MRS. CADDY. (continued 3)

Neatly made frames of the cheap German gilding (which will wash) answer very well for sketches hung in the less prominent situations in a bedroom, and bring a luxury within the reach of many who would not otherwise afford it.

Now I am come to the difficult part of my subject—the tug of war, in fact—for I want men to do something for themselves, and women to do without something dear to their hearts. I think I will speak of the latter clause first.

In bed-rooms especially is seen that truly English love of superfluous comforts which we mistake for civilization: it meets us everywhere, in and out of the house, but it abounds in our bed and dressing rooms.

The amount of toilet so-called necessaries is incredible, and the number of patent objects overwhelming. When we consider that seven things only are necessary to our personal neatness and cleanliness—soap, sponge, towel, and tooth-brush for washing, and brush and comb and nail-scissors for the rest of the toilet—and then count the other paraphernalia seen in our dressing-rooms, we shall discover how many frivolous trades our superfluities maintain, to say nothing of ingenuity misplaced in making advertisements of dressing-cases and hair-restorers conspicuously attractive.

The toilet-table is not alone to blame: the fault pervades the whole house and overwhelms the bed-rooms.

M. Taine, in his "Notes on England," amusingly describing an English house, says, "In my bedroom is a table of rosewood, standing on an oilcloth mat on the carpet; upon this table is a slab of marble, on the marble a round straw mat—all this to bear an ornamented water-bottle covered with a tumbler. One does not simply place one's book on a table: upon the table is a small stand for holding it. One does not have a plain candlestick: the candle is enclosed in a glass cylinder, and is furnished with a self-acting extinguisher. All this apparatus hampers; it involves too much trouble for the sake of comfort."

This was only a bachelor's room; what would the French critic have thought of the aids to reading in bed in an ordinarily well-appointed bed-room where the master indulges in that practice?

By the Englishman's bedside is also a small table standing on a mat, and on this table another mat supporting a patent stand which screws up and down, and on this another mat with a candlestick with a nozzle and a patent protector of the candle from the draught, a glass shield set in an ormolu frame which has an elaborate screw; and by the side of the candlestick-stand another mat, on which is a patent screw for shading the light from the aforesaid candle. Then, besides the extinguisher, also on a stand and a mat, and patent matches in a patent box, he is supplied with a book-rest which will turn in every possible way, with a patent leaf-turner and leaf-holder, and a variety of other little conveniences. He only lacks an electric communication between the fire-escape outside and the patent night-bolt on his door, to prevent him being burnt in his bed, to make the thing complete.

We feel how difficult we have made life by having to put all these indispensables to their intended use. We have multiplied these patent gimcracks until we cannot move without being crushed by our comforts; and the keeping of all this in order obliges us to have under us a parlour-maid, an upper housemaid, and an under housemaid, to wait upon these inventions. Helps, in one of his essays, says, "I have always maintained that half the work of the world is useless, if subjected to severe scrutiny. My idea of organization would be to diminish much of this useless work." The same remark applies to our luggage when we travel. We take things fancying. We may want them, forgetting that it is easier to do without an article once, than to have the trouble of packing it and looking after it every day; so we bury our pleasure under a heap of care.

I must give another extract from Taine's description of his bed-room before I proceed to my second great battle-field, where I fear a harder contest.

After describing his dressing-table, Taine goes on to say of his washstand: "It is furnished with one large jug, one small one, a medium one for hot water, two porcelain basins, a dish for toothbrushes, two soap-dishes, a water-bottle with its tumbler, a finger-glass with its glass. Underneath is a very low table, a sponge, another basin, a large shallow zinc bath for morning bathing. In a cupboard is a towel-horse with four towels of different kinds, one of them thick and rough. Napkins are under all the vessels and utensils; to provide for such a service, when the house is occupied, it is necessary that washing should be always going on. The servant comes four times a day into the rooms: in the morning to draw the blinds and the curtains, open the inner blinds, carry off the boots and clothes, and bring a large can of hot water with a fluffy towel on which to place the feet; at midday and at seven in the evening to bring water and the rest, in order that the visitor may wash before luncheon and dinner; at night to shut the window, arrange the bed, get the bath ready, renew the linen;—all this with silence, gravity, and respect. Pardon these trifling details, but they must be handled in order to figure to one's self the wants of an Englishman in the direction of his luxury: what he expends in being waited upon and comfort is enormous, and one may laughingly say that he spends the fifth of his life in his tub."

