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A WORD TO WOMEN
by
MRS. HUMPHRY
("MADGE" OF "TRUTH")
Author of "Manners for Women," "Manners for Men," etc.
London
James Bowden
10, Henrietta Street,
Covent Garden, W.C.
1898
* * * * *
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
_And Uniform with this Volume._
1. Manners for Men.
(_Thirty-sixth Thousand._)
2. Manners for Women.
(_Twentieth Thousand._)
One Shilling each.
LONDON: JAMES BOWDEN.
* * * * *
PREFACE
My book "Manners for Women" has met with such a kindly reception that I am
encouraged to follow it up with the present little volume. Of a less
practical character than the former, it yet follows out the same line of
thought, and is the fruit of many years' observation of my countrywomen in
that home life for which England is distinguished among nations.
C. E. HUMPHRY.
_London, 1898._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER 9
OUR SCHOOL-GIRLS 18
WHAT ABOUT SEWING? 25
MOTHERS AND SONS 32
OUR CLEVER CHILDREN 38
ULTRA-TIDINESS 46
GOOD MANNERS AT HOME 51
ARE WOMEN COWARDS? 57
A GLASS OF WINE 64
SOME OLD PROVERBS 70
CANDOUR AS A HOME COMMODITY 76
GOLDEN SILENCE 81
A SOCIAL CONSCIENCE 88
OUR DEBTS 94
THE DOMESTIC GIRL 102
THE GIRL-BACHELOR 108
THE MIDDLE-AGED CHAPERON 114
LIGHTHEARTEDNESS 117
A BIT OF EVERYDAY PHILOSOPHY 122
DEADLY DULNESS 129
THE PLEASURES OF MIDDLE AGE 136
GROWING OLD 145
A WORD TO WOMEN.
_MOTHER AND DAUGHTER._
[Sidenote: The golden mean.]
There is a happy medium between narrowness and latitude; between the
exiguity which confines the mind between canal-like borders and the broad,
expansive amplitude which allows it to flow with the freedom of a great
river, though within certain definite limits. The tendency of the moment
is towards breadth and the enlarging of borders, the setting back of
frontier lines, and even to ignoring them. "One must move with the times"
is a phrase constantly heard and read. It is true enough. One would not
willingly be left stranded on the shores of the past; but then, in the
effort to avoid this, one need not shape a wild and devious course. There
is always the golden mean attainable, though occasionally it needs some
seeking to find it.
[Sidenote: Some modern daughters.]
In nothing so much as the relations between mother and daughter is this
modern tendency prolific of difficulty. For some generations the rule of
severity that began with the Puritans has been gradually relaxing more and
more, and now the spectacle of a harsh-voiced, domineering young woman,
ordering her mother about, is by no means an infrequent one, detestable as
it is. Nor does she always content herself by merely ordering. Sometimes
she scolds as well! If the mother, in these revolutionary times, has any
chance of maintaining her own position as the elder and the wiser of the
two, she must keep her eyes open to the successive grooves of change down
which the world is spinning. The daughter must not be permitted to suspect
her of old-fashioned notions. That would be fatal!
[Sidenote: The bicycling craze.]
When the bicycle craze began many mothers disapproved of the exercise for
their girls. But with doctors recommending it, and the girls themselves
looking radiantly bright and healthy after a few preliminary trials, what
remained for the mother but to overcome her first dislike and do all she
could to persuade the father to buy bicycles for all the girls? The next
step was, often, to learn to ride herself, and to benefit enormously
thereby. The mother who failed to follow her daughters' lead in this
particular, as in others, proved that she was too narrow to accept new
ideas; just the sort of thing to give the daughters a lead in these
century-end days. And of that one must beware! The poor mothers must not
give a single inch, or they will find themselves mulcted in many an ell.
[Sidenote: About Chaperons and Chaperonage.]
The old, strait-laced ideas about chaperons are now decidedly behind the
times, and the parents and guardians who try to maintain them in all their
rigid integrity will only find that the too-tightly-drawn bow will soon
snap. Far better to accept changes as they come, taking the wide, enlarged
view, and allowing the young creatures as much freedom of action as may be
consistent with the social laws. The old parallel of the hen-mother and
the young ducks would come in most usefully here, were it not so
hackneyed. But think what sad deprivations of the _joie de vivre_ the
ducks would have suffered had it been in the power of the hen to enforce
her objections. Think of this, oh ye nineteenth century mothers! What
trepidations, what anxieties, what feverish fears, assail us when the
young ones escape from the restrictions that bound ourselves when we were
girls! The father laughs at our tremors, and proves, by doing so, what
needs no proof, that the sense of responsibility is always deeper and
keener in the mother, and that, therefore, she is more bound than he to
exercise due caution. To combine the two with wide views is not always
easy.
[Sidenote: "The evils that never arrive."]
"These affectionate women," said Sir Andrew Clarke, the eminent physician,
"they make themselves miserable about things that may happen, and wear
themselves out in anxieties for which there is little or no foundation."
