SYSTEM.
General neglect of system in families. Successful efforts of a few
schools. Why the effects they produce a not permanent. Importance of
right education. Here and there system may be found. Blessedness of
having a mother who systematic. Let no person ever despair of
reformation. How to begin the work.
There is hardly any thing which the majority of our young women
hate--frugality and economy, and the study of themselves, perhaps,
excepted--so much as _system_. In this respect a few of our best
schools have, within a few years, attempted something; and, in a few
instances, with success. I could mention several schools for females,
whose teachers have done much more good by the habits of order and
system they have inculcated and endeavored to form, than by the
sciences they have taught.
The tendency of this excellent feature of a few of our institutions is,
however, pretty effectually counteracted by the general feeling of the
public, that the school is but a place of painful though necessary
restraint; and that when it is over, study is over--and with it, all
the system which had been either inculcated or practised. And though
not a few who have been thus compelled to live by system, for two or
three years, see plainly its excellent effects, and both they and their
parents acknowledge them, still the school is no sooner terminated,
than every thing of the kind is very likely to become as though it had
never been.
So long, however, as home is home, and all the associations therewith
are as delightful as they now are--and so long as the greater number of
our families live at random, regarding order as constraint, and method
and system as slavery--just so long will the feelings of the young of
each rising generation, revolt at every thing like order and system;
and though for the sake of peace, as well as other and various reasons,
they may be willing to conform to both, for a time, yet will they sigh,
internally, for the hour when their bondage shall cease, and the day of
their emancipation arrive. It is not in human nature, to look back to
the scenes, and customs, and methods--if methods they deserve to be
called, where all is at random--of early life, without a fondness for,
and an inward desire to return to them; and there are few so hardened
as not to do it whenever an opportunity occurs. How important,
then--how supremely so--is right education! How important to sow, in
the earliest years, the seeds of a love of order and system! How
important to young women, especially, that this work should not be
deferred; since if it is so, it is most likely to be deferred forever.
I know, full well, that here and there a house-keeper, convinced in her
conscience that she can do vastly more for herself and others, as well
as do it better, by means of system, than without it, attempts
something like innovation upon the usual random course which prevails
about her. She resolves to have her hours of labor, her hours of
recreation, and her hours of reading and visiting. She believes life is
long enough for all the purposes of life. She is resolved to be
systematic on Sabbath and on week days; in the common details of the
family; in dress; and in regard to the hours of rising, meals and rest.
But she has a herculean task to accomplish--no small part of which is,
to bring her husband and the other members of her family to co-operate
with her. Yet, amid every discouragement, she perseveres, and at length
succeeds. Is not such a victory worth securing?
Let the young woman who has such a person as I have just described, for
her mother, rejoice in it. She can never be too grateful, not only to
her mother, but to God. Her life is likely to be of thrice the usual
value. Our daughters who are blessed with such mothers, may become as
polished corner stones in a temple--worthy of themselves, of those who
educate them, and of God.
But let not those who have been less fortunate, in respect to maternal
training and influence, utterly despair. Convinced of the general
correctness of the views here advanced, and desirous of entering on the
work of reform, let them take courage, and begin it immediately. Though
the mother, by her influence in the early formation of character, is
almost omnipotent, she is not quite so. Though the Ethiopian cannot
change his skin, nor the leopard his spots, still it is not utterly
impossible for those to do well who have been long accustomed to do
evil. "What has been done," you know, "_can_ be done." Make this maxim
your motto, and go forward in the work of self-education. But remember
to begin, in the first place, with the smaller matters of life; and to
conquer in one point or place of action, before you begin with another.
And, lastly, remember not to rely wholly on your own strength. You are,
indeed, to work--and to work with all your might; but it is always God
that worketh in you, when any thing effectual is accomplished, in the
way of improvement.