Men will do much for glory and for vainglory, even to using cold shower-baths in winter, and boast of breaking the ice in them; but I never yet heard of a man who would take the trouble to empty his bath after using it. Now I maintain that every man who has not a valet ought to do this. Few men consider the hard work it is to a woman to carry upstairs heavy cans of water; but that is trifling, compared with the difficulty to a woman of turning the water out of a large flat bath into a pail. A man would find little difficulty in doing this; his arms are longer, his back stronger, and his dress does not come in the way.

When a man likes to have his bath regularly—and who does not?—he should think of the labour that half a dozen or more baths entail, and in the evening prepare his can of water for to-morrow's use, place his own bath on his piece of oil-cloth, enjoy his tub to his heart's content, pour away the water, put up his tub, and say nothing about it.

This disagreeable lecture over, we will go on and see how easy the general dressing-room arrangements might be made.

If, instead of our ordinary washstands with their jugs and basins, we had fixed basins with plugs in them and taps above, much of the water-bearing difficulty would be obviated. These washstands should be placed back to back, as it were, in every two rooms, having only the partition-wall between them, so that the same pipe would supply two taps.

I have three sorts of basins in use in my house: one kind has the ordinary tap and plug, another kind has handles for supply and waste, the water being sucked away on turning the waste handle. This is safe for careless people who let rings or any other articles drop in the basin, and nothing but water can go down to choke the pipe. But the basin I find easiest and most pleasant to use, tilts out the water by lifting a handle, or rather finger-niche, in front of the basin; and when this is let fall it strikes on an india-rubber pad beneath the tap, so that the basin cannot be cracked. All these different basins are fitted into marble washstands with dishes for soap and tooth-brushes hollowed in the marble, with holes for drainage connected with the waste-pipe below. These conveniences, with a housemaid's-closet with sink and tap on the same floor, save all carrying up and down of pails and cans of water, and, in fact, the heaviest part of a housemaid's work.

Where the hall is warmed by hot-water pipes, water from the same source will supply the bedrooms. It will be warm if the first quart is allowed to flow away. Or the pipes may be connected with the kitchen boiler, which, in the case of our kitchen on the ground floor, will not be so expensive as where the pipes have to communicate with the basement.

Supplying the taps is perfectly easy when only cold water is required, and children and delicate persons may be indulged with jugs of warm water, which, however, every boy using should fetch for himself. We should thus be able to dispense with ewers and toilet-cans, which would at once pay for the fitting of the pipe and tap to each room.

It is better and nicer to use filtered water for the toilet-decanter, and not water drawn directly from the cistern, unless it has been tested and found pure. In such a case, which is rare, no decanter will be needed, unless we like to have a Venetian glass one for the sake of its beauty.

Let all persons, in dressing, replace the things they have used, and spread their towels on the horse to dry; then the rooms will be set in order for the day, only needing the daily dusting, which will be done after the beds are made. Boys and girls who go to school should make their beds before they go, so they must open them to air immediately they get up.

"These seem little things: and so they are unless you neglect them" (Sir A. Helps).

Everybody should have his or her own wardrobe, and keep it in order. Men and boys and little children will have everything neatly made and mended for them, and laid in its proper place; so all they have to do is to leave the drawers as tidy as they found them, taking heed not to lose their gloves and neckties; the larger things take care of themselves. The secret of keeping one's clothes tidy is not to have too many.

Of course, where there are no servants to provide for, the house has fewer rooms than a family of the same size requires in our present experience, and the uglier part of the house is abolished, or where not abolished, is converted from servants' bed-rooms and attics—unpleasant, dusty, and ill furnished; redolent of tallow candle, shoes, brushes, and stale perfumery; with closed windows and the floor strewn with old letters, hair-pins, half-empty matchboxes, and dogs-eared penny novels—into a bower-like study or morning-room, where a young lady may entertain herself and her own especial visitors. I have even known an attic in Baker Street so converted by the invention and taste of a young lady, as to live in one's recollection as as pretty a summer room as any country rectory could boast, by being papered with bright flowery paper all over its sloping roof, and its window made cheerful with climbing plants and flowers; tasteful draperies, a work-table and work-basket in embroidered green satin, book-shelves carved by friends, a piano just good enough for practising upon, and water-colour drawings on the walls.