And Jefferson says: "How much have cost us the evils that never happened!"
True, indeed. But, also, how much have they cost to the objects of our
care? Can any one reckon up that difficult sum? The timid, fearful mother
has often ruined her boys out of pure anxiety to do her very (mistaken)
best for them. And as to girls, they are not allowed to do the very things
that would teach them self-reliance, make them vigorous in mind and body,
and teach them that lore, not in any girls' school curriculum, which is
best expressed in the French idiom, "_savoir faire_."
[Sidenote: Want of width.]
And all for want of width! What sort of life would a little chicken lead
if it were for ever under the good old hen's wing? Yet that is what some
of us would prefer for the bright young things, whose very life is in
change, variety, excitement, fun, laughter, and exercise of all kinds.
Small wonder that some of them rebel, feeling tethered, with the
inevitable longing for escape. Led with a silken string in wide ways of
the great world, they would be contented and happy enough.
[Sidenote: Mothers and daughters.]
Every girl is a queen to some one at some time in her life. Was there ever
a girl whom nobody loved? What would English homes be without their girls?
Mothers of sons are proud indeed, but they often long for a daughter. The
tie between girl and mother is a wonderfully close one. They almost share
each others' thoughts, and the home life together becomes, as the girl
grows up, a delicious duet. Sons, however affectionate and gentle, have
always some part of their nature veiled away. They cannot tell all to a
mother as a daughter can, with perfect open-mindedness, so that the page
lies clear to the eye of affection, like a book in good, large print. And
more particularly is this the case with an only daughter. Have you ever,
dear reader, noticed how the tendrils of the growing vines twine round
each other, at last becoming so inextricably close that they cannot be
separated without breaking them? That is the way that many a mother and
daughter whose lives are closely woven in with each other, forming a bond
of strength that, with the flowing of the years, increases in power and
influence.
[Sidenote: The inevitable man.]
And then comes some charming young man, with pretty eyes and a gentle
manner, and oh! the loneliness of the poor mother when he carries off her
girl to be the sunshine of his home, leaving hers in deepest shadow!
But mothers are unselfish and love to know their daughters happy,
fulfilling their destiny in the good old womanly way as wife and mother.
And the best way to make a girl a good wife is to train her to be a
first-rate daughter.
[Sidenote: A girl's idea of usefulness.]
[Sidenote: The ideal daughter.]
A girl's thoughts of usefulness sometimes begin a very long way off. They
appear to her at a distance, as if she were looking through the small end
of a telescope. "The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts," and the
girl's idea of usefulness is to nurse the sick and wounded in war-time, to
go out as a missionary among the heathen, to write books with great
thoughts in them, to do noble deeds of tremendous self-sacrifice, to take
up some great life-work. She looks so far afield that she cannot see the
little duties lying to her hand, in the performance of which lies her best
training for great and worthy deeds. Many a girl dreams of such an ideal
as Florence Nightingale, and nevertheless shrieks and runs out of the room
when her little brother cuts his hand with the carving-knife. What a
scared, helpless creature she would be in a hospital! Another girl
pictures herself a heroine of self-denial, giving up "all" for some one,
while she is too lazy to run upstairs to fetch her mother's gloves, or too
self-indulgent to read the money article in _The Times_ to her father. She
is not "faithful in small things," though she fully intends to excel in
great. The ideal daughter is the unselfish, active, intelligent, and
good-tempered girl, who thinks out what she can do to help her mother, to
make life pleasanter for her father, and home happier for her brothers.
[Sidenote: True self-culture.]
Many girls think self-culture the first and greatest duty of all, but in
thinking so, and in acting on the thought, they turn their backs upon real
self-culture. Doing something for others, when we would rather be doing
something for ourselves, goes further towards self-culture, in its highest
and best sense, than reading the cleverest book ever written, or
practising the most difficult music. There have been girls who, thinking
it their duty, have refused to leave their parents, even to marry the man
they love. This is usually a mistaken notion of "_fais ce que dois_," for
it throws on the father and mother a terrible weight of obligation, never
to be paid off, and even if they know nothing of the sacrifice at the time
it is made, it is certain to come home to them sooner or later. Is it not
Ruskin who declares that self-denial, when it is carried beyond the
boundary of common sense, becomes an actual injury against those for whom
it is practised? There is a deep truth in this.
[Sidenote: About unselfishness.]
Youth is not naturally self-denying. Human nature is strongly selfish, and
when girls are young they have had little chance to oppose the strength of
this inherent quality. Some girls, however, are much less selfish than
others, while some are utterly spoilt! A doting mother is nothing more nor
less than a selfish mother, who, _to please herself_, allows her
daughter's faults to grow up unchecked. She fears to be firm, lest she
should lose some of the affection she prizes. Could she only know that the
child, at a very early age, is distinctly aware of this weakness and
despises it, she would plainly see the awful mistake she is making.
