As the exercise of all our faculties tends to increase their power,

unless it be carried to excess, it is very important that the aged

should be provided with useful employment, suited to their strength

and capacity. Nothing hastens decay so fast as to remove the

_stimulus_ of useful activity. It should become a study with those

who have the care of the aged to interest them in some useful pursuit,

and to convince them that they are in some measure actively contributing

to the general welfare. In the country and in families where the larger

part of the domestic labor is done without servants, it is very easy

to keep up an interest in domestic industrial employments. The tending

of a small garden in summer--the preparation of fuel and food, the

mending of household utensils--these and many other occupations of the

hands will keep alive activity and interest, in a man; while for women

there are still more varied resources. There is nothing that so soon

hastens decay and lends acerbity to age as giving up all business and

responsibility, and every mode possible should be devised to prevent

this result.

As age advances, all the bodily functions move more slowly, and

consequently the generation of animal heat, by the union of oxygen and

carbon in the capillaries, is in smaller proportion than in the midday

of life. For this reason some practices, safe for the vigorous, must

be relinquished by the aged; and one of these is the use of the cold

bath. It has often been the case that rheumatism has been caused by

neglect of this caution. More than ordinary care should be taken to

preserve animal heat in the aged, especially in the hands and the feet.

In many families will be found an aged brother, or sister, or other

relative who has no home, and no claim to a refuge in the family circle

but that of kindred. Sometimes they are poor and homeless, for want

of a faculty for self-supporting business; and sometimes they have

peculiarities of person or disposition which render their society

undesirable. These are cases where the pitying tenderness of the Saviour

should be remembered, and for his sake patient kindness and tender

care be given, and he will graciously accept it as an offering of love

and duty to himself. "Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these

my brethren, ye have done it to me."

It is sometimes the case that even parents in old age have had occasion

to say with the forsaken King Lear, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth

it is to have a thankless child!" It is right training in early life

alone that will save from this.

In the opening of China and the probable influx of its people, there

is one cause for congratulation to a nation that is failing in the

virtue of reverence. The Chinese are distinguished above all other

nations for their respect for the aged, and especially for their

reverence for aged parents and conformity to their authority, even to

the last. This virtue is cultivated to a degree that is remarkable,

and has produced singular and favorable results on the national

character, which it is hoped may be imparted to the land to which they

are flocking in such multitudes. For with all their peculiarities of

pagan philosophy and their oriental eccentricities of custom and

practical life, they are everywhere renowned for their uniform and

elegant courtesy--a most commendable virtue, and one arising from

habitual deference to the aged more than from any other source.

XXV.

THE CASE OF SERVANTS.

Although in earlier ages the highest born, wealthiest, and proudest

ladies were skilled in the simple labors of the household, the advance

of society toward luxury has changed all that in lands of aristocracy

and classes, and at the present time America is the only country where

there is a class of women who may be described as _ladies_ who do their

own work. By a lady we mean a woman of education, cultivation, and

refinement, of liberal tastes and ideas, who, without any very material

additions or changes, would be recognized as a lady in any

circle of the Old World or the New.

The existence of such a class is a fact peculiar to American society,

a plain result of the new principles involved in the doctrine of

universal equality.

When the colonists first came to this country, of however mixed

ingredients their ranks might have been composed, and however imbued

with the spirit of feudal and aristocratic ideas, the discipline of

the wilderness soon brought them to a democratic level; the gentleman

felled the wood for his log-cabin side by side with the plowman, and

thews and sinews rose in the market. "A man was deemed honorable in

proportion as he lifted his hand upon the high trees of the forest."

So in the interior domestic circle. Mistress and maid, living in a

log-cabin together, became companions, and sometimes the maid, as the

one well-trained in domestic labor, took precedence of the mistress.

It also became natural and unavoidable that children should begin to

work as early as they were capable of it.

The result was a generation of intelligent people brought up to labor

from necessity, but devoting to the problem of labor the acuteness of

a disciplined brain. The mistress, outdone in sinews and muscles by

her maid, kept her superiority by skill and contrivance. If she could

not lift a pail of water, she could invent methods which made lifting

the pail unnecessary,--if she could not take a hundred steps without

weariness, she could make twenty answer the purpose of a hundred.

Slavery, it is true, was to some extent introduced into New England,

but it never suited the genius of the people, never struck deep root

or spread so as to choke the good seed of self-helpfulness. Many were

opposed to it from conscientious principle--many from far-sighted

thrift, and from a love of thoroughness and well-doing which despised

the rude, unskilled work of barbarians. People, having once felt the

thorough neatness and beauty of execution which came of free, educated,

and thoughtful labor, could not tolerate the clumsiness of slavery.

Thus it came to pass that for many years the rural population of

New-England, as a general rule, did their own work, both out-doors and

in. If there were a black man or black woman or bound girl, they were

emphatically only the _helps_, following humbly the steps of master and

mistress, and used by them as instruments of lightening certain portions

of their toil. The master and mistress, with their children, were the

head workers.

Great merriment has been excited in the old country because, years

ago, the first English travelers found that the class of persons by

them denominated servants, were in America denominated _help_,

or helpers. But the term was the very best exponent of the state of

society. There were few servants, in the European sense of the word;

there was a society of educated workers, where all were practically

equal, and where, if there was a deficiency in one family and an excess

in another, a _helper_, not a servant in the European sense, was

hired. Mrs. Brown, who has several sons and no daughters, enters into

agreement with Mrs. Jones, who has several daughters and no sons. She

borrows a daughter, and pays her good wages to help in her domestic

toil, and sends a son to help the labors of Mr. Jones. These two young

people go into the families in which they are to be employed in all

respects as equals and companions, and so the work of the community

is equalized. Hence arose, and for many years continued, a state of

society more nearly solving than any other ever did the problem of

combining the highest culture of the mind with the highest culture ofthe

muscles and the physical faculties.

Then were to be seen families of daughters, handsome, strong women,

rising each day to their in-door work with cheerful alertness--one to

sweep the room, another to make the fire, while a third prepared the

breakfast for the father and brothers who were going out to manly

labor: and they chatted meanwhile of books, studies, embroidery;

discussed the last new poem, or some historical topic started by graver

reading, or perhaps a rural ball that was to come off next week. They

spun with the book tied to the distaff; they wove; they did all manner

of fine needle-work; they made lace, painted flowers, and, in short,

in the boundless consciousness of activity, invention, and perfect

health, set themselves to any work they had ever read or thought of.

A bride in those days was married with sheets and tablecloths of her

own weaving, with counterpanes and toilet-covers wrought in divers

embroidery by her own and her sisters' hands. The amount of fancy-work

done in our days by girls who have nothing else to do, will not equal

what was done by these who performed, besides, among them, the whole

work of the family.

In those former days most women were in good health, debility and

disease being the exception. Then, too, was seen the economy of daylight

and its pleasures. They were used to early rising, and would not lie

in bed, if they could. Long years of practice made them familiar with

the shortest, neatest, most expeditious method of doing every household

office, so that really for the greater part of the time in the house

there seemed, to a looker-on, to be nothing to do. They rose in the

morning and dispatched husband, father, and brothers to the farm or

woodlot; went sociably about, chatting with each other, skimmed the

milk, made the butter, and turned the cheeses. The forenoon was long;

ten to one, all the so-called morning work over, they had leisure for

an hour's sewing or reading before it was time to start the dinner

preparations. By two o'clock the house-work was done, and they had the

long afternoon for books, needle-work, or drawing--for perhaps there

was one with a gift at her pencil. Perhaps one read aloud while others

sewed, and managed in that way to keep up a great deal of reading.

It is said that women who have been accustomed to doing their own work

become hard mistresses. They are certainly more sure of the ground

they stand on--they are less open to imposition--they can speak and

act in their own houses more as those "having authority," and therefore

are less afraid to exact what is justly their due, and less willing

to endure impertinence and unfaithfulness. Their general error lies

in expecting that any servant ever will do as well for them as they

will do for themselves, and that an untrained, undisciplined human

being ever _can_ do house-work, or any other work, with the neatness and

perfection, that a person of trained intelligence can.

