CARE OF THE HABITS.--FAMILY HABITS.
It is difficult to keep a distinction between personal and family
habits. In our last chapter, on Personal Habits, we got to the family
dinner table; and here, in speaking of Family Habits, we shall doubtless
fall in with the characteristics of individuals.
First; as to occupations. Unless I knew for what class of readers I was
writing this, it is difficult to assume what their occupations may be.
In one class, the father may be busy in his office; and the mother in
ordering a large household, taking care of the poor in her
neighbourhood, and in study or keeping up her accomplishments; while the
boys are with their tutor, and the girls with their governess, and the
infants in the nursery.--In another, the mother may be instructing her
girls, while busy at her needle; and the boys may be at a day-school,
and the father in his warehouse or shop.--And again, this may be read by
parents who cannot spare their children from home, because they keep no
servants, and who charge themselves with teaching their young people, in
such hours as can be spared from the actual business of living. One
thing, however, is common to all these; and it is enough to proceed
upon. All these _are_ occupied. They have all business to do which ought
to engage their faculties, regularly and diligently: so that the great
principles and rules of family morals cannot fail to apply.
The first great point concerns them all equally:--Economy of Time.
Nobody yet ever had too much time; and the rich need all they can save
of it as much as the poorest. And the methods by which time is to be
made the most of are universally the same. This seems to be everywhere
felt, except among the ignorant. The most remarkable care, as to
punctuality, is actually found, in our country, among the highest
classes. It has bean said that "punctuality is the politeness of the
great:" and so it is. It shows their consideration for other people's
time and convenience: but there is more in it than that. The Queen, who
is extraordinarily punctual, and statesmen, and landed-proprietors, and
all who bear a burden of very important duty, are more sensible than
those who have less responsibility of the mischief of wasting minutes
which are all wanted for business; and yet more, of the waste of energy
and freedom of thought, and of composure and serenity which are caused
by failures in punctuality. For my own part, I acknowledge that not only
is any compulsory loss of time the trial, of all little trials, that I
most dislike, but that nothing whatever so chafes my temper as failure
in punctuality in those with whom I have transactions. And to me, one of
the charms of intercourse with enlightened and high-bred people is their
reliableness in regard to all engagements, and their exact economy of
time. To go from a disorderly household where no one seems to have any
time, and where one has to try hard all day long to keep one's temper,
to a great man's house, where half a hundred people move about their
business as if they were one; where all is quiet and freedom and
leisure, as if the business of life went on of itself, leaving minds at
liberty for other work, is one of the most striking contrasts I have met
with in society. And I have seen the same order and punctuality prevail,
with much the same effect, in very humble households, where, instead of
a score or two of servants, there were a few well-trained children to do
the work. It is a thing which does not depend on wealth, but on
intelligence. There is, (here and there, but not often) a great house to
be seen where you cannot get anything you want till you have rung
half-a-dozen times, and waited half an hour; where you are pretty sure
to leave some of your luggage behind you, or be too late for the train,
without any fault of your own; and where the meals, notwithstanding all
the good cookery, are comfortless, from the restlessness and uncertainty
of family and guests, and the natural discouragement of the servants.
And there are houses of four rooms, where all goes smoothly from the
politeness which arises from intelligence and affectionate
consideration. When a new Administration came into office, some years
ago, the Ministers agreed that not one of them should ever be waited
for, on any occasion of meeting. At the first Cabinet dinner, the party
went to table as the clock finished striking, though the Prime Minister
had not arrived. The Prime Minister was only half a minute late; but he
apologised, as for an offence against good manners. What would be
thought of this in homes where the young people come dropping down to
breakfast when their parents have half done, or where father or mother
keeps the children fretting and worrying because they are waiting for
breakfast when they ought to be about their morning business!