Children love best the mothers who are both firm and gentle. By a sort of
instinct the young ones seem to be aware of the true selflessness that
actuates the parent who battles with their early faults. It is not the
foolishly indulgent mothers who win the warmest love from their girls. It
is those who can temper justice with love. Girls soon know whether the
mother is swayed by selfishness or actuated by principle, and, with very
few exceptions, they follow in her steps.
[Sidenote: The home training.]
Could some of the happy lovers and happy husbands look back through the
years at the long and patient training, the loving care, that has
resulted in the complete realisation of their brightest dreams--"My queen!
my queen!"--they would find in them a guarantee for the future. Girls who
have not been spoiled by over-indulgence, and who have been taught to take
a sane, calm, rational view of all life's circumstances, are the best
helpmeets that man can have. Such an one is a delightful companion, with
her cultivated mind and her ready sympathies. She can enter into his
outside troubles in the battle of life, and there is a fibre of strength
in her on which he may safely lean in the day of disaster, should it
come.
_OUR SCHOOL-GIRLS._
[Sidenote: Growing Girls.]
Mothers of growing girls have many an anxious hour. The young things feel
so bright, so strong, so full of energy, that it is difficult for them to
listen to the voice of prudent counsel which bids them take care of
themselves, and mothers often give in when a word of warning is received
with laughing heedlessness. And how frequently they have to regret the
giving in! When girls are growing very fast, even if they keep up their
strength and look strong and well, there is much risk in any over-fatigue.
The heart is sometimes outpaced by the rest of the frame, and if care be
not taken there is a possibility of inducing strain, which may result in
permanent mischief. Girls want to run, play sett after sett of tennis, or
go on pulling a boat on the river when they are already hot and tired, and
it is only natural that they should fancy that their capacity for
enjoyment is as inexhaustible as their taste for it.
[Sidenote: Over-exertion.]
But the doctors will tell mothers to restrain the young creatures from
damaging their health by over-exertion, and if we fail to do so we may
some day feel agonies of remorse. It is easy enough to manage this so long
as they are quite young and under our own eyes all day, but when
school-time begins matters are very different. The spirit of emulation
awakes, and the keenest anxiety to equal other girls in progress spurs on
the young spirit. Teachers are anxious, too, and the mother often has to
do battle on behalf of her daughter, not only with the school authorities,
but with the girl herself. Firmness with both is the only method, and this
in face of protests on one side and tears and expostulations on the other.
The teachers think the mother "ridiculously fussy," and condole with the
girl, stirring her up to rebellion in a most injudicious way; but after
all the mother is in the right and must be firm. What is the use of class
successes if they are won at the expense of health? And though
scholarships are very pleasant things in more ways than one, they may cost
too dear. If the money they save has to go in doctors' fees, of what
earthly use are they?
[Sidenote: Too much study.]
At the same time mothers must not sacrifice the young ones to nervous or
morbid fears, as some are inclined to do. The only way to be sure that
precautions are really necessary is to have advice from a doctor, and if a
girl is growing very quickly he is almost sure to say that she must not do
too much. As a rule girls spend far too many hours a day in study.
School-days come just when they are very busy growing, and it is also the
time when habits are formed. With all these contradictory considerations
influencing the mother, she is often afraid to trust her own judgment as
to whether this or that course shall be pursued. If the girl is worked too
hard she may become nervous or anaemic, and if she is allowed to rest too
much she may grow up lazy and self-indulgent. So what is one to do? With
our limited powers all we can do is to watch the growing daughters from
day to day, and if they show any signs of failing energies, or of
weakening health, at once take steps to lessen the number of hours devoted
to study. At each succeeding term the school programme should be carefully
gone through, with a view to seeing if the lessons that follow
consecutively may not be too trying, and, if so, arrangements should be
made with the head of the school to spare the girl a long run of
monotonous subjects.
[Sidenote: Meal hours.]
The school authorities, naturally enough, arrange the hours to suit
themselves and their teachers, and sometimes with the result that a girl
has to rush back to school after a hasty meal, her food actually doing her
harm instead of good in consequence. It is in cases like this that the
mother comes in--not always, you may be very sure, to the unmitigated
delight of the teachers, or even of the girl herself! In fact, the poor
mother often gets blamed all round. The members of her own family are
profuse in criticism, as a rule, of everything that she does in connection
with her children. The best thing she can do is to ignore their opinion
completely, for, whatever she does, she is sure to be blamed. If two
diametrically opposite courses are open before her, whichever she chooses
is sure to be condemned by somebody. It is the old story of the old man
and his donkey. When it carried him the people found fault, and when he
carried it they were as censorious as ever. We must just go the way our
conscience points out, and present a stoical front to criticism. The
philosophy embodied in the good old French motto comes to our aid: "_Fais
ce que dois advienne que pourra_."
[Sidenote: The best way to rest.]
[Sidenote: Expressing thanks.]