It has been remarked in our armies that the men of cultivation, though

bred in delicate and refined spheres, can bear up under the hardships

of camp-life better and longer than rough laborers. The reason is,

that an educated mind knows how to use and save its body, to work it

and spare it, as an uneducated mind can not; and so the college-bred

youth brings himself safely through fatigues which kill the unreflective

laborer.

Cultivated, intelligent women, who are brought up to do the work of

their own families, are labor-saving institutions. They make the head

save the wear of the muscles. By forethought, contrivance, system, and

arrangement they lessen the amount to be done, and do it with less

expense of time and strength than others. The old New-England motto,

_Get your work done up in the forenoon_, applied to an amount of

work which would keep a common Irish servant toiling from daylight to

sunset.

A lady living in one of our obscure New-England towns, where there

were no servants to be hired, at last, by sending to a distant city,

succeeded in procuring a raw Irish maid-of-all-work, a creature of

immense bone and muscle, but of heavy, unawakened brain. In one

fortnight she established such a reign of Chaos and old Night in the

kitchen and through the house that her mistress, a delicate woman,

encumbered with the care of young children, began seriously to think

that she made more work each day than she performed, and dismissed

her. What was now to be done? Fortunately, the daughter of a neighboring

farmer was going to be married in six months, and wanted a little ready

money for her _trousseau_. The lady was informed that Miss So-and-so

would come to her, not as a servant, but as hired "help." She was fain

to accept any help with gladness.

Forthwith came into the family-circle a tall, well-dressed young person,

grave, unobtrusive, self-respecting, yet not in the least presuming,

who sat at the family table and observed all its decorums with the

modest self-possession of a lady. The new-comer took a survey of the

labors of a family of ten members, including four or five young

children, and, looking, seemed at once to throw them into system;

matured her plans, arranged her hours of washing, ironing, baking, and

cleaning; rose early, moved deftly; and in a single day the slatternly

and littered kitchen assumed that neat, orderly appearance that so

often strikes one in New England farm-houses. The work seemed to be

all gone. Every thing was nicely washed, brightened, put in place, and

staid in place; the floors, when cleaned; remained clean; the work was

always done, and not doing; and every afternoon the young lady sat

neatly dressed in her own apartment, either quietly writing letters

to her betrothed, or sewing on her bridal outfit. Such is the result

of employing those who have been brought up to do their own work. That

tall, fine-looking girl, for aught we know, may yet be mistress of a

fine house on Fifth Avenue; and if she is, she will, we fear, prove

rather an exacting mistress to Irish Bridget; but she will never be

threatened by her cook and chambermaid, after the first one or two

have tried the experiment.

Those remarkable women of old were made by circumstances. There were,

comparatively speaking, no servants to be had, and so children were

trained to habits of industry and mechanical adroitness from the cradle,

and every household process was reduced to the very minimum of labor.

Every step required in a process was counted, every movement calculated;

and she who took ten steps, when one would do, lost her reputation for

"faculty." Certainly such an early drill was of use in developing the

health and the bodily powers, as well as in giving precision to the

practical mental faculties. All household economies were arranged with

equal niceness in those thoughtful minds. A trained housekeeper knew

just how many sticks of hickory of a certain size were required to

heat her oven, and how many of each different kind of wood. She knew

by a sort of intuition just what kinds of food would yield the most

palatable nutriment with the least outlay of accessories in cooking.

She knew to a minute the time when each article must go into and be

withdrawn from her oven; and if she could only lie in her chamber and

direct, she could guide an intelligent child through the processes

with mathematical certainty.

It is impossible, however, that any thing but early training and long

experience can produce these results, and it is earnestly to be wished

that the grandmothers of New-England had written down their experiences

for our children; they would have been a mine of maxims and traditions

better than any other "traditions of the elders" which we know of.

In this country, our democratic institutions have removed the

superincumbent pressure which in the Old World confines the servants

to a regular orbit. They come here feeling that this is somehow a land

of liberty, and with very dim and confused notions of what liberty is.

They are very extensively the raw, untrained Irish peasantry, and the

wonder is, that, with all the unreasoning heats and prejudices of the

Celtic blood, all the necessary ignorance and rawness, there should

be the measure of comfort and success there is in our domestic

arrangements.

But, as long as things are so, there will be constant changes and

interruptions in every domestic establishment, and constantly recurring

interregnums when the mistress must put her own hand to the work,

whether the hand be a trained or an untrained one. As matters now are,

the young housekeeper takes life at the hardest. She has very little

strength,--no experience to teach her how to save her strength. She

knows nothing experimentally of the simplest processes necessary to

keep her family comfortably fed and clothed; and she has a way of

looking at all these things which makes them particularly hard and

distasteful to her. She does not escape being obliged to do house-work

at intervals, but she does it in a weak, blundering, confused way,

that makes it twice as hard and disagreeable as it need be.

Now, if every young woman learned to do house-work, and cultivated her

practical faculties in early life, she would, in the first place, be

much more likely to keep her servants, and, in the second place, if

she lost them temporarily, would avoid all that wear and tear of the

nervous system which comes from constant ill-success in those

departments on which family health and temper mainly depend. This is

one of the peculiarities of our American life, which require a peculiar

training. Why not face it sensibly?

Our land is now full of motorpathic institutions to which women are

sent at a great expense to have hired operators stretch and exercise

their inactive muscles. They lie for hours to have their feet twigged,

their arms flexed, and all the different muscles of the body worked

for them, because they are so flaccid and torpid that the powers of

life do not go on. Would it not be quite as cheerful, and a less

expensive process, if young girls from early life developed the muscles

in sweeping, dusting, starching, ironing, and all the multiplied

domestic processes which our grandmothers knew of? A woman who did all

these, and diversified the intervals with spinning on the great and

little wheel, did not need the gymnastics of Dio Lewis or of the Swedish

Movement Cure, which really are a necessity now. Does it not seem poor

economy to pay servants for letting our muscles grow feeble, and then

to pay operators to exercise them for us? I will venture to say that

our grandmothers in a week went over every movement that any gymnast

has invented, and went over them to some productive purpose too.

The first business of a housekeeper in America is that of a teacher.

She can have a good table only by having practical knowledge, and tact

in imparting it. If she understands her business practically and

experimentally, her eye detects at once the weak spot; it requires

only a little tact, some patience, some clearness in giving directions,

and all comes right.

If we carry a watch to a watchmaker, and undertake to show him how to

regulate the machinery, he laughs and goes on his own way; but if a

brother-machinist makes suggestions, he listens respectfully. So, when

a woman who knows nothing of woman's work undertakes to instruct one

who knows more than she does, she makes no impression; but a woman who

has been trained experimentally, and shows she understands the matter

thoroughly, is listened to with respect.

Let a woman make her own bread for one month, and, simple as the process

seems, it will take as long as that to get a thorough knowledge of all

the possibilities in the case; but after that, she will be able to

command good bread by the aid of all sorts of servants; in other words,

will be a thoroughly prepared teacher.

Although bread-making seems a simple process, it yet requires delicate

care and watchfulness. There are fifty ways to spoil good bread; There

are a hundred little things to be considered and allowed for, that

require accurate observation and experience. The same process that

will raise good bread in cold weather will make sour bread in the heat

of summer; different qualities of flour require variations in treatment

as also different sorts and conditions of yeast; and when all is done,

the baking presents another series of possibilities which require exact

attention.

A well-trained mind, accustomed to reflect, analyze, and generalize,

has an advantage over uncultured minds even of double experience. Poor

as your cook is, she now knows more of her business than you do. After

a very brief period of attention and experiment, you will not only

know more than she does, but you will convince her that you do, which

is quite as much to the purpose.

In the same manner, lessons must be given on the washing of silver and

the making of beds. Good servants do not often come to us; they must

be _made_ by patience and training; and if a girl has a good disposition

and a reasonable degree of handiness, and the housekeeper understands

her profession, a good servant may be made out of an indifferent one.