I have known another room, cheaply fitted up in a French style by a French lady, as a dressing-room, with looking-glass wardrobe and painted furniture. A small bed in an alcove, in case the room might be wanted as a spare room, and lace curtains drawn over the alcove. The head of the bed and all its plain wood-work covered in quilted white cotton in large diamonds, and cross-barred with narrow blue satin ribbon, and large blue bows here and there. The walls papered with a paper resembling quilted muslin. The effect was soft, clean, and extremely pretty.

A few words on the topic of sick-rooms before quitting this part of the subject.

In cases of severe illness it is advisable to engage a professed nurse. She is a great help to the physician, and a support to the family, who too often, in their love for the sufferer, overtax their strength, and break down at the moment this is most required. No person can long sustain night and day nursing, particularly if to bodily fatigue anxiety and distress of mind be added; nor can they keep up that appearance of cheerfulness which is such a support to a sick person. It is a great mistake to attempt to do this in any case, but more especially if it is likely to be a prolonged illness. A sister of mercy is often found a most valuable member of the household under such circumstances. People often talk of not having had their clothes off for a fortnight. One's first thought on hearing this said is, how glad you will be to take a bath! And one's second thought, what good did it do the patient?

The sick-room should be kept as much as possible in its usual order. The paraphernalia of illness distresses the sick person, causing nervousness. Do not let physic bottles be visible in all directions, or the patient will never feel well, and those in attendance will fancy they have caught the infection, simply because they are nauseated with the smell of the medicines, and the disagreeable sight of their dregs left about in spoons and glasses. The medicines that have to be given at stated hours should be neatly placed in readiness on a small tray, near the clock if possible, so that they may be remembered and the hours observed. Keep perfect cleanliness and neatness in the room, and avoid clatter. Wear thin shoes, and do not let your dress rustle. A woman's hand should at every touch improve or replace something, so that there may never be a great bustle of setting to rights. We have already spoken at length of ventilation: in sickness it must be particularly attended to, as fresh air is the most beneficial of all medicines.

At the time of the great cattle-plague, fumigation with chlorine gas was advocated, and beneficially employed, by Professor Stone, of Owen's College, Manchester. It is simple for domestic use.

One teaspoonful of powdered chlorate of potash should be loosely stirred together with three table-spoonfuls of dry sand in an empty dry pickle bottle; add to this nearly an ounce of muriatic acid; stand the bottle on some warm embers in an old Australian-meat tin, or other receptacle of this kind, and place it (with the embers in it) on a shelf, or somewhere high up in the room, taking care not to scorch the wood-work. The heavy chlorine gas will descend and so fill all parts of the room, and in about three hours disinfection will be complete.

It would be a good thing if district-visitors, and other charitable persons, would instruct the clergy and their poor people in such effectual means of stamping out infection.

In all hospitals "Condy's solution" is placed with the water and towels for the use of the visiting medical men. It is highly advisable to keep this in every house for cleansing and disinfecting purposes, and for the removal of unpleasant smells. It is useful in cleansing bird-cages and gun-barrels, in preparing poultry or game, and in many other ways.

The solution may be made at home. The British Pharmacopœia allows four grains of the permanganate of potash (the basis of the solution) to the fluid ounce. It is chiefly for external use. The permanganate of potash is sold in crystals of two kinds: the most expensive is the purple, which is used in what is called the ozonized water, a very weak solution of permanganate, sold by chemists for toilet use. The cheaper and more general disinfectant is a greenish coarse powder, sold by any honest chemist at under five shillings a pound. It may be bought of the General Apothecaries' Company, 49, Berner's Street, London, for from three shillings a pound to three-and-sixpence, as it varies with the market; and this does as well as Condy's patent, and is 500 per cent. cheaper, as fourteen gallons of disinfectant may be prepared from a pound of the powdered crystals, and these again will be extensively diluted for use. The purple crystals may be bought by the ounce.

Be cautious in using this fluid, or the Condy, whichever you may happen to prefer, as it turns almost everything brown that it touches. Very deep stains will never come out; slight stains wash and wear out after a time, but china and all white ware, and sponges and brushes, have their appearance greatly injured by it. Bed-room floors may be washed with it; they will be thoroughly purified, and the colour will be as if they were stained dark oak previous to being varnished. Stains will wear off the hands in a few days, and a weak solution will not discolour them. The purple fluid is a test of water—if it turns brown the water is impure. It decolorizes on contact with animal matter.

It is a useful plan to keep a filter on every floor of a house; the expense is not very great, while the increased safety is incalculable. Spencer's patent, or magnetic-carbide, filter is one of the best. He imitated nature's process when constructing it, having observed that the purest water filtered through oxide of iron in the earth's strata.