It may be said that the fretting and worrying are the greater offence of
the two: and this is very true. So much the worse for the unpunctuality
which causes a greater sin than itself. Why be subject to either? If a
young person, no longer manageable as a child, continues, after all
reasonable methods have been tried, to annoy his family by a habit of
wasting his own time and theirs, there is no use in losing temper about
it. Scolding and fretfulness will not bring him round, if other methods
have failed. He must be borne with (though by no means indulged) and
pitied as the slave of a bad habit. But how much better to avoid any
such necessity! And it might always be avoided.
The way in which people usually fall into unpunctual habits is, I think,
from interest in what they are about, whether it be dreaming in bed, or
enjoying a walk, or translating a difficult passage, or finishing a
button-hole in a shirt, or writing a postscript to a letter. In
households where punctuality is really a principle, it should be a truth
ever before all eyes that whatever each individual is about is of less
importance than respect to the whole family. In a school, when the bell
rings, one girl leaves off in the middle of a bar of music, another at
the middle line of a repetition, and a third when she is within two
figures of the end of her sum. The time and temper of mistress and
companions must be respected first, and these things finished
afterwards. And so it is in a well ordered household. The parents
sacrifice their immediate interest in what they are about; and so must
the children. And so they will, and with ease, when the thing is made an
invariable habit, from the earliest time they can remember.
It is this punctuality, this undeviating regularity which is the
greatest advantage that school has over home education, in regard to
study. In a large family, where there is much business of living and few
servants, it really is very difficult to secure quiet and regularity for
the children's lessons. It seems at any one moment, of less importance
that the sum should be done, and the verb conjugated, just for that
once, than that the boy should run an errand, or the girl hold the baby.
Now this will never do: and the small progress in learning usually made
by the home-taught shows that it does not answer. The consideration is
not of the particular sum, or practice in saying the verb, but of the
habit of the children's minds. It _is_ of consequence in itself that
sums should be done and verbs learned in their proper season, because
they cannot be so easily mastered afterwards; and there is plenty to be
done afterwards; but much more important is it that the children should
acquire that punctuality of faculties which grows out of punctuality of
habits: and this can never be when there is any uncertainty or
insecurity about the inviolability of their lesson-time. I know how
difficult it is to manage this point, and how very hard it is for the
mother to resist each day's temptation, if she has not fortified herself
by system and arrangement, and by keeping constantly before her mind
that nothing that her children can do by being called off from their
books can be so important as what they sacrifice at every interruption.
If it is possible for her to find any corner of the house where they may
be undisturbed, and any hour of the day when she will allow no person
whatever to call off her attention from them, she may do them something
like justice: but she never can, though the books and slates may be
about all the morning, if she admits any neighbour, or allows any
interruption whatever. If possible, she will fix upon an hour when she
may settle down with her plain-sewing, which requires no attention; and
when her neighbours all know that they will not be admitted. One single
hour, diligently employed, may effect a great deal. And it need not be
all that the children give to study, though it be all that she can
spare. They may learn at some other time in the day the lessons which
she is to hear during the hour: and in that case, she must see that they
are protected in their time of learning, as well as of repeating their
lessons. Whether they are in their own rooms, or in the common sitting
room, or she can spare any place for a school room, she must see that
they have their minds to themselves, to do their business properly. If
the father relieves her of the teaching, and hears the lessons at night,
she will see more reason than ever for doing all she can to facilitate
their being well learned.
If the time for lessons be necessarily but one hour in the day, let not
the parents be uneasy, however much they might wish that their children
should have their six hours of study, like those of richer people.