It does wonders for a girl to lie down for even half an hour a day. But to
lie sideways or crumpled up in the extraordinary fashion beloved of girls
is of no use whatever. The shoulders must be flat, and the head not much
raised. If a book is read the while it must be held so that the eyes are
wide open in reading; the feet should be stretched out to their full
length, so as to give as much rest to the muscles as possible. Girls run
so tall nowadays that they need extra care, and it is the mothers who must
see to it that they get it. On free mornings an extra half hour in bed
will do no harm, but rather good; and it should be always understood that
this is an indulgence to be accepted as a boon for which gratitude is to
be felt and expressed. To encourage young people to express gratitude is
good for them. It is strange, but true, that human nature is averse to
express thanks with cordiality, and it is one of the marks of the
well-bred girl that her thanks follow as naturally upon the act that
elicits them as if the two were cause and effect.
[Sidenote: Dangers of High Schools.]
Some of the high schools offer so many facilities in the various
departments of education that the danger is of tremendously overworking
the girls. One of whom I knew was at work from nine a.m. till half-past
eight at night five days in the week, and from nine till two on Saturdays.
The only exercise that she had was in her daily walk to and from
school--once in the morning and again after lunch--and her only recreation
was an occasional romp with her small brothers and sisters in the nursery.
The girl broke down, as any one might safely have predicted that she
would, and her costly education was entirely thrown away, for by the time
that she was well enough to resume study she had forgotten all that she
had learned.
[Sidenote: Bad training.]
There is another danger connected with overdoing study in the time of
girlhood that must not be overlooked. It is that of wearying young people
with books, and so tiring them that they never want to open one on a
serious subject after they have left school-days behind them. To do this
is to lose for them one of the greatest pleasures of life. Education,
rightly understood, is a drawing out, not a crowding in. The best
education consists in developing the powers and eliciting the bent of the
mind, and laying a foundation for future culture. To speak of any girl's
education as being "finished" is tantamount to speaking of a scaffolding
as being finished, preparatory to the real work being begun. In after life
comes the true work, and circumstances have much to do in guiding it.
There is, therefore, no reason that growing girls should be overburdened
with ologies and isms. French and German they must learn; drawing, if they
have a special taste for it, and the piano, on the same terms. It is utter
waste to teach some girls to play on the piano, and the idea that it is a
necessary part of polite education is now rapidly disappearing from the
cultured classes of society. Simplification in every branch is one of the
safest rules of life, and this applies as much to the programme of a
girl's existence as to that of her mother.
[Sidenote: Hygiene and sanitation.]
There is no doubt that, in a great degree, the improvement in the physique
of English girls is largely due to the enlightened ideas of their parents
on subjects connected with hygiene and sanitation. The nation is
wonderfully improved on these matters, during the last fifteen years, and
it is at last beginning to be understood that a perfectly sound body is
necessary to a perfectly healthy and capable mind. If girls are encouraged
to place the culture of the mind not only before, but in opposition to,
that of the body, they must be consequent sufferers--if not in girlhood,
at some later period; and may bequeath suffering to others. So, mothers,
be advised in time, and let girlhood be the healthy, happy, sunny time
that Nature intended it to be. Our girls are young but once, and it is not
for long. The cares of life will soon enough cloud over their brightness.
Do not allow overwork or long hours to shadow the irrecoverable
springtime.
_WHAT ABOUT SEWING?_
[Sidenote: The prejudice against sewing.]
[Sidenote: A word in its favour.]
Some of the very advanced and extremely superior women of the present day
are strenuously opposed to the teaching of needlework in girls' schools
and colleges. A mere handicraft should be beneath the notice of highly
intellectual human beings, and should be left to those whose intelligence
is of a lower order. That is their creed. I am glad to see that one of the
cleverest and most learned women of the time, Mrs. Bryant, D.Sc.,
advocates, though in a half-hearted and semi-apologetic fashion, the
teaching of needlework to girls receiving the higher education. She thinks
that, just as a man is a somewhat incomplete person if he cannot make
himself useful with a hammer, a plane, and a saw, a woman who cannot sew
is equally an anomaly. The man who wants a rent in his glove stitched
would be likely to regard her as much more so. But I must not, from this,
be understood as advocating the accomplishment of sewing merely with a
view to the repair of men's sartorial damages. This would be to invoke
indeed the wrath of the superior woman, who thinks it degradation to stoop
to all the sweet, old-fashioned, housewifely uses and despises her gentler
sisters who delight in making home comfortable and life smooth for those
who dwell with her.
[Sidenote: The training it involves.]
[Sidenote: Its moral value.]
One of the best and foremost reasons for teaching sewing to girls is the
training it involves. Our wonderful finger-tips have within them
possibilities which oftentimes lie dormant throughout a whole lifetime for
the want of education. The Great Genius who made them gave them a capacity
of delicate, sensitive touch, which is blurred and lost when not
encouraged and promoted. The hands that can wield a needle with celerity
and skill have necessarily received a training that tells for them in many
another way besides mere sewing. The servant who sews well is the one who
breaks fewest things. She has learned to use her finger-tips. The clumsy
woman who uses brute force in dealing with the most delicate articles, and
is constantly smashing and damaging something or other is she who has
never been taught to sew, or in some way had manual training. The value of
this development of finger-training is greater than at first sight might
be imagined. Through the hands the mind and character are influenced.
