Every one knows to what an extent women are afflicted with nervous
disorders, _neuralgic_ affections as they are more softly termed. Is
it equally well known that formerly when women partook from childhood,
of out-of-door labors, were confined less to heated rooms and exciting
studies, they had, comparatively, few disorders of this nature. With
the progress of society, _fevers_ increase first, because luxurious
eating vitiates the blood; _dyspepsia_ follows next, because the
stomach, instead of being a laboratory, is turned into a mere
warehouse, into which everything is packed, from the foundation to the
roof, by gustatory _stevedores_. Last of all come _neuralgic_
complaints, springing from the muscular enfeeblement and the nervous
excitability of the system.
Late hours at night, and later morning hours, early application to
books, a steady training for _accomplishments_, viz. embroidery,
lace-work, painting rice paper, casting wax-flowers so ingeniously
that no mortal can tell what is meant, lilies looking like huge
goblets, dahlias resembling a battered cabbage; these, together with
practisings on the piano, or if something extra is meant, a little
tum, tum, tuming, on the harp, and a little ting-tong on the guitar;
reading “ladies’ books,” crying over novels, writing in albums, and
original correspondence with my ever-adored Matilda Euphrosyne, are
the materials, too often, of a fashionable education. While all this
refinement is being put on, girls are taught from eight years old,
that the chief end of women is to get a beau, and convert him into a
husband. Therefore, every action must be _on purpose_, must have a
discreet object in view. Girls must not walk fast, that is not
lady-like; nor run, that would be shockingly vulgar; nor scamper over
fields, merry and free as the bees or the birds, laughing till the
cheeks are rosy, and romping till the blood marches merrily in every
vein; for, says prudent mamma, “my dear, do you think Mr. Lack-a-daisy
would marry a girl whom he saw acting so unfashionably?” Thus, in
every part of education those things are pursued, whose tendency is to
excite the brain and nervous system, and for the most part those
things are not “_refined_,” which would develop the muscular system,
give a natural fullness to the form, and health and vigor to every
organ of it.
The evil does not end upon the victim of fashionable education. Her
feebleness, and morbid tastes, and preternatural excitability are
transmitted to her children, and to their children. If it were not for
the rural habits and health of the vast proportion of our population,
trained to hearty labor on the soil, the degeneracy of the race in
cities would soon make civilization a curse to the health of mankind.
Now we have not one word to say against “accomplishments” when they
are _real_, and are not purchased at the expense of a girl’s
constitution. She may dance like Miriam, paint like Raphael, make wax
fruit till the birds come and peck at the cunning imitation; she may
play like Orpheus harping after Eurydice (or what will be more to the
purpose, like a Eurydice after an Orpheus), she may sing and write
poetry to the moon, and to every star in the heavens, and every flower
on earth, to zephyrs, to memory, to friendship, and to whatever is
imaginable in the spheres, or on the world—if she will, in the midst
of these ineffable things, remember the most important facts, that
_health_ is a blessing; that God made health to depend upon exercise,
and temperate living in all respects; and that the great objects of
our existence, in respect to ourselves, is a virtuous and pious
character, and in respect to others, the raising and training of a
family after such a sort that neither we, nor men, nor God, shall be
ashamed of them.
Now we are not quite so enthusiastic as to suppose that floriculture
has in it a balm for all these mentioned ills. We are very moderate in
our expectations, believing, only, that it may become a very important
auxiliary in maintaining health of body and purity of mind.
When once a mind has been touched with zeal in floriculture it seldom
forgets its love. If our children were early made little enthusiasts
for the garden, when they were old they would not depart from it. A
woman’s perception of the beauty of form, of colors, of arrangement,
is naturally quicker and truer than man’s. Why should they admire
these only in painting, in dress, and in furniture? Can human art
equal what God has made, in variety, hue, grace, symmetry, order and
delicacy? A beautiful engraving is often admired by those who never
look at a natural landscape; ladies become connoisseurs of
“artificials,” who live in proximity to real flowers without a spark
of enthusiasm for them. We are persuaded that, if parents, instead of
regarding a disposition to train flowers as a useless trouble, a waste
of time, a pernicious romancing, would inspire the love of it, nurture
and direct it, it would save their daughters from _false taste_, and
all love of meretricious ornament. The most enthusiastic lovers of
nature catch something of the simplicity and truthfulness of nature.
Now a constant temptation to female vanity—(if it may be supposed for
the sake of argument, to exist) is a display of person, of dress, of
equipage. In olden times, without entirely hating their beauty, our
mothers used to be proud of their spinning, their weaving, their
curiously-wrought apparel for bed and board. A pride in what we have
_done_ is not, if in due measure, wrong or unwise; and we really think
that rivalry among the young in rearing the choicest plants, the most
resplendent flowers, would be altogether a wise exchange for a rivalry
of lace, and ribbons, and silks. And, even if poor human nature must
be forced to allow the privilege of criticising each other something
severely, it would be much more amiable to pull roses to pieces, than
to pull caps; all the shafts which are now cast at the luckless
beauty, might more harmlessly be cast upon the glowing shield of her
dahlias or upon the cup of her tulips.
A love of flowers would beget early rising, industry, habits of close
observation, and of reading. It would incline the mind to notice
natural phenomena, and to reason upon them. It would occupy the mind
with pure thoughts, and inspire a sweet and gentle enthusiasm;
maintain simplicity of taste; and in connection with personal
instruction, unfold in the heart an enlarged, unstraitened, ardent
piety.