Some of the best girls have been those who came directly from the ship,

with no preparation but docility and some natural quickness. The hardest

cases to be managed are not of those who have been taught nothing, but

of those who have been taught wrongly--who come self-opinionated, with

ways which are distasteful, and contrary to the genius of one's

housekeeping. Such require that their mistress shall understand at least

so much of the actual conduct of affairs as to prove to the servant that

there are better ways than those in which she has been trained.

So much has been said of the higher sphere of woman, and so much has

been done to find some better work for her that, insensibly, almost

every body begins to feel that it is rather degrading for a woman in

good society to be much tied down to family affairs; especially since

in these Woman's Rights Conventions there is so much dissatisfaction

expressed at those who would confine her ideas to the kitchen and

nursery.

Yet these Woman's Rights Conventions are a protest against many former

absurd, unreasonable ideas--the mere physical and culinary idea of

womanhood as connected only with puddings and shirt-buttons, the

unjust and unequal burdens which the laws of harsher ages had cast

upon the sex. Many of the women connected with these movements are as

superior in every thing properly womanly as they are in exceptional

talent and culture. There is no manner of doubt that the sphere of

woman is properly to be enlarged. Every woman has rights as a human

being which belong to no sex, and ought to be as freely conceded to

her as if she were a man,--and first and foremost, the great right of

doing any thing which God and nature evidently have fitted her to excel

in. If she be made a natural orator, like Miss Dickinson, or an

astronomer, like Mrs. Somerville, or a singer, like Grisi, let not the

technical rules of womanhood be thrown in the way of her free use of

her powers.

Still, _per contra_, there has been a great deal of crude, disagreeable

talk in these conventions, and too great tendency of the age to make the

education of woman anti-domestic. It seems as if the world never could

advance, except like ships under a head-wind, tacking and going too far,

now in this direction, and now in the opposite. Our common-school system

now rejects sewing from the education of girls, which very properly used

to occupy many hours daily in school a generation ago. The daughters of

laborers and artisans are put through algebra, geometry, trigonometry,

and the higher mathematics, to the entire neglect of that learning which

belongs distinctively to woman. A girl of ten can not keep pace with her

class, if she gives any time to domestic matters; and accordingly she is

excused from them all during the whole term of her education. The boy of

a family, at an early age, is put to a trade, or the labors of a farm;

the father becomes impatient of his support, and requires of him to take

care for himself. Hence an interrupted education--learning coming by

snatches in the winter months or in the intervals of work.

As the result, the young women in some of our country towns are, in

mental culture, much in advance of the males of the same household;

but with this comes a physical delicacy, the result of an exclusive

use of the brain and a neglect of the muscular system, with great

inefficiency in practical domestic duties. The race of strong, hardy,

cheerful girls, that used to grow up in country places, and made the

bright, neat, New-England kitchens of old times--the girls that could

wash, iron, brew, bake, harness a horse and drive him, no less than

braid straw, embroider, draw, paint, and read innumerable books--this

race of women, pride of olden time, is daily lessening; and in their

stead come the fragile, easily-fatigued, languid girls of a modern

age, drilled in book-learning, ignorant of common things. The great

danger of all this, and of the evils that come from it, is, that

society, by and by, will turn as blindly against female intellectual

culture as it now advocates it, and having worked disproportionately

one way, will work disproportionately in the opposite direction.

Domestic service is the great problem of life herein America; the

happiness of families, their thrift, well-being, and comfort, are more

affected by this than by any one thing else. The modern girls, as they

have been brought up, can not perform the labor of their own families

as in those simpler, old-fashioned days; and what is worse, they have

no practical skill with which to instruct servants, who come to us,

as a class, raw and untrained. In the present state of prices, the

board of a domestic costs double her wages, and the waste she makes

is a more serious matter still.

Many of the domestic evils in America originate, in the fact that,

while society here is professedly based on new principles which ought

to make social life in every respect different from the life of the

Old World, yet these principles have never been so thought out and

applied as to give consistency and harmony to our daily relations.

America starts with a political organization based oh a declaration

of the primitive freedom and equality of all men. Every human being,

according to this principle, stands on the same natural level with

every other, and has the same chance to rise according to the degree

of power or capacity given by the Creator. All our civil institutions

are designed to preserve this equality, as far as possible, from

generation to generation: there is no entailed property, there are no

hereditary titles, no monopolies, no privileged classes--all are to

be as free to rise and fall as the waves of the sea.

The condition of domestic service, however, still retains about it

something of the influences from feudal times, and from the near

presence of slavery in neighboring States. All English literature of

the world describes domestic service in the old feudal spirit and with

the old feudal language, which regarded the master as belonging to a

privileged class and the servant to an inferior one. There is not a

play, not a poem, not a novel, not a history, that does not present

this view. The master's rights, like the rights of kings, were supposed

to rest in his being born in a superior rank. The good servant was one

who, from childhood, had learned "to order himself lowly and reverently

to all his betters." When New-England brought to these shores the

theory of democracy, she brought, in the persons of the first pilgrims,

the habits of thought and of action formed in aristocratic communities.

Winthrop's Journal, and all the old records of the earlier colonists,

show households where masters and mistresses stood on the "right divine"

of the privileged classes, howsoever they might have risen up against

authorities themselves.

The first consequence of this state of things was a universal rejection

of domestic service in all classes of American-born society. For a

generation or two there was, indeed, a sort of interchange of family

strength,--sons and daughters engaging in the service of neighboring

families, in default of a sufficient working-force of their own, but

always on conditions of strict equality. The assistant was to share

the table, the family sitting-room, and every honor and attention that

might be claimed by son or daughter. When families increased in

refinement and education so as to make these conditions of close

intimacy with more uncultured neighbors disagreeable, they had to

choose between such intimacies and the performance of their own domestic

toil. No wages could induce a son or daughter of New-England to take

the condition of a servant on terms which they thought applicable to

that of a slave. The slightest hint of a separate table was resented

as an insult; not to enter the front door, and not to sit in the front

parlor on state occasions, was bitterly commented on as a personal

indignity.

The well-taught, self-respecting daughters of farmers, the class most

valuable in domestic service, gradually retired from it. They preferred

any other employment, however laborious. Beyond all doubt, the labors

of a well-regulated family are more healthy, more cheerful, more,

interesting, because less monotonous, than the mechanical toils of a

factory; yet the girls of New-England, with one consent, preferred the

factory, and left the whole business of domestic service to a foreign

population; and they did it mainly because they would not take positions

in families as an inferior laboring-class by the side of others of

their own age who assumed as their prerogative to live without labor.

"I can't let you have one of my daughters," said an energetic matron

to her neighbor from the city, who was seeking for a servant in her

summer vacation; "if you hadn't daughters of your own, may be I would;

but my girls are not going to work so that your girls may live in

idleness."

It was vain to offer money. "We don't need your money, ma'am; we can

support ourselves in other ways; my girls can braid straw, and bind

shoes, but they are not going to be slaves to any body."

In the Irish and German servants who took the place of Americans in

families, there was, to begin with, the tradition of education in favor

of a higher class; but even the foreign population became more or less

infected with the spirit of democracy. They came to this country with

vague notions of freedom and equality, and in ignorant and uncultivated

people such ideas are often more unreasonable for being vague. They

did not, indeed, claim a seat at the table and in the parlor, but they

repudiated many of those habits of respect and courtesy which belonged

to their former condition, and asserted their own will and way in the

round, unvarnished phrase which they supposed to be their right as

republican citizens. Life became a sort of domestic wrangle and struggle

between the employers, who secretly confessed their weakness, but

endeavored openly to assume the air and bearing of authority, and the

employed, who knew their power and insisted on their privileges.

From this cause domestic service in America has had less of mutual

kindliness titan in old countries. Its terms have been so ill-

understood and defined that both parties have assumed the defensive;

and a common topic of conversation in American female society has often

been the general servile war which in one form or another was going

on in their different families--a war as interminable as would be a

struggle between aristocracy and common people, undefined by any bill

of rights or constitution, and therefore opening fields for endless

disputes.

