studies every little while for the
purpose. Yet nothing is worse than to sit still at one occupation for
several hours, and even the slight change of position would do one
almost as much good as the fresh air.
It is indispensable to have the window open through the night in every
sleeping-room. But here caution is needed, because when the body is
quiet a draught is a serious injury. Strips of wood across the open part
of the window will generally be sufficient protection. Some of you
shiver at the idea of breathing out of door air in the winter. You are
so cold! Do you know that the moment you begin to breathe it you begin
to grow warm from the increased action of the blood? But
_Do not take cold._
The results of colds are more serious than one likes to say.
Consumption, pneumonia, catarrh, deafness are some of their names. And
the whole tone of the system is lowered by them. But the over-careful
people are precisely those who suffer most from colds, because here, as
in so many other directions, the nerves have sway.
Now, most colds are taken in one of four ways: By sitting in a draught,
by becoming thoroughly chilled, by wetting the feet, and by breathing
raw air. But none of these things are necessarily injurious to a young
girl in ordinary health--_provided_ she at once does what she can to
counteract their effects. Move out of the draught, warm the body as
thoroughly as it was chilled, dry the feet before sitting down, and
cover the mouth with a veil so that the air is slightly warmed before
breathing. Then one need never stay in for the weather, even if one
already has a cold.
Of course there are very delicate girls who need special care, but I am
speaking to the average girl. Do not forget that a cold is a terrible
thing, but also remember that it can be avoided by a little care at the
right time, and by entire forgetfulness at other times.
_Take plenty of exercise._
The more you can exercise in the open air the better. And if you take
exercise you will find it possible to be out of doors on very cold days.
If you are not strong on your feet, perhaps you are strong in the
muscles for rowing. If you cannot row, perhaps you can ride. If you
cannot ride, perhaps you can drive. If you cannot drive, perhaps you can
exercise in the gymnasium. If you cannot do any of these things, do what
you can. Walk from your door to the street and back again. Do the same
thing over in fifteen minutes, and unless you are a miserable _bonâ
fide_ invalid your muscles will soon become more useful. Doing errands,
and going about to people who need you, will give you valuable exercise
for which you take no thought.
But some of you are too busy to exercise many hours a day in the open
air, and so you ought to be. The next best thing for you is housework.
Perhaps you do not like that because you see it under the wrong angle of
vision. Whether you like it or not, it is within reach of most of you,
and would do you good.
But suppose your books and your sewing are necessary and keep you busy
all day. Then you are to remember to change your position often. At the
end of every hour, when you open the window, take a few deep breaths,
stretch your arms and legs and fingers, and you will be better able to
go on with your task.
_Eat such food as you can thoroughly digest._
There are persons who are always troubled as to what they shall eat, and
who, with all their care, are always ailing. I do not want you to think
about your food so much that you can digest nothing, but I believe that
a very little observation will teach you what is good for you
individually. If you have a dizzy head, or rising of food, or a bad
breath, or uneasiness of the bowels, you may be pretty sure that you
have eaten something that disagrees with you, and by a little
watchfulness you may discover what it is and avoid it.
Food that you can digest very well when you are fresh may be much too
heavy for you when you are tired. And if you are thinking intently while
you eat, the blood is drawn from the stomach where it should be to the
brain where it should not be. Few people can digest vegetables not
thoroughly cooked, or fruit not thoroughly ripe. I think the study of
Physiology is of more practical hygienic value in teaching the absolute
necessity of using food that can be readily assimilated by the body, and
in showing how different foods should be combined to that end, than in
any other way. A little fish or meat, especially beef, considerable
bread, especially of the coarser grains, some vegetables, and fruit
according to individual organizations, make up the necessary daily fare.