Two articles of furniture will be found of great use in a sick-room. One is a chair back with bars of broad webbing, made to lift up and down like the music-desk of a grand piano. This is a most comfortable support to an invalid when sitting up to take food or medicine. When closed flat it will slip easily under the pillow, and it can be raised gently and gradually to the angle required. The other thing is an arm-chair, stood and fastened on a board with four French castors. This is a great assistance in cases of lameness or extreme weakness, as it is easy for the invalid to sit on it and be wheeled to any part of the room; and it costs less than a wheeled chair.

None of the learned professions have advanced during the last thirty years so much as the medical. Medicine has become a new science since it has taken hold of the sanitary improvement of our towns and dwellings. The profession, with a disinterestedness and devotion to science worthy of liberal minds, combines to make the prevention of disease its aim, even beyond its cure. It forms a noble co-operative society.

At the last meeting of the British Medical Association at Sheffield, it was most truly said that independent medical officers of health would before long change the character of disease throughout the nation, and save future generations much misery. It is to be hoped that the country, which will reap the benefit of their endeavours, will strengthen the hands of those whose efforts are directed to raising the standard of national health.

THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.

To what age should boys' and girls' education be alike? — Accomplishments fruitlessly taught — Nursery and School-room government — Helplessness — Introduction to society — The convent system — Unhappy results — Scientific education — Geometrical illustration — Religion — Professional life for women — Home training — Varied knowledge — Companionship of a mother — Experience — Kindness — Truth.

At what age should the training of boys and girls begin to differ? This is a doubtful point, though we may consider that as, until about the age of fourteen, their nature has been much the same, their strength of mind and body nearly equal, and their tastes and dispositions much alike, this may be the time when their training should begin to follow each its own path; as the boy's strength grows from this time beyond that of the girl, while she becomes more remarkable for the increasing delicacy of her skill.

Practically there is a divergence when their clothing begins to differ, but this is merely artificial. The girl is made to wear finer and more delicate clothing than the boy; its texture and form impede her movements, and it is more easily injured by the weather. But where a girl is sensibly dressed, so that her clothes will not spoil with the rain, nor prevent her moving her limbs freely, this diversity between the two disappears.

But although it will not harm a girl to share her brother's pursuits till the age of fourteen, the conditions of her so doing will depend upon circumstances. Except in the case of twins, the boy will be rather older or younger than the girl, if even she have brothers about her own age at all, and many accidents will be found to control her education. Besides these, nature works gradually, and there are seldom abrupt transitions in her processes. The girl's future skill of hand and the boy's strength of arm will be prepared for, and seen, in their differences of taste and choice of pursuits and games; the girl will prefer working for her doll and protecting it from the boy's rough handling, and the boy will love his bat and knife. He will show his instinct for construction, and she hers for preservation, after the first early stage when both alike delight in destruction. Here education comes into use, leading each child to exercise the good instinct instead of its converse.

When the conventional proprieties are not allowed to warp the natural taste, a girl loves running and climbing as well as the boy does: she likes to collect stamps, minerals, fossils, birds' eggs, insects, etc., fully as much as he does. Their favourite books are identical, their scrap-books equally enjoyed, the theatre and theatricals at home delighted in by both, and their pets are much beloved. Why, then, should we make so much difference between them where Nature has created none?

Girls of the upper classes are always at lessons of some kind from six years old to eighteen; thus they have twelve years of instruction, and we know that of old a seven year's apprenticeship was held sufficient to make a master in some craft. What do the twelve years do for our girls? Does their training enable them to maintain them decently in any one line? What have they learnt, and what can they do?

They have learnt music enough to play a morceau de salon showily, and the allegretto movement of a sonata stumblingly, and the latter only because it was thought 'proper' that they should learn 'classical music.' But they do not know enough even to learn another morceau de salon without the help of a master, so of course music cannot be reckoned upon as doing much for them.

I place music first, because the most time has been given to it; a weary hour every day, had it not been so broken up by visits to the clock. Practical girls grudge this hour wasted on a weakness they are sure to give up when they marry, for they all think they are as certain to marry as to give up their music. They are healthy and strong and have good voices, but few of them can do more than incomprehensibly murmur a few lines of twaddle to a feeble accompaniment, or sing out of all time the top line of a glee, provided the piano helps them out with the notes. So here is a physical gift thrown aside.

