A Domestic Problem | Page 5

who among you dare
make these early impressions which are to be so enduring? Who are the
operators on these delicate and complex pieces of mental machinery?"
"Oh! the mothers always have the care of the children. This is their
mission,--the chief duty of their lives."
"But how judicious, how comprehensive, must be the course of

education which will fit a person for such an office!"
"Do you think so? Hem! Well, it is not generally considered that a
woman who is going to marry and settle down to family life needs
much education."
"You mean, doubtless, that she only receives the special instruction
which her vocation requires."
"Special instruction?"
"Yes. If woman's special vocation is the training of children, of course
she is educated specially with a view to that vocation."
"Well, I never heard of such a kind of education. But here is one of our
young mothers: she can tell you all about it."
We will suppose, now, that our philosopher is left with the young
mother, who names over what she learned at the "institute."
"And the training of children--moral, intellectual, and physical--was no
doubt made a prominent subject of consideration."
"Training of children? Oh, no! That would have been a curious kind of
study."
"Where, then, were you prepared for the duties of your mission?"
"What mission do you mean?"
"Your mission of child-training."
"I had no preparation."
"No preparation? But are you acquainted with the different
temperaments a child may have, and the different combinations of them?
Are you competent to the direction and culture of the intellectual and
moral nature? Have you skill to touch the hidden springs of action?
Have you, thus uninstructed, the power, the knowledge, the wisdom,

requisite for guiding that mighty force, a child's soul?"
"Alas! there is hardly a day that I do not feel my ignorance on all these
points."
"Are there no sources from which knowledge may be obtained? There
must be books written on these subjects."
"Possibly; but I have no time to read them."
"No time?--no time to prepare for your chief mission?"
"It is our mission only in print. In real life it plays an extremely
subordinate part."
"What, then, in real life, is your mission?"
"Chiefly cooking and sewing."
"Your husband, then, does not share the common belief in regard to
woman's chief duty."
"Oh, yes! I have heard him express it many a time; though I don't think
he comprehends what a woman needs in order to do her duty by her
children. But he loves them dearly. If one should die he would be
heart-broken."
"Is it a common thing here for children to die?"
"I am grieved to say that nearly one-fourth die in infancy."
"And those who live,--do they grow up in full health and vigor?"
"Oh, indeed they do not! Why, look at our crowded hospitals! Look at
the apothecaries' shops at almost, every corner. Look at the
advertisements of medicines. Don't you think there's meaning in these,
and a meaning in the long rows of five-story swell-front houses
occupied by physicians, and a meaning in the people themselves?
There's scarcely one of them but has some ailment."

"But is this matter of health subject to no laws?"
"The phrase, 'laws of health,' is a familiar one, but I don't know what
those laws are." "Mothers, then, are not in the habit of teaching them to
their children?"
"They are not themselves acquainted with them."
"Perhaps this astonishing ignorance has something to do with the
fearful mortality among infants. Do not husbands provide their wives
with books and other means of information on this subject?"
"Generally speaking, they do nothing of the kind."
"And does not the subject of hygienic laws, as applied to the rearing of
children, come into the courses of study laid out for young women!"
"No, indeed. Oh, how I wish it had!--and those other matters you
mentioned. I would give up every thing else I ever learned for the sake
of knowing how to bring up my children, and how to keep them in
health."
"The presidents and professors of your educational institutions,--do
they share the common belief as to woman's mission?"
"Oh, yes! They all say that the chief business of woman is to train up
her children."
(_Philosopher's solo_.)
"There seems to be blindness and stupidity somewhere among these
people. From what they say of the difficulty of bringing up their
children, it must take an archangel to do it rightly; still they do not
think a woman who is married and settles down to family life needs
much education! Moreover, in educating young women, that which is
universally acknowledged to be the chief business of their lives
receives not the least attention."
If our philosopher continued his inquiries into the manners and