In England, the class who go to service _are_ a class, and service

is a profession; the distance between them and their employers is so

marked and defined, and all the customs and requirements of the position

are so perfectly understood, that the master or mistress has no fear

of being compromised by condescension, and no need of the external

voice or air of authority. The higher up in the social scale one goes,

the more courteous seems to become the intercourse of master and

servant; the more perfect and real the power, the more is it veiled

in outward expression--commands are phrased as requests, and gentleness

of voice and manner covers an authority which no one would think of

offending without trembling.

But in America all is undefined. In the first place, there is no class

who mean to make domestic service a profession to live and die in. It

is universally an expedient, a stepping-stone to something higher;

your best servants always have some thing else in view as soon as they

have laid by a little money; some form of independence which shall

give them a home of their own is constantly in mind. Families look

forward to the buying of landed homesteads, and the scattered brothers

and sisters work awhile in domestic service to gain, the common fund

for the purpose; your seamstress intends to become a dressmaker, and

take in work at her own house; your cook is pondering a marriage with

the baker, which shall transfer her toils from your cooking-stove to

her own.

Young women are eagerly rushing into every other employment, till

feminine trades and callings are all over-stocked. We are continually

harrowed with tales of the sufferings of distressed needle-women, of

the exactions, and extortions practiced on the frail sex in the many

branches of labor and trade at which they try their hands; and yet

women will encounter all these chances of ruin and starvation rather

than make up their minds to permanent domestic service.

Now, what is the matter with domestic service? One would think, on the

face of it, that a calling which gives a settled home, a comfortable

room, rent-free, with fire and lights, good board and lodging, and

steady, well-paid wages, would certainly offer more attractions than

the making of shirts for tenpence, with all the risks of providing

one's own sustenance and shelter.

Is it not mainly from the want of a definite idea of the true position

of a servant under our democratic institutions that domestic service

is so shunned and avoided in America, and that it is the very last

thing which an intelligent young woman will look to for a living? It

is more the want of personal respect toward, those in that position

than the labor incident to it which repels our people from it. Many

would be willing to perform these labors, but they are not willing to

place themselves in a situation where their self-respect is hourly

wounded by the implication of a degree of inferiority, _which does

not follow any kind of labor or service in this country but that of

the family_.

There exists in the minds of employers an unsuspected spirit of

superiority, which is stimulated into an active form by the resistance

which democracy inspires in the working-class. Many families think of

servants only as a necessary evil, their wages as exactions, and all

that is allowed them as so much taken from the family; and they seek

in every way to get from them as much and to give them as little as

possible. Their rooms are the neglected, ill-furnished, incommodious

ones--and the kitchen is the most cheerless and comfortless place in

the house.

Other families, more good-natured and liberal, provide their domestics

with more suitable accommodations, and are more indulgent; but there

is still a latent spirit of something like contempt for the position.

That they treat their servants with so much consideration seems to

them a merit entitling them to the most prostrate gratitude; and they

are constantly disappointed and shocked at that want of sense of

inferiority on the part of these people which leads them to appropriate

pleasant rooms, good furniture, and good living as mere matters of

common justice.

It seems to be a constant surprise to some employers that servants

should insist on having the same human wants as themselves. Ladles who

yawn in their elegantly furnished parlors, among books and pictures,

if they have not company, parties, or opera to diversify the evening,

seem astonished and half indignant that cook and chambermaid are more

disposed to go out for an evening gossip than to sit on hard chairs

in the kitchen where they have been toiling all day. The pretty

chambermaid's anxieties about her dress, the minutes she spends at her

small and not very clear mirror, are sneeringly noticed by those whose

toilet-cares take up serious hours; and the question has never

apparently occurred to them why a serving-maid should not want to look

pretty as well as her mistress. She is a woman as well as they, with,

all a woman's wants and weaknesses; and her dress is as much to her

as theirs to them.

A vast deal of trouble among servants arises; from impertinent

interferences and petty tyrannical enactions on the part of employers.

Now, the authority of the master and mistress of a house in regard to

their domestics extends simply to the things they have contracted to

do and the hours during which they have contracted to serve; otherwise

than this, they have no more right to interfere with them in the

disposal of their time than with any mechanic whom they employ. They

have, indeed, a right to regulate the hours of their own household,

and servants can choose between conformity to these hours and the loss

of their situation; but, within reasonable limits, their right to come

and go at their own discretion, in their own time, should be

unquestioned.

If employers are troubled by the fondness of their servants for dancing,

evening company, and late hours, the proper mode of proceeding is to

make these matters a subject of distinct contract in hiring. The more

strictly and perfectly the business matters of the first engagement

of domestics are conducted, the more likelihood there is of mutual

quiet and satisfaction in the relation. It is quite competent to every

housekeeper to say what practices are or are not consistent with the

rules of her family, and what will be inconsistent with the service

for which she agrees to pay. It is much better to regulate such affairs

by cool contract in the outset than by warm altercations and protracted

domestic battles.

As to the terms of social intercourse, it seems somehow to be settled

in the minds of many employers that their servants owe them and their

family more respect than they and the family owe to the servants. But

do they? What is the relation of servant to employer in a democratic

country? Precisely that of a person who for money performs any kind

of service for you. The carpenter comes into your house to put up a

set of shelves--the cook comes into your kitchen to cook your dinner.

You never think that the carpenter owes you any more respect than you

owe to him because he is in your house doing your behests; he is your

fellow-citizen, you treat him with respect, you expect to be treated

with respect by him. You have a claim on him that he shall do your

work according to your directions--no more.

Now, I apprehend that there is a very common notion as to the position

and rights of servants which is quite different from this. Is it not

a common feeling that a servant is one who may he treated with a degree

of freedom by every member of the family which he or she may not return?

Do not people feel at liberty to question servants about their private

affairs, to comment on their dress and appearance, in a manner which

they would feel to be an impertinence, if reciprocated? Do they not

feel at liberty to express dissatisfaction with their performances in

rude and unceremonious terms, to reprove them in the presence of

company, while yet they require that the dissatisfaction of servants

shall be expressed only in terms of respect? A woman would not feel

herself at liberty to talk to her milliner or her dress-maker in

language as devoid of consideration as she will employ toward her cook

or chambermaid. And yet both are rendering her a service which she

pays for in money, and one is no more made her inferior thereby than

the other. Both have an equal right to be treated with courtesy. The

master and mistress of a house have a right to require courteous

treatment from all whom their roof shelters; but they have no more

right to exact it of servants than of every guest and every child, and

they themselves owe it as much to servants as to guests.

In order that servants may be treated with respect and courtesy, it

is not necessary, as in simpler patriarchal days, that they sit at the

family-table. Your carpenter or plumber does not feel hurt that you

do not ask him to dine with you, nor your milliner and mantua-maker

that you do not exchange ceremonious calls and invite them to your

parties. It is well understood that your relations with them are of

a mere business character. They never take it as an assumption of

superiority on your part that you do not admit them to relations of

private intimacy. There may be the most perfect respect and esteem and

even friendship between then and you, notwithstanding. So it may be

in the case of servants. It is easy to make any person understand that

there are quite other reasons than the assumption of personal

superiority for not wishing to admit servants to the family privacy.

It was not, in fact, to sit in the parlor or at the table in themselves

considered, that was the thing aimed at by New--England girls; these

were valued only as signs that they were deemed worthy of respect and

consideration, and, where freely conceded, were often in point of fact

declined.

Let servants feel, in their treatment by their employers and in the

atmosphere of the family, that their position is held to be a

respectable one; let them feel, in the mistress of the family, the

charm of unvarying consideration and good manners; let their work-

rooms be made convenient and comfortable, and their private apartments

bear some reasonable comparison in point of agreeableness to those of

other members of the family, and domestic service will be more

frequently sought by a superior and self-respecting class. There are

families in which such a state of things prevails; and such families,

amid the many causes which unite to make the tenure of service

uncertain, have generally been able to keep good permanent servants.