Perhaps they can give both boys and girls educational advantages which
those of the rich have not;--advantages which offer themselves in the
natural course of humble life. I have witnessed a process of education
for boys in a middle-class home which could not well be instituted in a
great house, and among a multitude of servants, but which was of
extraordinary benefit to the lads who were made happy by it. Their
father gave into their charge some of the departments of the comforts of
the house. One had charge of the gas-pipes and lamps. He was responsible
for their good condition; and he was paid the same sum per annum that
supervision by a workman would have cost. Another had charge of the
locks and keys, the door-handles, sash-lines and window-bolts, bells and
bell-wires: and he was paid in the same manner. Each had his workbench
and tools in a convenient place; and, if every part of his province was
always in order, so that there were no expensive repairs, he had some
money left over,--which was usually spent in buying materials for
mechanical handiworks. These lads were happier than poor Louis XVI. of
France, who was so fond of making locks that he had a complete
locksmith's workshop fitted up in a retired part of his palace: and
delighted to spend there every hour that he could command. _He_ was
obliged to conceal his pursuit, both from the absurdity and the
uselessness of it in his position; while these lads had at once the
gratification of their faculties, and the dignity of usefulness. There
are many offices about every house which may well be confided to boys,
if they are intelligent and trustworthy;--that is, well educated up to
the point required; and the filling of such offices faithfully is in
itself as good a process of education as need be wished.
There is no need to declare the same thing about girls; for I suppose
nobody questions it. I go further than most persons, I believe, however,
in desiring thorough practice in domestic occupations, from an early
age, for girls. I do not see why the natural desire and the natural
faculty for housewifery which I think I see in every girl I meet, should
be baffled because her parents are rich enough to have servants to do
and to superintend everything about the house. If there was a king who
could not help being a locksmith, I know of a countess who could not
help being a sempstress. She made piles of plain linen, just for the
pleasure of the work, and gave them away to her friends. Now, it is a
very serious thing to baffle natural desires and abilities so strong as
these, on account of mere external fortunes. If a girl of any rank has
the economic faculties strong, it is hard upon her that they may not
find their natural exercise in a direction,--that of household
care,--which is appropriate to every woman, be she who she may; and if
these faculties are less strong than they are usually found to be in
girls, there is the more reason that they should be well exercised, as
far as they will go.
I am sure that some,--perhaps most,--girls have a keener relish of
household drudgery than of almost any pleasure that could be offered
them. They positively like making beds, making fires, laying the cloth
and washing up crockery, baking bread, preserving fruit, clear-starching
and ironing. And why in the world should they not do it? Why should not
the little lady have her little ironing box, and undertake the ironing
of the pocket-handkerchiefs? I used to do this; and I am sure it gave me
a great deal of pleasure, and did me nothing but good.--On washing and
ironing days, in houses of the middle class, where all the servants are
wanted in the wash-house or laundry, why should not the children do the
service of the day? It will be a treat to them to lay the breakfast
cloth, and bring up the butter from the cellar, and toast the bread;
and, when breakfast is over, to put everything in its place again, and
wash the china, and rub and polish the trays. They may do the same again
at dinner; and while the servants are at meals, they may carry on the
ironing in the laundry. And afterwards, there comes that capital
exercise of sense and patience and skill,--the stocking-darning, which,
done properly, is a much higher exercise than many people suppose. And
when visitors come, why should not the girls have the chief pleasure
which "company" gives to them,--the making the custard and the tarts,
dishing up the fruit, and bringing out the best table linen? And what
little girl is there in a market town who does not like going to market
with her father or her mother, till she can be trusted to go by herself?
Does she not like seeing the butcher's cleverness in cutting off what is
wanted; and trying to guess the weight of joints by the look; and
admiring the fresh butter, and the array of fowls, and the heaps of
eggs, and the piles of vegetables and fruit? I believe it is no small
treat to a girl to jump up early on the market-day morning, and reckon
on the sight she is going to see. The anxiety may be great when she
begins to be the family purchaser: but it is a proud office too; and
when the first shyness is over, there is much variety and pleasantness
in it.