Can anything be made of that pencil-stroking on buff paper, with some splashes of white, which is held to represent a cottage, flanked on one side by a gate-post which could never have been a good gate-post, and on the other side by something smeary which is not at all like a tree, nor any other created thing?

Every willow-pattern plate has a better landscape on it than that. So there are two hours a week gone, for the lop-sided chalk head is of no more use to anybody than was the landscape.

The girl has been taught French and German, but has not learnt enough of either language to enjoy a good book, or to converse with intelligence in either tongue, and her stock of dialogue-book phrases is soon exhausted. Indeed, she can hardly talk better in English when she gets beyond the depth of drawing-room chatter, as her knowledge of facts is of a most uncertain sort; so in general conversation she covers her deficiencies by slang, which, although it distresses us, we forgive in a pretty, lively girl.

She cannot cook, how should she? She was never permitted to peep inside the kitchen, but was kept in an upstairs nursery until she was six years old, under the stultifying dominion of "nurse," whose sole training was "Miss, I'll tell your ma," when wicked or cruel teaching did not replace this feebleness. When she was promoted to the school-room and made over to the care of the governess, the system of instruction was little more satisfactory. The list of the Kings of England superseded standing in the corner as a punishment for weariness, but her chief experience of life was gathered from tales in cheap magazines, read surreptitiously; and as she grew older, the railway novel by a sensational author replaced the serial in the penny paper.

The child saw her parents together for a quarter of an hour in the evening, when she was full dressed to go down to dessert, and her mother for about five minutes in the course of the morning, when she came up to the school-room to find fault with the governess for the children's bad grammar, or awkward behaviour, on the previous evening. The round of the year brings the sea-side visit. Here, although health is gained, there is no education beyond lodging-house gossip. The children are put into the train like so many parcels, and in so many hours are somewhere else; frocks suited to the sea-side are put on them by the nurse, but these might have dropped from the clouds, and the children have been none the wiser. Helplessness is the natural outcome of all this.

The school-room course begins in about six years to be agreeably diversified by the visits of music and drawing-masters; which, if the governess did not sit in the room all the time, trying to attract their admiration, would be a really pleasant change. But nothing comes of the lessons beyond the showy morceau de salon aforesaid, the buff-paper drawing, and the weak rhyme jingled to an accompaniment in quavers; except an increase of energy in borrowing, or hiring, yellow-covered books revealing stirring impossibilities in the lives of Edwin and Angelina, over which a girl, according to her disposition, may weep or rage. For this is the only outlet for her poor imprisoned life, until, on her introduction to society, she is suddenly flung upon the world, to make her way as best, or worst, she can; and now, and now only, does her real education begin.

This manner of bringing up our girls differs from the convent system in this, that it is worldly instead of being religious, and needlework and confectionery are worse taught; other things are about equal. Both we and our continental neighbours imprison our girls in a school-room or convent for twelve years, and yet boast of our superiority over the Turks!

After this, can we wonder at the weakness or the folly of girls, or be surprised that society is at a dead-lock, or that our women eat bitter bread?

Can we marvel that women ruin their husbands by their dress and extravagance; that they drive them to their clubs for companionship, and freedom from the wretchedness of home; that they tyrannize over their milliners, and are in their turn tyrannized over by their servants; that their sons drink the brandy and smoke the tobacco of idleness, and that their daughters grow up the patterns of themselves? Only where the mother is passively useless, the daughter will be actively mischievous; where the mother was merely frivolous, the daughter will be actually wicked.

Does all our boasted culture come to this; or will Cambridge examinations and a scientific education set all right again? When an hour a day, at least, for twelve years passed in the study of music has failed to implant those habits of accuracy which this beautiful science so pre-eminently combines with sweetness and grace, is a smattering of geology certain to succeed? Will Greek strengthen the character more than German? Or is one as likely as the other to puff the mind with conceit, where it does not equally encourage a deceitful appearance of knowledge. And is the new system better calculated than the old one to prepare girls for fifty years of womanhood?

People talk of depth, as if truth were only to be found at the bottom of a well. What seems most wanted is breadth, free expansion all round to keep the soul healthy. Let every branch have due encouragement to stretch out towards the light, to receive the shower or sunshine as they come.

Some careful mothers say, "I keep my girls exclusively at 'studies' for the piano; they make such a good groundwork." This may be so, but finger training is not everything. The poor girls have had their souls so sickened over melancholy minor "meditations," that their hearts are closed to the tender or joyous melodies of music, and its rich, majestic harmonies.