Patience progresses while the diligent little fingers of the child are at
work, conquering difficulties gradually and achieving skill day after day
with a continued progression towards perfection. The lesson in
perseverance is a fine one, and no less valuable is the necessary exertion
in self-control, which soon becomes a habit and works wonders in producing
repose of manner. This last may not be a particularly valuable quality,
but it is a delightful one in this restless age, when few people seem able
to settle down for more than half an hour at a time, even to the agreeable
occupation of reading.
[Sidenote: And mental effect.]
It may seem exaggerated to attribute so much to the mere learning to sew;
but a little examination into the matter will prove to the thoughtful that
there is something in it. Any man, for instance, who has learned even a
little carpentering, will admit that the effect on his mind and character
of perfecting himself in any one of the necessary processes was distinctly
good. It promotes clearness of thought, banishing that vague slovenliness
of ideas which is analogous to the ragged edges of a frayed garment. To
many an uneducated worker the acquirement of skill in some handicraft has
brought with it an upward influence that has led him far in the direction
of self-improvement.
[Sidenote: Moderation.]
[Sidenote: Harriet Martineau on overdoing it.]
But there must be moderation in it. Many an intellectual life has been
killed by intemperate sewing. It was the creed of our grandmothers that
everything else for girls was idling. Long seams were regarded as the
business of young lives, and to be unable to sew well as a disgrace.
Harriet Martineau tells us all about it in her "Household Education." She
says, "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. The censorious gossip, during sewing, which was the bane of
our youth," she adds, "wasted more of our precious youthful powers and
dispositions than any repentance and amendment in after life could
repair."
[Sidenote: Those barbarous samplers.]
[Sidenote: Poor Araminta.]
In the exhibition of "Fair Children," held at the Grafton Gallery some
seasons since, there was a whole case full of cruel samplers, which must
have made many a young child miserable. Because, you know, it is not only
the work that is visible that went into them! There were the tedious and
endless unpickings when mistakes were made, causing bitter tears of woe to
rise in childish eyes. "You shall stay in, Araminta, until you get it
right." And outside was the sun shining, the birds were singing, the
meadows full of hay, and the other children romping and shouting. Poor
Araminta! There was her name embroidered on one of the most barbarous of
those dreadful samplers; one with a double border, the outer one in
circles, the inner in vandykes. The stitches in each had to be counted,
and every one crossed in the same direction. And Araminta was aged seven!
There it was, at the end of her sampler, "Araminta Paget. Her sampler.
Aged seven." Composition ambiguous, but meaning clear. Well, perhaps
Araminta learned to love her fine marking, and passed many a happy hour
singing to herself over her embroidery frame; but it is good to remember
that the old tyranny of the needle is past and gone. The invention of the
sewing-machine has been to women one of the very greatest blessings of our
dear Queen's most beneficent reign. I am not sure that it was not the real
means of introducing many others, legal and educational.
[Sidenote: Berlin woolwork.]
When Caddy Jellaby remarked, "Africa's a beast!" she was but
unconsciously paraphrasing an expression of opinion familiar enough to her
contemporaries. How many thousands of girls in those old days have
declared, "Berlin wool's a bother!" And so, indeed, it was. To be able to
do what was then called "fancy work" was almost sufficient accomplishment
for the young women of the middle classes of those days. Cushions, chair
furniture, slippers, and even pictures were produced in this despotic
cross-stitch, varied occasionally by a finer and more difficult variety
called tent-stitch; and so far from employing fancy or imagination, every
row had to be diligently counted--so many brown stitches, so many green,
so many red, &c. I have seen hearthrugs worked in this way with Berlin
wool in impossibly huge flowers, and the fender-stool was a great
favourite in those old days, often made prickly with white beads, in which
recumbent lilies were delineated. Fire screens of the hanging banner
pattern were esteemed as great ornaments, and I believe I once heard of a
carpet worked in sections by an ambitious party of ladies, and afterwards
joined together.
[Sidenote: Waste of time.]
[Sidenote: The policy and sentiment of the matter.]
But who wastes time over fancy work now? Only a small minority of women, I
fancy. There is a market for beautiful sewing and for fine embroideries,
but as for futile and inartistic chairbacks and their tribe, their day is
done. The exquisite Church embroideries bring in fair incomes to those
skilled in that class of work; but there is no longer any demand for the
home-made lace that occupied half the waking hours of many a woman's life
in the sixties and seventies. That nightmare is over. But let us hope that
skill with the needle will never be despised among gentlewomen. To put it
on the very lowest ground, it is a marvellous economy to be able to sew.
If one had to pay for every little repair in one's garments, as men have,
it would cost a large sum of money in every year, for our dresses are not
so durable as men's coats. And even the richest of women can never be
absolutely certain that she will not one day be poor. "Nothing is certain
except that nothing is certain," and the changes of this troublesome world
are capable of anything. But, apart from motives of policy, the
accomplishment of sewing is a part of refined femininity. And think of the
pleasure that women would lose without it. Think of the thoughts sewn into
the beautiful little garments fashioned for the babies--the hopes and
fears, the love and tenderness, and the far outlook into the future that
comes with mother-love. All these are stitched in with the flying needle;
and who would be without these long, long thoughts? To be able to sew is
utilitarian. It is also conducive to happiness.