By all means, as I have said, let the girls' economic faculties take the
household direction, if they point that way, whatever be their fortunes
and expectations. It can never do any woman harm to know, in the only
perfect way, by experience, how domestic affairs should be managed. But,
when the thing is done at all, let it be well done. Let the girl be
really taught, and not suffered to blunder her way through, in a manner
which could not be allowed in regard to anything taught as a lesson. One
reason why girls know so much less than they should do, and so much less
than they wish to do about household affairs, is that justice is not
done them by proper teaching. The daughters of the opulent are at
school, and have no opportunity of learning till they are too old to
begin properly: but the case of middle and lower class girls is hardly
better. When the mother is hurried, it is easier to do a thing herself
than to teach, or wait for, an inexperienced hand: but a girl will never
learn, if her enterprise is taken out of her hand at the critical
moment. Nothing is more easily learned, or more sure to be remembered
than the household processes that come under the hands of women: but
then, they must be first clearly understood and carried through. Here
then, the mother must have a little patience. She must bear to see a
batch of bread or pastry spoiled, or muslins ironed wrong side out, or a
custard "broke," or a loin of mutton mistaken for the neck, a few times
over, and much awkwardness and slowness shown, before her little
daughters become trusty handmaids. But, if she be a true mother, she
will smile at this; and the father will not be put out if the pie is
burned on one side, or the bread baked too quick, if he is told that
this is a first trial by a new hand. He will say what he can that is
encouraging, and hope for a perfect pie or loaf next time.
I believe it is now generally agreed, among those who know best, that
the practice of sewing has been carried much too far for health, even in
houses where there is no poverty or pressure of any kind. No one can
well be more fond of sewing than I am; and few, except professional
sempstresses, have done more of it: and my testimony is that it is a
most hurtful occupation, except where great moderation is observed. I
think it is not so much the sitting and stooping posture as the
incessant monotonous action and position of the arms, that causes such
wear and tear. Whatever it may be, there is something in prolonged
sewing which is remarkably exhausting to the strength, and irritating
beyond endurance to the nerves. This is only where sewing is almost the
only employment, or is carried on for several hours together. When girls
are not so fond of sewing as I was in my youth, and use the needle only
as girls usually do, there is no cause for particular anxiety: but the
mother should carefully vary the occupations of a girl disposed to be
sedentary. If pleasant reading or conversation can go on the while, it
is well. The family meals too, and other interruptions, will break off
the employment, probably, before it has gone too far. But, if there is
the slightest sign of that nervous distress called "the fidgets" (which
truly deserves the name of "distress") or any paleness of countenance,
lowness of spirits, or irritability of temper, there is reason to
suppose that the needle has been plied too far; and, however unwilling
the girl may be to leave work which she is bent upon finishing, it is
clearly time that she was in the open air, or playing with the baby, or
about some stirring business in the house. I have always had a strong
persuasion that the greater part of the sewing done in the world will
ere long be done by machinery. It appears much more easy than many
things that are done by machinery now; and when it is considered how
many minute stitches go to the making of a garment, it seems strange
that some less laborious and slow method of making joins and edges has
not been invented before this. Surely it will be done in the course of a
few generations; and a great blessing the change will be to women, who
must, by that time, have gained admission to many occupations now kept
from them by men, through which they may earn a maintenance more
usefully and with less sacrifice of health than by the present toils of
the sempstress. The progress made in spinning, weaving, and especially
knitting by machinery, and in making water-proof cloaks and other
covering without the help of the needle, seems to point with certainty
to an approaching time when the needle will be almost superseded. With
this, and the consequent saving of time, must come a greater abundance
of clothing, and an accompanying cheapness, which will be a great
blessing to a large class by whom good and sufficient clothing cannot
now be obtained. Meantime, our ways are improved, by the turning over of
some of the work to machinery. The sewing-schools to which young ladies
were sent in the last century, to sit six hours a-day on hard benches,
too high for their feet to touch the ground, compelled to hold
themselves upright, and yet to pore over fine cambric and linen, to do
microscopic marking and stitching, are heard of no more. In their day,
they bent many spines, spoiled many eyes, and plagued many a young
creature with back-ache for life; so we may rejoice that they are gone,
and must take care that none of their mischief is done at home, while
all really useful good sewing can very easily be taught there.
