The Education of American Girls | Page 5

including "stroking" or "laying," and to make a button-hole.
Does it not seem as if an intelligent girl of fourteen or fifteen could be
taught these in twelve lessons of one hour each? Only practice can give
rapidity and perfection; but at the age mentioned, the girl's hand has
been pretty thoroughly educated to obey her will, and but very little
time is needed to turn the acquired control into this peculiar activity,
while, with the untrained muscles of the little child, much more time is
required and much fretfulness engendered, born of the confined
position and the almost insuperable difficulty of the achievement.
Above the mere manual labor, however, there comes another work
which always has to be done for the child, and is therefore of no
educational value for her: I mean the "fitting" and "basting." They
cannot be intrusted to the child, for the simple reason that they involve
not merely manual dexterity, but also an exercise of the judgment,
which in the child has not yet become sufficiently developed. But when
the girl has lived fourteen years, we will say, and has been trained in
other ways into habits of neatness and order, she has also acquired
judgment enough for the purpose, and needs only a few words of
direction. The sewing of bands to gathers, the covering of cord, the
cording of neck or belt, the arrangement of two edges for felling, the
putting on of bindings, belong, so to speak, to the syntax of the art of
sewing, and come under this division, which must, perforce, be left till
maturer years than those of childhood. There is still a sphere above this,
the three corresponding exactly to apprenticeship, journeymanship and
mastership, in learning a trade. The third and last sphere is that of
"cutting," and this demands simply and only, judgment and caution.
There are a few general statements which must be given, as, for
instance, "the right way of the cloth," in which the parts of the garment
should be cut, etc.; but these being once learned--and a lesson of one
hour would be a large allowance for this purpose--the good cutter is the
one who has the most exact eye for measurement--trained already in
school by drawing, writing, etc.--the best power of calculation--trained
by arithmetic, algebra, etc.--and the best observation and
judgment--trained by every study she has pursued under a good teacher.

As to sewing, considered as a physical exercise, it may almost be
pronounced bad in its very nature; considered as a mental exercise, in
its higher spheres, it is excellent, because it calls for the activity of
thought; but after the cutting and fitting are done, it is undoubtedly bad,
leaving the mind free to wander wherever it will. The constant,
mechanical drawing through of the needle, like the listening to a very
dull address, seems to induce a kind of morbid intellectual acuteness, or
nervousness. If the inner thought is entirely serene and happy, this may
do no harm; but if it is not, if there is any internal annoyance or grief,
the mind turns it over and over, till, like a snow-ball, it grows to a
mountainous mass, and too heavy to be borne with patience. I think
many women will testify, from a woman's experience, that there are
times when an afternoon spent in sewing gives some idea of incipient
insanity. This lengthy discussion of the woman's art of sewing can only
be excused on the ground that it touches the question of physical and
mental health. As a means of support, the needle can hardly be spoken
of now.
As to Cooking, the same in substance might be said. It is perhaps a
little more mechanical in its nature, though of that I am not positive;
but if a girl is educated into a full development of what is known as
common sense, she can turn that common sense in this direction as well
as in any other, if the necessity arises. The parts of cooking which call
for judgment--such, for instance, as whether cake is stiff enough or not,
whether the oven is hot enough, safely to intrust the mixture to its care,
whether the bread is sufficiently risen--require the same kind of trained
senses as that by which the workman in the manufacture of steel
decides as to the precise color and shade at which he must withdraw it
for use. To quote from an English woman:[1] "Cookery is not a branch
of general education for women or for men, but for technical
instruction for those who are to follow the profession of cookery; and
those who attempt to make it a branch of study for women generally,
will be but helping to waste time and money, and adding to that sort of
amateur tinkering