A tired stomach should begin with soup. As for the thousand appetizing
viands set before us, each must decide for herself what to eat. As long
as you have none of the symptoms of indigestion, it is probably safe to
gratify the appetite and take delight in food without further care; but
if these symptoms appear, think first whether you were too tired, or had
too busy a brain to digest anything; next, whether anything you ate was
unripe or underdone, and finally, whether there was anything in the bill
of fare which had ever troubled you before. Then correct your future
practice accordingly, and think no more about it. Depend upon it, you
will soon be well, and, further, you will find, with mortification
perhaps, that some of the headaches you thought came from overtaxing the
brain, or from sensibility to the woes of the world, were really due to
improper food. As compensation for your mortification you will be a
more useful woman for your whole life.
_Work regularly with both body and mind._
Those who must work for self-support are probably, on the whole, in
better health than those who are free from necessity. A girl who stands
all day behind a counter runs some risks in health, but her chances are
still as good as those of the fine lady who broods over imaginary
ailments till they become real. To those who must work I have but little
to say, for they have a narrow margin of choice. There are several
suggestions to be made, however. If your work is physical, use a little
of your leisure every day in some mental occupation. The best thing is
to do some real studying. If you can only spend fifteen minutes every
day on history or literature or botany or French, you will find yourself
the better for it bodily, because it will give you an outlook beyond the
daily horizon, and take your thoughts from your own weariness. If you
have no leisure, or if your work is so exhausting that even fifteen
minutes of study seems burdensome, then keep some interesting novel of
good tone at hand, and read a little in that every day to change the
current of your thoughts. If you find, however, that you usually have
more than an hour for your novel, you may suspect that fifteen minutes
of study would not hurt you.
Do you know that you are never resting when you are thinking that you
are tired? When you are tired rest at once, if you can, by sitting or
lying down, or taking recreation, as experience has shown you to be
best. But then think no more about it. Perhaps you may be overworking.
If you truly believe this and see any possibility of saving yourself, do
so, even if you have to give up something which seems particularly
important. If you _must_ overwork,--and there are such cases, though
they are not so common as we think,--accept the condition as a part of
the discipline of life, rest whenever you can, and say and think as
little about it as you can. This advice is to save you from one form of
the nervous diseases which are the peculiar misfortune of our time.
If your work is sedentary take physical exercise in your leisure
time,--out of doors, if possible; but remember that housework is the
best substitute for that.
The women who are not obliged to work are those who most need this
precept. They can drive, and by and by they cannot walk. They can lie on
the lounge when they feel indisposed, and they lie there long after they
would get up if they had any work to do. They have the best chance for
complete physical development, but they have great temptations to
neglect their opportunities. Among the sweetest of such women there is
an alarming amount of nervous disease, which is, alas! at the foundation
a refined selfishness. To speak plainly, as one has said, we are all as
lazy as we dare to be, and these women have no check upon laziness. No
power of body or mind can be preserved without exercise, and the muscles
grow soft, and the moral fibre grows weak. These women are lovely, they
speak in gentle voices, and they never use a harsh word, but they rule
all about them with a rod of iron. Dr. Weir Mitchell, in his blunt way,
says that nervous diseases among women have destroyed the happiness of
more families than intemperance.
By and by the invalid cannot rally even if she has the will, but it is
hard to decide where responsibility ends. If your mothers or your aunts
are nervous invalids, do not judge them. Causes may have been at work
which you cannot see. Pity their terrible misfortune, and do all you can
to make them happy. But you, who have the added light of another
generation, are inexcusable if you fall into such a state.
How can you avoid it? It is easy to say, "Do not talk about your
headaches, or your delicate constitution;" but how are you to help
thinking about these things? Decide on regular daily work for
yourselves. If you are still school-girls and your head feels heavy in
the morning, think whether you would be justified in staying at home if
you were a teacher. Teachers have headaches too, but they seldom stay at
home for one, and they are seldom the worse for going to school.