There is an extreme into which kindly disposed people often run with

regard to servants which may be mentioned here. They make pets of them.

They give extravagant wages and indiscreet indulgences, and, through

indolence and easiness of temper, tolerate neglect of duty. Many of

the complaints of the ingratitude of servants come from those who have

spoiled them in this way; while many of the longest and most harmonious

domestic unions have sprung from a simple, quiet course of Christian

justice and benevolence, a recognition of servants as fellow-beings

and fellow-Christians, and a doing to them as we would in like

circumstances that they should do to us.

The mistresses of American families, whether they like it or not, have

the duties of missionaries imposed upon them by that class from which

our supply of domestic servants is drawn. They may as well accept the

position cheerfully, and, as one raw, untrained hand after another

passes through their family, and is instructed by them in the mysteries

of good house-keeping, comfort themselves with the reflection that

they are doing something to form good wives and mothers for the

republic.

The complaints made of Irish girls are numerous and loud; the failings

of green Erin, alas! are but too open and manifest; yet, in arrest of

judgment, let us move this consideration: let us imagine our own

daughters between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four, untaught and

inexperienced in domestic affairs as they commonly are, shipped to a

foreign shore to seek service in families. It may be questioned whether,

as a whole, they would do much better. The girls that fill our families

and do our house-work are often of the age of our own daughters,

standing for themselves, without mothers to guide them, in a foreign

country, not only bravely supporting themselves, but sending home in

every ship remittances to impoverished friends left behind. If our

daughters did as much for us, should we not be proud of their energy

and heroism?

When we go into the houses of our country, we find a majority of

well-kept, well-ordered, and even elegant establishments, where the

only hands employed are those of the daughters of Erin. True, American

women have been their instructors, and many a weary hour of care have

they had in the discharge of this office; but the result on the whole

is beautiful and good, and the end of it, doubtless, will be peace.

Instead, then, of complaining that we can not have our own peculiar

advantages and those of other nations too, or imagining how much better

off we should be if things were different from what they are, it is

much wiser and more Christian-like to strive cheerfully to conform to

actual circumstances; and, after remedying all that we can control,

patiently to submit to what is beyond our power. If domestics are found

to be incompetent, unstable, and unconfirmed to their station, it is

Perfect Wisdom which appoints these trials to teach us patience,

fortitude, and self-control; and if the discipline is met in a proper

spirit, it will prove a blessing rather than an evil.

But to judge correctly in regard to some of the evils involved in the

state of domestic service in this country, we should endeavor to

conceive ourselves placed in the situation of those of whom complaint

is made, that we may not expect from them any more than it would seem

right should be exacted from us in similar circumstances.

It is sometimes urged against domestics that they exact exorbitant

wages. But what is the rule of rectitude on this subject? Is it not

the universal law of labor and of trade that an article is to be valued

according to its scarcity and the demand? When wheat is scarce, the

farmer raises his price; and when a mechanic offers services difficult

to be obtained, he makes a corresponding increase of price. And why

is it not right for domestics to act according to a rule allowed to

be correct in reference to all other trades and professions? It is a

fact, that really good domestic service must continue to increase in

value just in proportion as this country waxes rich and prosperous;

thus making the proportion of those who wish to hire labor relatively

greater, and the number of those willing to go to service less.

Money enables the rich to gain many advantages which those of more

limited circumstances can not secure. One of these is, securing good

servants by offering high wages; and this, as the scarcity of this

class increases, will serve constantly to raise the price of service.

It is right for domestics to charge the market value, and this value

is always decided by the scarcity of the article and the amount of

demand. Right views of this subject will sometimes serve to diminish

hard feelings toward those who would otherwise be wrongfully regarded

as unreasonable and exacting.

Another complaint against servants is that of instability and

discontent, leading to perpetual change. But in reference to this, let

a mother or daughter conceive of their own circumstances as so changed

that the daughter must go out to service. Suppose a place is engaged,

and it is then found that she must sleep in a comfortless garret; and

that, when a new domestic comes, perhaps a coarse and dirty foreigner,

she must share her bed with her. Another place is offered, where she

can have a comfortable room and an agreeable room-mate; in such a case,

would not both mother and daughter think it right to change?

Or suppose, on trial, it was found that the lady of the house was

fretful or exacting and hard to please, or that her children were so

ungoverned as to be perpetual vexations; or that the work was so heavy

that no time was allowed for relaxation and the care of a wardrobe;

and another place offers where those evils can be escaped; would not

mother and daughter here think it right to change? And is it not right

for domestics, as well as their employers, to seek places where they

can be most comfortable?

In some cases, this instability and love of change would be remedied,

if employers would take more pains to make a residence with them

agreeable, and to attach servants to the family by feelings of gratitude

and affection. There are ladies, even where well-qualified domestics

are most rare, who seldom find any trouble in keeping good and steady

ones. And the reason is, that their servants know they can not better

their condition by any change within reach. It is not merely by giving

them comfortable rooms, and good food, and presents, and privileges,

that the attachment of domestic servants is secured; it is by the

manifestation of a friendly and benevolent interest in their comfort

and improvement. This is exhibited in bearing patiently with their

faults; in kindly teaching them how to improve; in showing them how

to make and take proper care of their clothes; in guarding their health;

in teaching them to read if necessary, and supplying them with proper

books; and in short, by endeavoring, so far as may be, to supply the

place of parents. It is seldom that such a course would fail to secure

steady service, and such affection and gratitude that even higher wages

would be ineffectual to tempt them away. There would probably be some

leases of ungrateful returns; but there is no doubt that the course

indicated, if generally pursued, would very much lessen the evil in

question.

When servants are forward and bold in manners and disrespectful in

address, they may be considerately taught that those who are among the

best-bred and genteel have courteous and respectful manners and language

to all they meet: while many who have wealth, are regarded as vulgar,

because they exhibit rude and disrespectful manners. The very term

_gentle man_ indicates the refinement and delicacy of address which

distinguishes the high-bred from the coarse and vulgar.

In regard to appropriate dress, in most cases it is difficult for an

employer to interfere, _directly_, with comments or advice. The

most successful mode is to offer some, service in mending or making

a wardrobe, and when a confidence in the kindness of feeling is thus

gained, remarks and suggestions will generally be properly received,

and new views of propriety and economy can be imparted. In some cases

it may be well for an employer who, from appearances, anticipates

difficulty of this kind, in making the preliminary contract or agreement

to state that she wishes to have the room, person, and dress of her

servants kept neat and in order, and that she expects to remind them

of their duty, in this particular, if it is neglected. Domestic servants

are very apt to neglect the care of their own chambers and clothing;

and such habits have a most pernicious influence on their well-being

and on that of their children in future domestic life. An employer,

then, is bound to exercise a parental care over them, in these respects.

There is one great mistake, not unfrequently made, in the management

both of domestics and of children, and that is, in supposing that the

way to cure defects is by finding fault as each failing occurs. But

instead of this being true, in many cases the directly opposite course

is the best; while, in all instances, much good judgment is required

in order to decide when to notice faults and when to let them pass

unnoticed. There are some minds very sensitive, easily discouraged,

and infirm of purpose. Such persons, when they have formed habits of

negligence, haste, and awkwardness, often need expressions of sympathy

and encouragement rather than reproof. They have usually been found

fault with so much that they have become either hardened or desponding;

and it is often the case, that a few words of commendation will awaken

fresh efforts and renewed hope. In almost every case, words of kindness,

confidence, and encouragement should be mingled with the needful

admonitions or reproof.

It is a good rule, in reference to this point, to _forewarn_ instead of

finding fault. Thus, when a thing has been done wrong, let it pass

unnoticed, till it is to be done again; and then, a simple request to

have it done in the right way will secure quite as much, and probably

more, willing effort, than a reproof administered for neglect. Some

persons seem to take it for granted that young and inexperienced minds

are bound to have all the forethought and discretion of mature persons;

and freely express wonder and disgust when mishaps occur for want of

these traits. But it would be far better to save from mistake or

forgetfulness by previous caution and care on the part of those who have

gained experience and forethought; and thus many occasions of complaint

and ill-humor will be avoided.

