A Domestic Problem | Page 6

customs

of our country, he must have felt greatly encouraged; for he would have
found that it is only in this one direction that we show such blindness
and stupidity. He would have found that in every other occupation we
demand preparation. The individual who builds our ships, cuts our
coats, manufactures our watches, superintends our machinery, takes
charge of our cattle, our trees, our flowers, must know how, must have
been especially prepared for his calling. It is only character-moulding,
only shaping the destinies of immortal beings, for which we demand
neither preparation nor a knowledge of the business. It is only of our
children that we are resigned to lose nearly one-fourth by death, "owing
to ignorance and injudicious nursery management." Were this rate of
mortality declared to exist among our domestic animals, the community
would be aroused at once.
CHAPTER III.
CULTURE PROVED TO BE A NEED OF THE CHILD-TRAINER.
Perhaps some day the community may come to perceive that woman
requires for her vocation what the teacher, the preacher, the lawyer, and
the physician, require for theirs; namely, special preparation and
general culture. The first, because every vocation demands special
preparation; and the second, because, to satisfy the requirements of
young minds, she will need to draw from almost every kind of
knowledge. And we must remember here, that the advantages derived
from culture are not wholly an intellectual gain. We get from hooks and
other sources of culture not merely what informs the mind, but that
which warms the heart, quickens the sympathies, strengthens the
understanding; get clearness and breadth of vision, get refining and
ennobling influences, get wisdom in its truest and most comprehensive
sense; and all of these, the last more than all, a mother needs for her
high calling. That it is a high calling, we have high authority to show.
Dr. Channing says, "No office can compare in importance with that of
training a child." Yet the office is assumed without preparation.
Herbert Spencer asks, in view of this omission, "What is to be expected
when one of the most intricate of problems is undertaken by those who

have given scarcely a thought as to the principles on which its solution
depends? Is the unfolding of a human being so simple a process that
any one may superintend and regulate it with no preparation
whatever?... Is it not madness to make no provision for such a task?"
Horace Mann speaks out plainly, and straight to the point. "If she is to
prepare a refection of cakes, she fails not to examine some
cookery-book or some manuscript receipt, lest she should convert her
rich ingredients into unpalatable compounds; but without ever having
read one book upon the subject of education, without ever having
sought one conversation with an intelligent person upon it, she
undertakes so to mingle the earthly and celestial elements of instruction
for that child's soul that he shall be fitted to discharge all duties below,
and to enjoy all blessings above." And again, "Influences imperceptible
in childhood, work out more and more broadly into beauty or deformity
in after life. No unskilful hand should ever play upon a harp where the
tones are left forever in the strings."
In a newspaper I find this amusingly significant sentence: "Truthfully,
indeed, do the Papists boast that the Episcopal Church is
training-ground for Rome. The female mind is frequently enticed by
display of vestments and music; and, if the Ritualists can pervert the
mothers, they know that the next generation is theirs." This is
significant, because it signifies that, however weak and easy of
enticement the "female mind" may be, it has a mighty power to
influence the young.
But we can show not only opinions and prophecies, but the results of
actual scientific experiments. A recent number of "The Popular Science
Monthly" contains an account of experiments made in Jamaica upon
the mental capacity for learning of the different races there existing.
The experimenter found, he says, "unequal speed," but saw "nothing
which can be unmistakably referred to difference of race. The rate of
improvement is due almost entirely to the relative elevation of the
home circle in which the children live. Those who are restricted to the
narrowest gauge of intellectual exercise live in such a material and
coarse medium that their mental faculties remain slumbering; while

those who hear at home of many things, and are brought up to
intellectual employments, show a corresponding proficiency in
learning."
This, and the editor's comments, bear directly on our side, that is to say,
the culture side. The editor says it is inevitable "that the medium in
which the child is habitually immersed, and by which it is continually
and unconsciously impressed, should have much greater value in the
formation of mental character than the