One change which has taken place in our society since the peace has
struck me much. Since the continent was opened to us, almost all who can
afford to travel, more or less, have been abroad. Struck with the
advantages to themselves of having their minds opened and enlarged by
intercourse with foreign nations, and by access to foreign literature,
art, and methods of education in some respects superior to our own, they
have naturally desired to give such advantages to their children, while
they were yet young enough to benefit fully by them. Great numbers of
children, and young people yet growing, have been carried abroad by
their parents, and, of course, have obtained more or less of the
"advantages" for which they went. But at what cost? In my opinion, at a
fatal one. Much might be said of the danger to health and life of a
complete change of diet and habits at so early an age. A friend of mine
was telling me, and I was agreeing with her, that she and I hardly know
of a family of children who have travelled abroad for any length of time
that has not been fatally visited with the dreadful bilious fever which,
when it spares life, too often does some irreparable injury to the
frame,--to brain, or sense, or limbs. Bad as this is, it is not the
worst. The practice is against Nature; and those who adopt it must bear
the retribution for offences against Nature's laws. Nature ordains a
kind of vegetative existence for children till the frame is complete,
and strengthened in its completeness. The utmost regularity of habits
(which by no means implies dulness of life) produces, beyond all
question, the most healthy frames, and there cannot be a sadder mistake
than to suppose that any greater variety than the most ordinary life
affords is necessary to the quickening or entertainment of a child's
faculties. Life, with all its objects, is new to him. Its commonest
incidents are deeply interesting to him. Birth and death are exciting to
him, and solemn beyond expression. The opening and close of the seasons,
and their varying pleasures and pursuits, the changes in the lives of
the people about him; the evolution of his own little history,--the
expanding of his faculties, his achievements in study, his entrance upon
more and more advanced duties and intercourses;--these are enough to
keep his mind in full life and vigour: and he cannot receive his
experience of life into the depths of his being unless he is at rest. If
he is to commune with his own heart, he must be still. If he is to
gather into his mind ripe observations of nature and man, and to store
them up reflectively, he must be still. If his sentiments and emotions
are to be the natural result of the workings of life upon him, he must
be still, that life may work upon him undisturbed. I have devoted a
close attention to this subject; and I certainly conclude, from my own
observation, that the intellectual and moral value of families who have
lived quietly at home (with due educational assistance) very far
transcends that of young people whose anxious parents have dragged them
about the world,--catching at advantages here and advantages there,
unconscious of the sacrifice of the greatest advantage of all,--a
natural method of life, with the quietude which belongs to it. I think
that the untravelled have a deeper reflectiveness than the travelled,--a
deeper sensibility,--a better working power, on the whole,--a better
preparation for the life before them. They have more prejudice, and, of
course, less accomplishment than the travelled; but life and years are
pretty sure to abate the prejudice; and a better timed travel may give
the accomplishment. If not, however,--if there must be a choice of good
and evil at the outset of life, who would not rather see the fault of
narrowness than of shallowness? A mind which has depth must, in
ordinary course, widen; while a shallow mind, however wide, can never be
worth much. In the sensibility, the difference is as marked as in the
understanding: and no wonder; for to the quiet dweller at home life is
an awful scroll, slowly and steadily unrolling to disclose its
characters of fire, which burn themselves in upon the brain; while, to
the young rover, life is but too much like a show-box, whose scenes
shift too fast, and with too little interval, to make much impression. I
mention this here, chiefly for the sake of parents who may feel
occasional regrets that they cannot give to their children what they
suppose to be the "advantages" of travel. My conviction is that their
children are happier than they suppose. A moment's thought will show
them how few the rovers can be,--how overwhelming must be the majority
of those who must stay at home: and we may always be confident that the
lot of the great majority, _duly improved_, must be sufficient for all
the purposes of human life. Nothing that I have said is meant at all in
disapprobation of those occasional changes of scene and society which
all young people require more or less. On the contrary, I would
indicate, as one of the advantages of a regular home life, that it
prepares the novice to profit the more by such occasional changes. It is
a magnificent event in the life of a quiet, industrious family when a
house-painting, or other domestic necessity, authorises a visit to the
sea-side, or a plunge into the country for a couple of months. It serves
as a prodigious stimulus to the intellect; and the recollection never
loses its brilliancy, to the latest period of life. It is worth more to
novices than a whole year of continental travelling to practised rovers.