Point out these things to the young, who will love them, at first blindly, and afterwards with a gradually developing appreciation.

Here a little, there a little, is a true precept in education. A thing can never be completely taught, for there is infinity everywhere. How rarely we can begin at the beginning, or even the unit, of anything; multiplication and subdivision meet us at both ends, besides all the collaterals.

I have ever observed that those girls who have been the greatest number of years at the same school know the least, and are the most stupid. It is better to let children go to many different schools in succession, than to remain long in one: they gain more experience, while the chances of their learning evil are the same in both cases. In public schools as boys go up through the forms, they meet different sets of masters and subjects of study, so that these are, in fact, fresh schools.

To use a simile which will be intelligible to this generation, women have been treated as if they were stones. Left shapeless under the school-room prison system, they are only fit to be broken up for the roads, as they will fit in nowhere. Our well-educated ancestresses, down to the time of Hannah More, were formed into cubes, very solid and steady on either of their bases, and suitable for many buildings, though the finer kinds of stone are in this manner misapplied. Modern science gives the stones more sides, and, while seeming to round them into more adaptable forms, only produces a number of small facets, making a somewhat polished dodecahedron, which rolls about in any position and is of no particular service, except, maybe, to stick upon a gate-post at a girl's school, though it has given a great deal of trouble in the cutting. But the hourly guidance of the loving hands of father and mother, aided by raspings and filings of circumstances, and many blows from chisels more or less severe, produces at last a beautiful statue, well shaped in all its parts, which becomes a perfect and nobly planned Galatea. What is the best training for girls? That is the question. What are they to be, or not to be?

We have tried hitherto to bring up our girls so that they may be fitted for the high position here that we all wish they may attain, making their education tend solely to pleasure; forgetting how easily the nature of woman adapts itself to any superior station, and how soon it seems like everyday life, however high the rank or great the wealth to which a girl may be suddenly raised.

We teach religion, when it is taught at all, under the head of "divinity," at school, where it is put on a par with the multiplication-table; or as a series of "religious duties," to be performed once a week and rendered as irksome as possible, quite ignoring that everything we do is our duty towards God, or towards our neighbour, which is part of the same duty; whereas we ought to train our girls for "duties" here, and give them joy in preparing for their high position as daughters of God in heaven. We should let our divine life so permeate through every hour of our stay here, that it may be the vivifying light shed upon everything we are concerned with, making the trifles of this life unfold their beauties, comforting sadness and gilding poverty, as the southern sunshine lights up squalid dwellings till they shine like gold and silver, and makes rags glow with light and colour.

Our ideas have changed lately, and now we seem to think that all girls who are not born to high position here must of necessity be trained to professional life. But, after all, the demand for certified teachers, heads of ladies' colleges, doctors, and other learned professions, will never comprise the great bulk of the number of willing workers among the unmarried women of England: nor do these things constitute a quarter of the work to be done.

Instances of marked talent or decided turn for some particular line of study should be furthered and fostered to the utmost, consistently with the possibility that after all the vocation may not be carried into effect; but women are really more valuable, and more likely to be happy, in what it is old-fashioned to call the sphere of a home.

And this is best prepared for by home training; which does not mean being pushed aside so as to be out of the way, and shut up in the nursery or school-room, but enjoying the companionship of a judicious and sensible mother, and the freedom of the house—where the child will be taught to behave herself properly, and be useful and obliging; where she will have regular hours of study with her mother, her governess, or at school, and yet have opportunities of seeing how everything is managed in the kitchen and throughout the house, being allowed occasionally to do some little thing herself, and so acquire some of the needful practice; where she can be taught needlework and the proper use of many tools; learn to carve, to cut bread and butter, to help dishes neatly at table, and gain a knowledge of gardening and green-house culture.

Children should be permitted to look on at the proceedings of all workmen employed in or out of the house: the glazier, gasfitter, gardener, carpet-stretcher, carpenter, locksmith, and piano-tuner; the exceptions being the dustman and the sweep, because of the dirt.

How much money might be saved in a house if people understood the use of a few tools, the construction of a few fittings, or could take a piano to pieces and tune it. If a bell-wire is broken, a man is sent for; he charges half a day's work and some materials, and generally makes a little bit of work for some other tradesman, whereas a knowledge of how to unscrew and take off the bell-cover would often enable a piece of copper wire to be joined, and the bell set in order. How often people fail to force down a window whose weights are just over-lapping, where a blow with a mallet on the shutterbox would have shaken them into their places; or, failing that, the box containing the sash-weights might be opened by taking off the beading near the window-sash, the cords and weights put straight, and the beading replaced by hammering the brads. But no; we send for a man.