Those who fill the places of heads of families are not very apt to

think how painful it is to be chided for neglect of duty or for faults

of character. If they would sometimes imagine themselves in the place

of those whom they control, with some person daily administering reproof

to them, in the same _tone and style_ as they employ to those who

are under them, it might serve as a useful cheek to their chidings.

It is often the ease, that persons who are most strict and exacting

and least able to make allowances and receive palliations, are

themselves peculiarly sensitive to any tiling which implies that they

are in fault. By such, the spirit implied in the Divine petition,

"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against

us," needs especially to be cherished.

One other consideration is very important. There is no duty more binding

on Christians than that of patience and meekness under provocations

and disappointment. Now, the tendency of every sensitive mind, when

thwarted in its wishes, is to complain and find fault, and that often

in tones of fretfulness or anger. But there are few servants who have

not heard enough of the Bible to know that angry or fretful

fault-finding from the mistress of a family, when her work is not done

to suit her, is not in agreement with the precepts of Christ. They

notice and feel the inconsistency; and every woman, when she gives way

to feelings of anger and impatience at the faults of those around her,

lowers herself in their respect, while her own conscience, unless very

much blinded, can not but suffer a wound.

In speaking of the office of the American mistress as being a missionary

one, we are far from, recommending any controversial interference with

the religious faith of our servants. It is far better to incite them

to be good Christians in their own way than to run the risk of shaking

their faith in all religion by pointing out to them what seem to us

the errors of that in which they have been educated. The general purity

of life and propriety of demeanor of so many thousands of undefended

young girls cast yearly upon our shores, with no home but their church,

and no shield but their religion, are a sufficient proof that this

religion exerts an influence over them not to be lightly trifled with.

But there is a real unity even in opposite Christian forms; and the

Roman Catholic servant and the Protestant mistress, if alike possessed

by the spirit of Christ, and striving to conform to the Golden Rule,

can not help being one in heart, though one go to mass and the other

to meeting.

Finally, the bitter baptism through which we have passed, the life-blood

dearer than our own which has drenched distant fields, should remind

us of the preciousness of distinctive American ideas. They who would

seek in their foolish pride to establish the pomp of liveried servants

in America are doing that which is simply absurd. A servant can never

in our country be the mere appendage to another man, to be marked like

a sheep with the color of his owner; he must be a fellow-citizen, with

an established position of his own, free to make contracts, free to

come and go, and having in his sphere titles to consideration and

respect just as definite as those of any trade or profession whatever.

Moreover, we can not in this country maintain to any great extent large

retinues of servants. Even with ample fortunes, they are forbidden by

the general character of society here, which makes them cumbrous and

difficult to manage. Every mistress of a family knows that her cares

increase with every additional servant. Two keep the peace with each

other and their employer; three begin a possible discord, which

possibility increases with four, and becomes certain with five or six.

Trained housekeepers, such as regulate the complicated establishments

of the old world, form a class that are not, and from the nature of

the case never will be, found in any great numbers in this country.

All such women, as a general thing, are keeping, and prefer to keep,

houses of their own.

A moderate style of housekeeping, small, compact, and simple domestic

establishments, must necessarily be the general order of life in

America. So many openings of profit are to be found in this country,

that domestic service necessarily wants the permanence which forms so

agreeable a feature of it in the old world.

This being the case, it should be an object in American to exclude

from the labors of the family all that can, with greater advantage,

be executed out of it by combined labor.

Formerly, in New England, soap and candles were to be made in each

separate family; now, comparatively few take this toil upon them. We

buy soap of the soap-maker, and candles of the candle-factor. This

principle might be extended much further. In France, no family makes

its own bread, and better bread can not be eaten than can be bought

at the appropriate shops. No family does its own washing; the family's

linen is all sent to women who, making this their sole profession, get

it up with a care and nicety which can seldom be equaled in any family.

How would it simplify the burdens of the American housekeeper to have

washing and ironing day expunged from her calendar! How much more

neatly and compactly could the whole domestic system be arranged! If

all the money that each separate family spends on the outfit and

accommodations for washing and ironing, on fuel, soap, starch, and the

other requirements, were united in a fund to create a laundry for every

dozen families, one or two good women could do in first rate style

what now is very indifferently done by the disturbance and

disarrangement of all other domestic processes in these families.

Whoever sets neighborhood laundries on foot will do much to solve the

American housekeeper's hardest problem.

Again, American women must not try with three servants to carry on

life in the style which in the old world requires sixteen; they must

thoroughly understand, and be prepared _to teach_, every branch

of housekeeping; they must study to make domestic service desirable,

by treating their servants in a way to lead them to respect themselves

and to feel themselves respected; and there will gradually be evolved

from the present confusion, a solution of the domestic problem which

shall be adapted to the life of a new and growing world.

XXVI.

CARE OF THE SICK.

It is interesting to notice in the histories of our Lord the prominent

place given to the care of the sick. When he first sent out the

apostles, it was to heal the sick as well as to preach. Again, when,

he sent out the seventy, their first command was to "heal the sick,"

and next to say, "the kingdom of God has come nigh unto you." The body

was to be healed first, in order to attend to the kingdom of God, even

when it was "brought nigh."

Jesus Christ spent more time and labor in the cure of men's bodies

than in preaching, even, if we subtract those labors with his earthly

father by which family homes were provided. When he ascended to the

heavens, his last recorded, words to his followers, as given by Mark,

were, that his disciples should "lay hands on the sick," that they

might recover. Still more directly is the duty of care for the sick

exhibited in the solemn allegorical description of the last day. It

was those who visited the sick that were the blessed; it was those who

did not visit the sick who were told to "depart." Thus are we abundantly

taught that one of the most sacred duties of the Christian family is

the training of its inmates to care and land attention to the sick.

Every woman who has the care of young children, or of a large family,

is frequently called upon to advise what shall be done for some one

who is indisposed; and often, in circumstances where she must trust

solely to her own judgment. In such cases, some err by neglecting to

do any thing at all, till the patient is quite sick; but a still greater

number err from excessive and injurious dosing.

The two great causes of the ordinary slight attacks of illness in a

family, are, sudden chills, which close the pores of the skin, and

thus affect the throat, lungs, or bowels; and the excessive or improper

use of food. In most cases of illness from the first cause, bathing

the feet, and some aperient drink to induce perspiration, are suitable

remedies.

In case of illness from improper food, or excess in eating, fasting

for one or two meals, to give the system time and chance to relieve

itself, is the safest remedy. Some-times, a gentle cathartic of

castor-oil may be needful; but it is best first to try fasting. A safe

relief from injurious articles in the stomach is an emetic of warm

water; but to be effective, several tumblerfuls must be given in quick

succession, and till the stomach can receive no more.

The following extract from a discourse of Dr. Burne, before the London

Medical Society, contains important, information: "In civilized life,

the causes which are most generally and continually operating in the

production of diseases are, affections of the mind, improper diet, and

retention of the intestinal excretions. The undue retention of

excrementitious matter allows of the absorption of its more liquid

parts, which is a cause of great impurity to the blood, and the

excretions, thus rendered hard and knotty, act more or less as

extraneous substances, and, by their irritation, produce a determination

of blood to the intestines and to the neighboring viscera, which

ultimately ends in inflammation. It also has a great effect on the

whole system; causes a determination of blood to the head, which

oppresses the brain, and dejects the mind; deranges the functions of

the stomach; causes flatulency; and produces a general state of

discomfort."