When you leave school undertake some regular work. Take charge of the
marketing, or oversee the housekeeping for a year. Ask the officers of
the Associated Charities to give you something definite to do, and do it
regularly. If you are not fitted for visiting the poor, suppose you make
experiments in natural science. See what Lubbock did with ants, bees,
and wasps. There are thousands of such experiments to be tried, but few
people have the leisure for them. You may not understand your results,
but you can make the accurate observations which are absolutely
necessary before a great man can find out the laws which govern them.
Some mental work you must do. Of course you wish that. If you are in a
city like Boston, I will tell you what you will be tempted to do. You
will be tempted to sandwich your parties and calls and concerts with two
or three courses of morning lectures given by highly trained
specialists. In this way you will get a delightful society knowledge of
history and literature and art and science, but you will not really
exercise your mind very much. Your knowledge will be available for talk,
but not for thought. Go to the lectures by all means,--though perhaps
one course at a time will do; but be sure that every day at a fixed hour
you study the subject of the lecture by yourself, and make it thoroughly
your own.
Am I wandering from the topic of health? I think not, because during
the last fifty years we have learned almost all the laws of health, and
yet we are not much better than before, for our nerves are still on
edge. Now girls, even rich girls, can control their nerves, if they
begin soon enough, with will and intelligence. And nothing will help
them more than to have their bodies and minds constantly employed in
rational ways so that there is no room for nervous fancies.
_Take the rest you need._
It is hard to know how much you need. Some people must have more than
others. It is easy to be lazy on the one hand, and to be dissipated on
the other. Some people are injured by springing out of bed as soon as
they wake, and others by letting the time drift by while they doze. Some
one gives this good rule, "Decide when you ought to rise to make the
best use of your day. Make a point of rising at that time; but go to bed
earlier and earlier till you find out how much sleep you need in order
to be fresh at that hour in the morning." Such a rule would meet most
cases, but not all; for though regularity is as important for health as
for a wise life, it cannot be an iron regularity, especially if a girl
is at all delicate. I would give more flexible rules, though it is
harder to keep flexible rules than iron ones.
I have said before that when you are tired you should rest at once, if
you can. Rest completely, but not long. Half an hour on the sofa is
generally enough. Rise early, because an extra hour in the morning can
be better used than one later in the day, and if duties crowd you get
tired in remembering what you cannot do. But if you are not fresh in the
morning, go to bed earlier. If that does not meet the case, your
weariness probably comes from some other cause than insufficient rest.
Perhaps your room is not well ventilated, or you may suffer from
indigestion, or you may exercise your brain too much and your body too
little. If you sit over books or sewing all day, you will always be
tired however many hours you sleep. Most girls from fifteen to twenty
need about nine hours sleep. If you wish to rise at six, you ought to be
in bed at nine.
A few, a very few, of you must be invalids. You may have inherited a
wasting disease, an accident may have crippled you, or something else
beyond your control may have brought this misfortune upon you. But most
of you have it in your power to be well, and remember you will be doing
something morally wrong if you become feeble women.
III.
A PRACTICAL EDUCATION.
What is a practical education for a girl? Whatever will fit her for
life. The question and answer are trite. What will best fit a girl for
life? First of all a well-balanced character. I knew a girl who was a
good cook before she was ten years old; she had a genius for sewing; she
was an excellent scholar in school, and had musical talent, and yet
because of her capriciousness she never filled any place she was called
upon to fill in life, and her home was a place of discomfort to her
husband and children. Another girl, one of the noblest I ever knew, also
found the practical details of life easy, but she was always tossed
about from one occupation to another, and from one home to another,
because when she found every reality fall short of her ideal she had not
the good sense to work quietly to improve the matter, but went about
proclaiming her disgust. The first thing we all need is to have our
wills so trained that when we see the right, we may instantly do it, and
after that we need to be taught to see clearly what is right.
But as character may be formed in many ways why not form it by teaching
practical things? What, then, does a girl most need to learn?
To read, to cook, and to sew.