Our water-pipes burst in winter, because during a hard frost we have not taken the precaution to turn the taps so that a few drops may pass to relieve the pressure in thawing.

We cannot even frame and hang up a picture when we have painted it, or cover a chair with the piece of needlework we have made. We do not know how to renew the cord of a spring blind, nor many a little thing besides; and yet any one who keeps a house in order knows how constantly these things are recurring, and what a source of expense they are.

Girls should be taken out shopping that they may learn the names and qualities of things, the quantities of material required for different purposes, and the value of money. The knowledge of how much it costs to clothe a child will teach them more practical arithmetic than any amount of extraction of the square root, and give an interest to their tables of weights and measures besides. Let Euclid be learnt by all means, if desired; but if it is only done for the sake of training, and not to aid some particular purpose, as good, if not as exact, training may be found in some study leading to a pleasing result, such as music, drawing, or knowledge of architecture, as from the pure mathematics.

Let the girls learn to fit their clothes exactly, estimate the needful quantity of material, and calculate the cost of the quality. When the mother is considering the size and price of a new carpet, if she consult with her daughters about it, it will help their judgment at the same time that it improves their arithmetic. Let girls learn to write notes of invitation and letters of business, and write orders to tradespeople; let them accompany their parents on house-hunting expeditions—it is a school in itself—or when furniture is bought. Elder girls may go with their mothers when they are treating for schools for little brothers, and when servants are hired, or evening parties catered for; when lodgings are taken for friends, and a thousand and one other circumstances.

It is all experience, and of the kind those girls never gain who are always at school-work; so that those who have not this knowledge begin life many years behind the home-trained girls, and commit many follies owing to their want of it. It need not be feared that this experience will destroy a girl's charm of manner. Ignorance is not simplicity, nor silliness a grace, neither are awkwardness and affectation as dignified as self-possession.

I would on no account depreciate the efforts made for the higher education of women. No one rejoices more than I do at seeing things more thoroughly taught. Still, we cannot rest content with crumbs of science; female education must be filled with the milk of human kindness. It is not the nature of woman to stand Alp-like alone, with one peak seeming to pierce the heavens; she should be like the spreading tree which gives shelter and enjoyment to all within its influence, its roots being firmly fixed in the good ground.

The nursery training for children is merely repressive. They are told not to be naughty, not to be greedy, not to break their toys, not to be noisy. Whereas a teaching more calculated to develop their intelligence would substitute some interesting occupation to counteract their naughtiness; such as mending a toy they have broken, which would delight them more than any new toy; and having seen the trouble it took to mend it, and the time it took to dry it, they would learn carefulness. If they wish to shout at inconvenient times and places, teach them to sing a chorus, and if the noise is too great, let them sing one at a time. If they are greedy, which often means hungry, for children need frequent feeding, give them a piece of bread.

But although tender kindness is the best of nurture, on no account let it degenerate into weak indulgence. Compel instant obedience to the slightest word, the minutest direction, enforcing habits of attention and discipline. Never let children be obtrusive or feel that they are a power in the house; and require of them the utmost respect to elders.

The good example of parents is the safeguard of the children. If they show reverence to all that is lovely, children will do so too. Above all, parents should never break a promise, nor ever deceive their children, even in play, or children will not honour their word.

I do not like to see mothers or nurses take away from a child something they do not wish it to have, and hide it, and pretend not to know where it is gone; yet this is a very favourite form of play, and deemed quite innocent. Surely it were better kindly, but firmly and openly, to remove the object and turn the attention from the loss.

I hope these few remarks will be found useful. I have tried to keep them brief, but in writing on so important a topic as that of education, it is difficult to bear in mind the clever old French saying, "Woe to him who says all that can be said."

SUNDAY.

Children's Sundays made wearisome — Sunday precious to workers — Moral workers — Moral vices — Our gifts — Misuse of them — Necessary work on Sunday — Diminished by management — Sunday prevents us living too fast — The rest must be earned — Sunday repairs the human machine.