_MOTHERS AND SONS._
[Sidenote: On spoiling boys.]
A "Public Schoolman" once said, "If a mother would only harden her boys a
little, send them away to a private school at ten and afterwards to a
public school, there would then be no complaints of being teased." There
is no doubt that mothers do often err on the side of softness, as any one
of us can see by the number of spoiled children we meet in any given
twenty-four hours. Widows' sons are only too often intolerably conceited,
spoilt with indulgence, and apt to repay their mother's tenderness by
breaking her heart. She makes life so smooth for them that they can never
refuse themselves anything, and sometimes their whole lives are spoiled by
their mother's weakness, which, in its turn, is only a form of
self-indulgence. Such a boy, on entering a public school, meets with no
mercy, but the discipline is just what he needs to knock the nonsense out
of him and make him a man, not a namby-pamby noodle.
[Sidenote: First days at school.]
But, having acknowledged that the mother is often to blame, let us look
at the other side of the shield. The boy of ten who is sent away from
home to a private school finds that he has to take absolutely new views of
life in almost every particular. Perplexed by the new horizon, the novel
atmosphere, and with his young heart aching for home tenderness and
affection, he is assisted in adjusting himself to his altered
circumstances by bullying and sneers. The treatment is on all fours with
that of "hitting a man when he is down," a practice which is supposed to
be repugnant to all British notions of honour and fair play. When a horse
falls under a heavy load in the slippery streets, and the driver whips,
slashes, and swears at the poor brute, a murmur of indignation goes up
from the spectators. But no one sympathises with the boy, who dare not
give the faintest sign of the suffering he feels. The injustice of it all
is often what rankles most deeply. There are many mothers who train their
boys to a fine sense of honour, derived from a much higher source than
that which seems to inspire the average schoolboy, and the ordinary man of
the world into whom the boy develops. His attitude to his fellow-creatures
is one of comradeship, and kindly feeling, when he leaves his mother's
side. Who shall say what storms of rancorous hate and bitter loathing pass
over the young soul in the boy's first term at school? His sense of
injustice becomes distorted for life, under such a system as that
described in the following.
[Sidenote: By a "fag."]
"The old _regime_ when 'kids' blacked boots, cooked potatoes and pies,
made coffee or cocoa for the bigger boys, when we had to 'fag' at the
fives' courts and cricket nets, and got 'fives batted,' or 'cricket
stumped,' if we stopped the balls badly. We enjoyed the pleasures of being
tossed in a blanket, or having our faces blackened with the bottom of a
saucepan taken off the fire, and of having our trousers rolled above our
knees and our calves roasted before the fire. We learnt by experience
that, although the cricket ball chastised us with whips, W.'s hands
chastised us with scorpions, and that W.'s little finger was thicker than
the cricket ball. We played the old-fashioned Rugby: 'hacked' a fellow
over instead of 'collaring' him when he ran, and, instead of 'working out'
the ball in the scrimmage, we 'hacked' each other's shins in what was then
called the 'gutter.' Two or three days before the match we used to get the
shoemaker to put new soles on our boots, and to make the toe points of the
soles project, so that we might make our 'hacks' all the more stinging."
This is a picture of public schools which must make many a mother's heart
ache for her boy. And are not mothers meant for softness and tenderness?
That they sometimes let themselves fall into the extreme of weak and
backboneless indulgence does not prove that mothers are not meant for
gentleness and sympathy in the lives of their sons. They know well that
school life is the only way of hardening boys against the time when they
have to do battle with the world. But the hardening process need not, and
should not, imply the coarsening and toughening of all that is meant to be
delicately sensitive, sympathetic, and generously responsive.
[Sidenote: The worst side of fagging.]
It is true that some splendid men are turned out by public schools. The
system is a good one, but it has been carried to a dangerous extreme. The
fine fellows who have emerged unharmed are fine fellows in spite of all
that was dangerous, not because of it. How many fine fellows has it
ruined? Such treatment is destructive of candour, sincerity, frankness,
generosity, simplicity, and often of truthfulness itself. The principle
that might is right is dead against the law of the land, but it seems to
rule in our public schools, where the big bully--usually a coward at
heart--makes the lives of young boys wretched. The love of cruelty innate
in such despotic natures is developed to the utmost degree by such
favourable circumstances, and those over whom he tyrannises become sly,
secretive, and hypocritical.
[Sidenote: The shadow that may not pass.]
The old adage says that if there were no women in the world the men would
all be brutes; and if there were no men the women would all be fools. The
mother's ideal school might be very far indeed from a perfect one, but, as
things are, one of the bitterest of her griefs is when she has to send her
gentle, affectionate, pure-minded and open-souled little lad to school.