Dr. Combe remarks on this subject: "In the natural and healthy state,

under a proper system of diet, and with sufficient exercise, the bowels

are relieved regularly, once every day." _Habit_ "is powerful in

modifying the result, and in sustaining healthy action when once fairly

established. Hence the obvious advantage of observing as much regularity

in relieving the system, as in taking our meals." It is often the ease

that soliciting nature at a regular period, once a day, will remedy

constipation without medicine, and induce a regular and healthy state

of the bowels. "When, however, as most frequently happens, the

constipation arises from the absence of all assistance from the

abdominal and respiratory muscles, the first step to be taken is, again

to solicit their aid; first, by removing all impediments to free

respiration, such as stays, waistbands, and belts; secondly, by

resorting to such active exercise as shall call the muscles into full

and regular action; [Footnote: The most effective mode of exercising

the abdominal and respiratory muscles, in order to remedy constipation,

is by a continuous alternate contraction of the muscles of the abdomen,

and diaphragm. By contracting the muscles of the abdomen, the intestines

axe pressed inward and upward, and then the muscles of the diaphragm

above contract and press them downward and outward. Thus the blood is

drawn to the torpid parts to stimulate to the healthful action, while

the agitation moves their contents downward. An invalid can thus

exercise the abdominal muscles in bed. The proper time is just after

a meal. This exercise, continued ten minutes a day, including short

intervals of rest, and persevered in for a week or two, will cure most

ordinary cases of constipation, provided proper food is taken. Coarse

bread and fruit are needed for this purpose in most cases.] and lastly,

by proportioning the quantity of food to the wants of the system, and

the condition of the digestive organs.

"If we employ these means, systematically and perseveringly, we shall

rarely fail in at last restoring the healthy action of the bowels,

with little aid from medicine. But if we neglect these modes, we may

go on for years, adding pill to pill, and dose to dose, without ever

attaining the end at which we aim."

"There is no point in which a woman needs more knowledge and discretion

than in administering remedies for what seem slight attacks, which are

not supposed to require the attention of a physician. It is little

realized that purgative drugs are unnatural modes of stimulating the

internal organs, tending to exhaust them of their secretions, and to

debilitate and disturb the animal economy. For this reason, they should

be used as little as possible; and fasting, and perspiration, and the

other methods pointed out, should always be first resorted to."

When medicine must be given, it should be borne in mind that there are

various classes of purgatives, which produce very diverse effects.

Some, like salts, operate to thin the blood, and reduce the system;

others are stimulating; and others have a peculiar operation on certain

organs. Of course, great discrimination and knowledge are needed, in

order to select the kind which is suitable to the particular disease,

or to the particular constitution of the invalid. This shows the folly

of using the many kinds of pills, and other quack medicines, where no

knowledge can be had of their composition. Pills which are good for

one kind of disease, might operate as poison in another state of the

system.

It is very common in cases of colds, which affect the lungs or throat,

to continue to try one dose after another for relief. It will be well

to hear in mind at such times, that all which goes into the stomach

must be first absorbed into the blood before it can reach the diseased

part; and that there is some danger of injuring the stomach, or other

parts of the system, by such a variety of doses, many of which, it is

probable, will be directly contradictory in their nature, and thus

neutralize any supposed benefit they might separately impart.

When a cold affects the head and eyes, and also impedes breathing

through the nose, great relief is gained by a wet napkin spread over

the upper part of the face, covering the nose except an opening for

breath. This is to be covered by folds of flannel fastened over the

napkin with a handkerchief. So also a wet towel over the throat and

whole chest, covered with folds of flannel, often relieves oppressed

lungs.

Ordinarily, a cold can be arrested on its first symptoms by coverings

in bed and a bottle of hot water, securing free perspiration. Often,

at its first appearance, it can be stopped by a spoonful or two of

whisky, or any alcoholic liquor, in hot water, taken on going to bed.

Warm covering to induce perspiration will assist the process. These

simple remedies are safest. Perspiration should always be followed by

a towel-bath.

It is very unwise to tempt the appetite of a person who is indisposed.

The cessation of appetite is the warning of nature that the system is

in such a state that food can not be digested. When food is to be given

to one who has no desire for it, beef-tea is the best in most cases.

The following suggestions may be found useful in regard to nursing the

sick. As nothing contributes more to the restoration of health than

pure air, it should be a primary object to keep a sick-room well

ventilated. At least twice in the twenty-four hours, the patient should

be well covered, and fresh air freely admitted from out of doors. After

this, if need be, the room should be restored to a proper temperature,

by the aid of an open fire. Bedding and clothing should also be well

aired, and frequently changed; as the exhalations from the body, in

sickness, are peculiarly deleterious. Frequent ablutions of the whole

body, if possible, are very useful; and for these, warm water may be

employed, when cold water is disagreeable.

A sick-room should always be kept very neat and in perfect order; and

all haste, noise, and bustle should be avoided. In order to secure

neatness, order, and quiet, in case of long illness, the following

arrangement should be made. Keep a large box for fuel, which will need

to be filled only twice in twenty-four hours. Provide also and keep

in the room or an adjacent closet, a small, tea-kettle, a saucepan,

a pail of water for drinks and ablutions, a pitcher, a covered

porringer, two pint bowls, two tumblers, two cups and saucers, two

wine-glasses, two large and two small spoons; also a dish in which to

wash these articles; a good supply of towels and a broom. Keep a

slop-bucket near by to receive the wash of the room. Procuring all

these articles at once, will save much noise and confusion.

Whenever medicine or food is given, spread a clean towel over the

person or bed-clothing, and get a clean handkerchief, as nothing is

more annoying to a weak stomach than the stickiness and soiling

produced by medicine and food.

Keep the fire-place neat, and always wash all articles and put them

in order as soon as they are out of use. A sick person has nothing to

do but look about the room; and when every thing is neat and in order,

a feeling of comfort is induced, while disorder, filth, and neglect

are constant objects of annoyance which, if not complained of, are yet

felt.

One very important particular in the case of those who are delicate

in constitution, as well as in the case of the sick, is the preservation

of warmth, especially in the hands and the feet. The _equal_

circulation of the blood is an important element for good health, and

this is impossible when the extremities are habitually or frequently

cold. It is owing to this fact that the coldness caused by wetting the

feet is so injurious. In cases where disease or a weak constitution

causes a feeble or imperfect circulation, great pains should be taken

to dress the feet and hands warmly, especially around the wrists and

ankles, where the blood-vessels are nearest to the surface and thus

most exposed to cold. Warm elastic wristlets and anklets would save

many a feeble person from increasing decay or disease.

When the circulation is feeble from debility or disease, the union of

carbon and oxygen in the capillaries is slower than in health, and

therefore care should be taken to preserve the heat thus generated by

warm clothing and protection from cold draughts. In nervous debility,

it is peculiarly important to preserve the animal heat, for its

excessive loss especially affects weak nerves. Many an invalid is

carelessly and habitually suffering cold feet, who would recover health

by proper care to preserve animal heat, especially in the extremities.

The following are useful directions for dressing a blister. Spread

thinly, on a linen cloth, an ointment composed of one third of beeswax

to two thirds of tallow; lay this upon a linen cloth folded many times.

With a sharp pair of scissors make an aperture in the lower part of

the blister-bag, with a little hole above to give it vent. Break the

raised skin as little as possible. Lay on the cloth spread as directed.

The blister at first should be dressed as often as three times in a

day, and the dressing renewed each time. Hot fomentations in most cases

will be as good as a blister, less painful, and safer.

Always prepare food for the sick in the neatest and most careful manner.

It is in sickness that the senses of smell and taste are most

susceptible of annoyance; and often, little mistakes or negligences

in preparing food will take away all appetite.

Food for the sick should be cooked on coals, that no smoke may have

access to it; and great care must be taken to prevent, by stirring,

any adherence to the bottom of the cooking vessel, as this always gives

a disagreeable taste.

Keeping clean handkerchiefs and towels at hand, cooling the pillows,

sponging the hands with water, (with care to dry them thoroughly,)

swabbing the mouth with a clean linen rag on the end of a stick, are

modes of increasing the comfort of the sick. Always throw a shawl over

a sick person when raised up.

Be careful to understand a physician's directions, and _to obey them

implicitly_. If it be supposed that any other person knows better

about the case than the physician, dismiss the physician, and employ

that person in his stead.

It is always best to consult the physician as to where medicines shall

be purchased, and to show the articles to him before using them, as

great impositions are practiced in selling old, useless, and adulterated

drugs. Always put labels on vials of medicine, and keep them out of

the reach of children.

