A Domestic Problem | Page 7

mere lesson experiences of
school. Home education is, after all, the great fact; and it is domestic
influences by which the characters of children are formed. Where men
are exhausted by business, and women are exhausted by society (or
other means), we may be pretty sure that but little can be done to shape
and conduct the home with a reference to the higher mental needs of
the children who live in it."
Now, who, more than any one, "shapes and conducts the home"? Who
creates these "domestic influences," this "medium in which the child is
habitually immersed"? Woman. In the name of common sense, then,
throw open to woman every avenue of knowledge. Surround her with
all that will elevate and refine. Give her the highest, broadest, truest
culture. Give her chances to draw inspiration from the beautiful in
nature and in art. And, above all, insure her some respite from labor,
and some tranquillity. Unless these conditions are observed, "but little
can be done to shape and conduct the home with reference to the higher
mental needs of the children who live in it."
I once heard "Grace Greenwood" tell a little story which ought to come
in here, for our own object is to make out as strong a case as we
possibly can. We want to prove that mothers must have culture because
they are mothers. We want to show it to be absolutely necessary for
woman, in the accomplishment of her acknowledged mission. When
this fact is recognized, then culture will take rank with essentials, and
receive attention as such.
"Grace Greenwood" said that a friend of hers, a teacher "out West," had
in her school four or five children from one family. The parents were
poor, ignorant, and of the kind commonly called low, coarse sort of

people. The children, with one exception, were stupid, rough-mannered,
and depraved. The one exception, a little girl, showed such refinement,
appreciation, and quickness of apprehension, that the teacher at last
asked the mother if she could account for the striking difference
between this child and its brothers and sisters. The mother could not.
The children had been brought up together there in that lonely place,
had been treated alike, and had never been separated. She knew the
little girl was very different from her brothers and sisters, but knew not
the reason why. The teacher then asked, "Was there any thing in your
mode of life for the months preceding her birth, that there was not in
the corresponding time before the births of the others?" The mother at
first answered decidedly that there was nothing; but after thinking a few
moments said, "Well, there was one, a very small thing, but that
couldn't have had any thing to do with the matter. One day a peddler
came along; and among his books was a pretty, red-covered poetry
book, and I wanted it bad. But my husband said he couldn't afford it,
and the peddler went off. I couldn't get that book out of my mind; and
in the night I took some of my own money, and travelled on foot to the
next town, found the peddler, bought the book, and got back before
morning, and was never missed from the house. That book was the
greatest comfort to me that ever was. I read it over and over, up to the
day my child was born."
Also would come in well here that oft-told story of a pauper named
"Margaret," who was once "set adrift in a village of the county ... and
left to grow up as best she could, and from whom have descended two
hundred criminals. The, whole number of this girl's descendants,
through six generations, is nine hundred; and besides the 'two hundred'
a large number have been idiots, imbeciles, drunkards, lunatics, and
paupers."
Friends, to say nothing of higher motives, would it not be good policy
to educate wisely every girl in the country? Are not mothers, as
child-trainers, in absolute need of true culture? In cases where families
depend on the labor of their girls, perhaps the State would make a
saving even by compensating these families for the loss of such labor.
Perhaps it would be cheaper, even in a pecuniary sense, for the State to

do this, than to support reformatory establishments, prisons,
almshouses, and insane-asylums, with their necessary retinues of
officials. Institutions in which these girls were educated might be made
self-supporting, and the course of instruction might include different
kinds of handicraft.
It was poor economy for the State to let that pauper "grow up as best
she could." It would probably have been money in the State's pocket
had it surrounded "Margaret" in her early childhood with the choicest
productions of art, engaged competent teachers to