She knows well that he will have to struggle alone through the dark days
of initiation into school life, its cheap and shallow cynicism, its
endless injustices, and its darker shadows than any that have been
referred to. The mother knows she is losing her boy. She will never again
read his thoughts as an open book. She casts her bread upon the waters,
and may, or may not, receive it after many days. Her boy may never again
be the candid, gentle, bright-spirited being whose companionship was
delightful to her. His confidence may never again be hers, and she knows
better than to force it, or even invite it with loving insistence. If he
ever again opens his mind to her it will be as naturally as the dove
returned to the ark. But the cloud of school life must come between them
first And it is often a black one.
[Sidenote: The spiritual life.]
This is supposed to be a Christian land; but at how many public schools in
England does a small boy dare to kneel and say his nightly prayer as he
did at home? Sometimes a strong and earnest spirit among the bigger boys
succeeds in living the higher life, even at school, where all traditions
are dead against active religion, as the small boy who essays such a
course soon finds to his cost. The mother's ideal school would be one in
which the young spirit might be free to lay some of the burden of school
life at the feet of the Great Friend. But "cant," as any sign of religious
feeling is called at school, is regarded as a thing to be driven out by
sneers and gibes, flickings with a damp towel, and--worse than
all--hideous references to holy things and to the mother who taught them.
Everything that is pure and true seems to be sullied and robbed of truth
and goodness, and there appears to be nothing left for the boy to cling to
while his universe is in a whirl, the things he held sacred desecrated,
and a stream of lurid light thrown upon the seamy side of life so
carefully concealed from him at home.
_OUR CLEVER CHILDREN._
[Sidenote: What is genius?]
[Sidenote: Sir Walter Scott.]
Mr. Andrew Lang disputes Dr. Johnson's definition of genius as "an
infinite capacity for taking pains," and seem to make out a good case for
doing so. Mr. Lang's own definition is "an unmeasured capacity for doing
things without taking pains." What a width of worlds lies between the two
conceptions! I suppose the real truth is that genius is indefinable, and
so varied in character as to escape all attempts at classification. But
there it is, to be reckoned with, and when the mother goes into the
nursery and looks round at all the dear little people there, she can no
more guess if any of them is going to be a genius than she can tell what
Destiny has in store for them in the way of aches and pains and accidents.
Some of the stupid ones are as likely to turn out geniuses as the bright
and clever. Sir Walter Scott was a dull boy at school. There were things
he could never learn. He loathed figures, and it is pathetic to remember
what a hideous part they played in his hard-worked life. As to his
attempts at poetry, they were very much in the rough at this early age,
but he loved other people's poetry so much that his mind was compact of
it. He could reel it off by the furlong. He was always lovable, and his
laugh was so hearty that it could often be heard long before the laugher
came in sight.
[Sidenote: "If I had only known."]
[Sidenote: The loneliness of genius.]
But genius is not always lovable. In this way it is frequently a terrible
trial to its possessor, especially in the days of childhood, when
subjugation to the domestic powers often involves a considerable amount of
real suffering. Read Hans Andersen's "Ugly Duckling" in this sense, and
you have some idea of the intense loneliness of a brilliant mind in early
days, when no one understands it, and when every effort towards expression
is checked and thwarted, every attempt at development coerced. Later on,
when genius will out, and shines resplendent, seen and recognised of all
men, what agonies of self-reproach do parents feel! What would they not
give to have the time over again wherein they might, with comprehension
added, soothe and sustain the tried young spirit, solacing it with
kindness and giving it the balm of sympathy and tenderness. "If I had only
known," say the mothers, who treated the absorption and aloofness of their
clever children as sullenness and bad-temper, and allowed themselves to
grow apart from the lonely young spirit, which needed more than most the
loving kindness of home and friends. For genius is essentially solitary.
There are depths and heights in the inner consciousness of many a child of
seven that are far beyond the view of millions of educated adults.
Shallowness is the rule; a comfortable shallowness, which, unknowing of
better things, measures all other minds with its own limited plummet line,
and can conceive of no deeper depth. How could it? And hence those
solitudes in which the spirit wanders lonely, yet longing for
companionship. A thirst is ever on it for a comprehending sympathy, and
when the young soul looks appealingly out at us, through wistful eyes, it
has no plainer language. It asks for bread, and we give it a stone.
[Sidenote: Misunderstood!]
And we put it all down to sulks!--unguessing of the tumult going on within
the teeming brain and the starved heart. Mothers, be gentle with young
ones you cannot understand. You little know what a dagger lies hidden in
the sentence so often heard: "Well, you _are_ queer. I can't understand
you." And you would be astonished if you could know how early some souls
realise their own loneliness. A child of tender years soon learns its
reticences. It almost intuitively feels the lack of response in others,
and expression is soon checked of all that lies behind the mere
commonplaces of existence.
[Sidenote: "No common language."]