Be careful to label all powders, and particularly all _white powders_,

as many poisonous medicines in this form are easily mistaken for others

which are harmless.

In nursing the sick, always speak gently and cheeringly; and, while

you express sympathy for their pain and trials, stimulate them to bear

sill with fortitude, and with resignation to the Heavenly Father who

"doth not willingly afflict," and "who causeth all things to work

together for good to them that love him." Offer to read the Bible or

other devotional books, whenever it is suitable, and will not be deemed

obtrusive.

Miss Ann Preston, one of the most refined as well as talented and

learned female physicians, in a published article, gives valuable

instruction as to the training, of nurses. She claims that every woman

should be trained for this office, and that some who have special

traits that fit them for it should make it their daily professional

business. She remarks that the indispensable qualities in a good nurse

are common sense, conscientiousness, and sympathetic benevolence: and

thus continues:

"God himself made and commissioned one set of nurses; and in doing

this and adapting them to utter helplessness and weakness, what did

he do? He made them to love the dependence and to see something to

admire in the very perversities of their charge. He made them to humor

the caprices and regard both reasonable and unreasonable complainings.

He made them to bend tenderly over the disturbed and irritated, and

fold them to quiet assurance in arms made soft with love; in a word,

he made _mothers!_ And, other things being equal, whoever has most

maternal tenderness and warm sympathy with the sufferer is the best

nurse." And it is those most nearly endowed by nature with these

traits who should be selected to be trained for the sacred office of

nurse to the sick, while, in all the moral training of womanhood, this

ideal should be the aim.

Again, Miss Preston wisely suggests that "persons may be conscientious

and benevolent and possess good judgment in many respects, and yet be

miserable nurses of the sick for want of training and right knowledge.

"_Knowledge_, the assurance that one knows what to do, always gives

_presence of mind_--and presence of mind is important not only in a

sick-room but in every home. Who has not known consternation in a family

when some one has fainted, or been burned, or cut, while none were

present who knew how to stop the flowing blood, or revive the fainting,

or apply the saving application to the burn? And yet knowledge and

efficiency in such cases would save many a life, and be a most fitting

and desirable accomplishment in every woman."

"We are slow to learn the mighty influence of common agencies, and the

greatness of little things, in their bearing upon life and health. The

woman who believes it takes no strength to bear a little noise or some

disagreeable announcements, and loses patience with the weak, nervous

invalid who is agonized with creaking doors or shoes, or loud, shrill

voices, or rustling papers, or sharp, fidgety motions, or the whispering

so common in sick-rooms and often so acutely distressing to the

sufferer, will soon correct such misapprehensions by herself

experiencing a nervous fever."

Here the writer would put in a plea for the increasing multitudes of

nervous sufferers not confined to a sick-room, and yet exposed to all

the varied sources of pain incident to an exhausted nervous system,

which often cause more intolerable and also more wearing pain than

other kinds of suffering.

"An exceeding acuteness of the senses is the result of many forms of

nervous disease. A heavy breath, an unwashed hand, a noise that would

not have been noticed in health, a crooked table-cover or bed-spread

may disturb or oppress; and more than one invalid has spoken in my

hearing of the sickening effect produced by the nurse tasting her food,

or blowing in her drinks to make them cool. One woman, and a sensible

woman too, told me her nurse had turned a large cushion upon her bureau

with the back part in front. She determined not to be disturbed nor

to speak of such a trifle, but after struggling _three hours_ in

vain to banish the annoyance, she was forced to ask to have the cushion

placed right."

In this place should be mentioned the suffering caused to persons of

reduced nervous power not only by the smoke of tobacco, but by the

fetid effluvium of it from the breath and clothing of persons who

smoke. Many such are sickened in society and in car-traveling, and to

a degree little imagined by those who gain a dangerous pleasure at the

frequent expense of the feeble and suffering.

Miss Preston again remarks, "It is often exceedingly important to the

very weak, who can take but very little nutriment, to have that little

whenever they want it. I have known invalids sustain great injury and

suffering; when exhausted for want of food, they have had to wait and

wait, feeling as if every minute was an hour, while some well-fed nurse

delayed its coming. Said a lady, 'It makes me hungry now to think of

the meals she brought me upon that little waiter when I was sick, such

brown thin toast, such good broiled beef, such fragrant tea, and every

thing looking so exquisitely nice! If at any time I did not think of

any thing I wanted, nor ask for food, she did not annoy me with

questions, but brought some little delicacy at the proper time, and

when it came, I could take it.'

"If there is one purpose of a personal kind for which it is especially

desirable to lay up means, it is for being well nursed in sickness;

yet in the present state of society, this is absolutely impossible,

even to the wealthy, because of the scarcity of competent nurses.

Families worn down with the long and extreme illness of a member require

relief from one whose feelings will be less taxed, and who can better

endure the labor.

"But alas! how often is it impossible, for love or money, to obtain

one capable of taking the burden from the exhausted sister or mother

or daughter, and how often in consequence they have died prematurely

or struggled through weary years with a broken constitution. Appeal

to those who have made the trial, and you will find that very seldom

have they been able to have those who by nature or by training were

competent for their duties. Ignorant, unscrupulous, inattentive--how

often they disturb and injure the patient! A physician told me that

one of his patients had died because the nurse, contrary to orders,

had at a critical period washed her with cold water. I have known one

who, by stealth, quieted a fretful child with laudanum, and of others

who exhausted the sick by incessant talking. One lady said that when,

to escape this distressing garrulity, she closed her eyes, the nurse

exclaimed aloud, 'Why, she is going to sleep while I am talking to

her.'

"A few only of the sensible, quiet, and loving women, whose presence

everywhere is a blessing, have qualified themselves and followed nursing

as a business. Heaven bless that few! What a sense of relief have I

seen pervade a family when such a one has been procured; and what a

treasure seemed found!

"There is very commonly an extreme susceptibility in the sick to the

_moral atmosphere_ about them. They feel the healthful influence

of the presence of a true-hearted attendant and repose in it, though

they may not be able to define the cause; while dissimulation,

falsehood, recklessness, coarseness, jar terribly and injuriously on

their heightened sensibilities. 'Are the Sisters of Charity really

better nurses than most other women?' I asked an intelligent lady who

had seen much of our military hospitals. 'Yes, they are,' was her

reply. 'Why should it be so?' 'I think it is because with them it is

a work of self-abnegation, and of duty to God, and they are so quiet

and self-forgetful in its exercise that they do it better, while many

other women show such self-consciousness and are so fussy!"

Is there any reason why every Protestant woman should not be trained

for this self-denying office as _a duty owed to God?_ We can not better

close this chapter than by one more quotation from the same intelligent

and attractive writer: "The good nurse is an artist. O the pillowy,

soothing softness of her touch, the neatness of her simple, unrustling

dress, the music of her assured yet gentle voice and tread, the sense of

security and rest inspired by her kind and hopeful face, the promptness

and attention to every want, the repose that like an atmosphere

encircles her, the evidence of heavenly goodness, and love that she

diffuses!" Is not such an art as this worth much to attain?

In training children to the Christian life, one very important

opportunity occurs whenever sickness appears, in the family or

neighborhood. The repression of disturbing noises, the speaking in

tones of gentleness and sympathy, the small offices of service or

nursing in which children can aid, should be inculcated as ministering

to the Lord and Elder Brother of man, who has said, "Inasmuch as ye

have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done

it to me."

One of the blessed opportunities for such ministries is given to

children in the cultivation of flowers. The entrance into a sick-room

of a smiling, healthful child, bringing an offering of flowers raised

by its own labor, is like an angel of comfort and love, "and alike it

blesseth him who gives and him who takes."

A time is coming when the visitation of the sick, as a part of the

Christian life, will hold a higher consideration than is now generally

accorded, especially in the cases of uninteresting sufferers who have

nothing to attract kind attentions, except that they are suffering

children of our Father in heaven, and "one of the least" of the brethren

of Jesus Christ.