I put reading first, for though no civilized beings can live without
cooking and sewing, and we occasionally find good and gentle women who
cannot read, yet a woman of real character who can read can teach
herself any branch of housekeeping which she is convinced she ought to
know, while a cook cannot teach herself to read in any broad sense; for
by reading I do not mean pronouncing words. I want a girl to have a
taste for good reading. She may study the whole circle of the sciences
without reaching this end, or she may not have more than half a dozen
books in her library and yet learn the lesson. The practical advantage
of most of her studies in school depends on whether or no they lead to
this result. How many girls ever use chemistry, or physics, or geology,
or zoölogy in any practical way? Yet what a difference the study of all
these things makes in the kind of reading women enjoy! Who can learn
enough history in school to be equipped even to teach history? Every
teacher knows that to be impossible. But a girl who has studied history
properly in school, who has been taught to think about the influence of
men on nations and of nations on men, has open to her a vast
treasure-house of books which will add both to her usefulness and
happiness.
Some of you may think it is artful in me to propose this broad education
under the pretense of requiring that one learn to read, but it is not
so. I do believe in a very broad education for girls; but if I had to
choose between a broad education which had crammed a girl with
knowledge, yet left her without a love for good reading, and a very
narrow one which had awakened that thirst, I should choose the second.
But why do I call this a practical education? Before I answer the
question, I must say more on the subject of reading. A girl may enjoy
biography, history, travels, and science and yet not have a taste for
the best reading, that is, for true literature. She needs essays,
novels, and especially poetry. She needs to be able to decide what is
best and what is not; she must learn to respond to beauty and truth, and
to repel what is false and ugly. This is the practical education,
because it bears upon both happiness and character. It is practical as
it makes the most of life not only for the woman herself, but for those
about her. Bear in mind always that we have supposed her to have a high
character and a perfectly trained will. Such reading will develop her
judgment as to what is right.
But some women like to read too well. Their will is not perfectly
trained, and they would rather think out a domestic problem than act it
out. The education of books alone is so one-sided that we cannot
consider it practical; it must be supplemented by cooking and sewing.
At our present stage of progress cooking is more important than sewing.
Sewing can be more easily put out of the house than cooking; and in any
emergency sewing may be neglected from week to week without serious
consequences, while cooking must go on every day. Moreover, cooking is
by far the more healthful occupation, and one of the aims of a practical
education is to make healthy women.
I do not glorify cooking. I do not think a good cook is the highest type
of woman. I do not even think it is the duty of every woman to cook. But
cooking is certainly practical, ninety-nine women in a hundred have
occasion some time in their lives for this accomplishment, and if they
are married it is nearly indispensable for them to have a knowledge of
it for the comfort of their families.
Few women are born to be cooks, but most intelligent women can learn to
cook. It saves immense labor, however, if as girls they learn the art.
It is singular that so many who fancy they want to be chemists hate the
idea of going into their own kitchens to work. It is possibly because
they cannot choose their own hours for cooking. Cooking certainly
develops the mind as much as chemical experiments, and at the end of the
process you have something of direct service to mankind, which may or
may not be the case with work done in the laboratory.
Cooking, sewing, and housekeeping are essential for any woman, married
or unmarried, who wishes to make a home, and a home is the practical
goal of the majority of women. A woman who is neat and intelligent
generally proves to be a good housekeeper without special instruction;
but with cooking and sewing, "Who wishes to be a master must begin
betimes."
Arithmetic is a science which a girl needs to understand thoroughly--not
necessarily business arithmetic, which she can learn if occasion
requires, but the principles of arithmetic, and she should be able to
work in numbers quickly and accurately.
The tide of opinion is against me here. A boy must know arithmetic of
course, or how can he fulfill his destiny and make money? But a girl!
Nevertheless, no woman can manage a household properly, or even guide
her own affairs as a single woman, without a good knowledge of
arithmetic. Her money will be wasted, her servants will cheat her,
tradespeople will be demoralized by her. There may be so much money at
her command that she goes on serenely unaware of harm. She may perform
feats of charity, but what was meant to be a blessing becomes a curse
through her ignorance.