What does Thackeray say? "To what mortal ear could I tell all, if I had a
mind? Or who could understand all?" And another writer expresses a similar
idea: "There are natures which ever must be silent to other natures,
because there is no common language between them. In the same house, at
the same board, sharing the same pillow, even, are those for ever
strangers and foreigners, whose whole stock of intercourse is limited to a
few brief phrases on the commonest material wants of life, and who, as
soon as they try to go further, have no words that are mutually
understood."
And again Thackeray, this time in "Vanity Fair," as before in "Pendennis":
"To how many people can any one tell all? Who will be open when there is
no sympathy, or has call to speak to those who never can understand?"
[Sidenote: Conscious aloofness.]
[Sidenote: Recognising our limitations.]
If mothers would only understand that this conscious aloofness begins
early in some natures--almost incredibly early--they would be happier in
their clever children and would make them happier too. There comes a
moment when the young mind that has lain clear and open as a book before
one's eyes enwraps itself in a misty veil, and enters into the silent
solitude which every human being finds within his own nature. And the
mother, unguessing, is hurt and repelled, though she should be well aware
that the time must come when the youthful soul must enter upon its
inheritance of individuality, and separate itself and stand apart. It is
at this momentous time that affection is most deeply needed, with a
craving and a yearning that cannot be expressed; and yet this is the
moment when the mother too often turns away, disappointed and chilled by
the unwonted reticence her child displays. She has yet to learn that human
affection is a wingless thing, and cannot follow the far flights of the
untrammelled spirit. It is well for mothers to recognise their
limitations, and to realise that there may be far more in her child's mind
than was ever dreamed of by herself. If she fails to do this, she will
chill back the love that lies, warm as ever, behind the incomprehensible
reserve wherewith the youthful spirit wraps itself while it learns what
all this inner tumult means. It is a trying time for both parent and son
or daughter, and the only thing to keep firm hold of is the love that
holds the two together. It is more important than ever at this parting of
the ways, though it may seem to be disregarded. There will surely be a
call upon it when the inner solitudes are found immeasurable, and when
the spirit, almost affrighted at its own illimitable possibilities, turns
back to the dear human hand and the loving glance and word that sufficed
it always until now.
[Sidenote: The need of patience.]
Mothers must play a waiting game in these matters. Expostulation is worse
than useless, only puzzling. Demands for explanation are worse than
purposeless. Both tend to still further harass a perplexed mind. Only
patience is recommendable, and always love, and plenty of it, for the
young sons and daughters. They may not seem to need it, and may even
appear to be indifferent to it; but it is good for them to know that when
they want it, as they very surely will, it is there for them. These doves
that return to the ark are often very weary, and long for rest and
comfort. Too often they find coldness and repulsion.
[Sidenote: The young genius.]
[Sidenote: About gentleness.]
Mr. Andrew Lang says that the future genius is often violent, ferocious,
fond of solitude, disagreeable in society. And how is the mother to divine
from these qualities a budding poet or a master of men? For there are
crowds of disagreeable, rude boys to be found on every hand. Intuitive
knowledge would be desirable on this point, but we cannot have it, and
without it the only thing to do is to correct faults vigorously, but never
to discontinue affection. Many parents are good at one or other, but it
is the few who can manage both. Gentleness is such a delightful quality
that it is often encouraged and applauded at the expense of firmness; and
the moral courage necessary for exercising the latter remains untrained,
and soon dies out for want of care. For this kind of courage only needs
practice, like patience and the piano, and, fortunately, each effort makes
it easier. Great, rough boys are wonderfully amenable to gentleness when
they know that firmness lies behind it. Lacking that, it is regarded as
"softness," and played upon for their own purposes. It is deplorable to
see the way the boys are treated in some families. They are noisy and
ill-mannered, it is true; but they would improve if they could only be
gently borne with, instead of being made to feel as if they were nuisances
and interlopers. They may never be geniuses, but for all that they have a
right to consideration in the only home they know. And they do not always
get it. Listen to the lament of one of them:--
[Sidenote: The Boy's Lament.]
"What can a boy do, and where can a boy stay,
If he always is told to get out of the way?
He cannot sit here, and he mustn't stand there,
The cushions that cover that gaily-decked chair
Were put there, of course, to be seen and admired;
A boy has no business to feel a bit tired.
The beautiful carpets with blossom and bloom
On the floor of the tempting and light-shaded room,
Are not made to be walked on--at least, not by boys.
The house is no place, anyway, for their noise.
There's a place for the boys. They will find it somewhere,
And if our own homes are too daintily fair
For the touch of their fingers, the tread of their feet,
They'll find it, and find it, alas! in the street,
'Mid the gildings of sin and the glitter of vice;
And with heartaches and longings we pay a dear price
For the getting of gain that our lifetime employs
If we fail in providing a place for our boys.
Though our souls may be vexed with the problems of life,
And worn with besetments and toiling and strife,
Our hearts will keep younger--your tired heart and mine--
If we give them a place in our innermost shrine;
And till life's latest hour 'twill be one of our joys
That we keep a small corner--a place for the boys."
_ULTRA-TIDINESS._
[Sidenote: The vicious side of tidiness.]
[Sidenote: Tyrannical cleanliness.]