The sunsets have sunk deep. The light-house, the dip in the waves, the
shingle, the distant fleet--or the gorse on the common, the wood paths,
with their wild flowers, the breezy down, the cottage in the lane,--call
up a thrill in the heart of the town-bred child whenever the images are
called up. Such changes are good; but they are not roving in search of
"advantages." Again, when one child among several appears to pine in any
degree, becomes irritable or depressed, looks pale, or ceases to grow,
it is a sign that some change is needed. If such a boy or girl should be
invited by some relation or friend on a visit of any length, it is
probable that all will come right. The mind wants an airing, perhaps;
and in a fresh abode, among new objects, and kind friends, and different
companionship, and change of habits, without any further excitement,
brooding thoughts are dispersed, domestic affections revive and
strengthen, the mind overflows with new ideas, and after a time, home
becomes intensely longed for; and the young absentee returns home--to
father's greeting, and mother's side, and brothers and sisters'
companionship, with more rapture than the prospect of the journey ever
caused. Such a change as this is good; but it is not roving for
educational "advantages." It is an agreeable tonic medicine; not a
regimen of high diet.
The case of the only child seems to ask a word of kindness here. At the
best, the case of the only child is a somewhat mournful one,--somewhat
forlorn,--because it is unnatural. If it is unnatural for a multitude of
children of the same age to herd together in an Infant school, it is at
least as much so for a little creature to live alone among people with
full-grown brains, and all occupied with the pursuits and interests of
mature life. It is very well for the father to romp with his child at
spare times, and for the mother to love it with her whole heart, and
sympathise with it, with all the sympathy that such love can inspire.
This is all well: but it does not make them children,--nor, therefore,
natural companions for a child. In this case, above all others, it is
desirable that the child should be sent to school, when old enough: and
especially if the only one be a boy. A good day school, where play is
included, may do much to obviate the disadvantages of the position. If
this cannot be done, it is really hardly to be hoped that mischief will
not be done on the one side or the other,--of too much or too little
attention and sympathy. Some may wonder at the idea of the only child
being in danger of having too little sympathy from its parents: but such
cases are very conceivable and are occasionally witnessed. If everybody
sees how an only child,--the light and charm of the house, the idol of
the mother, and the pet of everybody, must unavoidably become of too
much importance in its own eyes, and suffer accordingly,--who should
feel this so anxiously and constantly as the conscientious parents of an
only child? and what is more probable than that, in their anxiety not to
spoil the mind they have under their charge, they should carry the
bracing system somewhat too far, and depress the child by giving it less
fostering and sympathy than it needs? They would not, for its own sake,
have it troublesome to their friends, or self-important, or selfish; and
they keep it back. But alas! if put back, the little thing is driven
into loneliness; and children are not made for loneliness, in any but a
desert life. Give a child the desert to rove in, with brown sheep to
tend, and a young camel to play with, and rocks and weeds, and springs
and stars and shrubby palms to live amongst, and he may make a very
pleasant life of it, all alone; but not if he lives in a street, and
must not go out alone, and passes his life among square rooms and
stair-cases, and the measured movements of grown-up people. An only
child must be troublesome, as long as he is a child. He craves play, and
sympathy, and constant companionship: and he cannot do without them--he
must not be required to do without them. If he is not sent to school,
grown people must be his companions and playfellows,--the victims to his
restlessness; and he must be troublesome.--The case is nearly the
same,--only somewhat less desperate,--with a girl. Her parents cannot,
if they have eyes, hearts, or consciences, see her pine. They must
either provide her with natural companionship, or they must let
themselves and their friends be appropriated by her as companions, till
she grows up into fitness to be a companion to them.--It is not included
in this necessity that there should be selfishness of temper and
manners. The more fully and naturally the needs of the social nature are
met and supplied, the less is the danger of this kind arising from
peculiarity of position.