Do not let Sunday be turned into a day of dread to the children. It is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. For years I lived in terror of the Sunday, and I feel for children who, being brought more into the presence of their elders on that day, are consequently more exposed to reproof for their natural animal spirits, which are trying to jaded and irritable persons. An only child, I was taken twice a day to a church built in the dismal style of the reign of George III., and put into a high pew, "shut up in a cupboard," as I have heard a little child express it, where I could only see a frightful ornament like a row of teeth in painted woodwork that ran round the upper part of the church. I sat contemplating this through the long low church service and sermon, of which I was too young to understand a word. The remainder of the day was filled up with collect, epistle, and catechism, Bible questions to write and answer, the text to remember, hymns to repeat to visitors, and a prolonged dessert, with half a glass of sherry, which was like a dose of physic to me. The "Life of Joseph" was my only recreation.

Too often is Sunday given up to the display of toilet vanities out of doors and listlessness at home. Those who have been really working during the week know well what a blessing the Sunday rest is. Those who have been idle cannot expect to feel this, and they experience such a flatness in the quietly kept Sunday that they regard it as a weekly penance which interrupts their pleasures. But they ought not to have allowed themselves to get into this condition of feeling. There is work for all in the world; none but the dead have a right to be idle.

As Kingsley justly asks: "If vanity, profligacy, pride, and idleness be not moral vices, what are?" What is more common than to find pride and vanity leading our women to idleness, and that extravagance and craving after gaiety which are the feminine form of profligacy? And Kingsley goes on to show that beneath these vices, and perhaps the cause of them all, lies another and deeper vice—godlessness, atheism.

"I do not," continues he, "mean merely the want of religion, doctrinal unbelief. I mean want of belief in duty, in responsibility. Want of belief that there is a living God governing the universe, who has set us our work, and will judge us according to our work."

Why are our noble gifts given to us; such gifts as these—

Is it that we may become "tolerably harmless dolls?" How shall we answer for having used our endurance only so much as may make us wait with common patience for next month's number of Belgravia; our foresight in choosing a pattern for a mantle which shall be fashionable enough to be worn next autumn; our skill in crochet-work, and our strength in skating on the outside edge.

No wonder we do not value the Sunday rest. We know that heavenly mansions are being prepared for us to enjoy the heavenly rest in, and that we must prepare ourselves for these mansions, or we shall not be permitted to enter them. Then let us take pains to prepare our earthly houses for the right use of the day of rest, and be able to go up to the house of the Lord with the multitude that keep holy-day.

We should so put our houses in order on Saturday that we may really be able to rest on Sunday. Some works of necessity must be done, such as the dinner prepared; but by dining early, and doing as much as possible on the previous day towards its preparation, the labour may be reduced to a minimum.

There will be no needlework, no cleaning or dusting, no marketing to be done on Sunday. Pies and tarts should have been made on Saturday, a double quantity of potatoes and other vegetables prepared, and a general foresight used.

Sunday is a good day for sending out a large joint to be baked, and a pudding also; indeed, this seems the opportunity for the national roast beef and plumpudding dinner. So that, in fact, beyond laying the cloth and removing the things used at meals, there is absolutely no work to be done beyond the five minutes' daily occupation of each person in making his or her own bed, as the re-arrangement of the used dinner things may be left till the following morning. The table is cleared as if by magic, if every child is told to put in its place two things, or three things, according to the number of things used and the number of children to put them back. Each person replaces his or her own chair, and the Sunday work is over. Life is not so hard to us as it was to the country squire's wife half a century ago, who always gave her servants physic on a Sunday because it was no loss of time. To us the Sunday is very helpful in another way: it keeps us from living too fast; without this wholesome stop we might drive ourselves on to frenzy.

Many if not most of us feel lazy and desultory on Monday morning (which therefore had better be employed on some kind of desultory and irregular work), and we only get ourselves warm in the harness by the middle of the week. We go on working with gradually increasing excitement until Saturday night, when some sensible friend hints that it is too late to make a bad week's work good; precious Sunday comes to ease the strain, and the human machine is oiled and cooled.

Let us be diligent during the week, and lengthen our days by beginning them earlier, so as to do most of our work in the morning; then with a clear conscience we may leave off our play as early as we please and go to rest: we shall enjoy the Sunday repose which we have earned, and find ourselves refreshed instead of wearied by it.

I will conclude this essay in the words of Macaulay—words which he considers among the very best he ever wrote. "Man, man is the great instrument that produces wealth. The natural difference between Campania and Spitzbergen is trifling when compared with the difference between a country inhabited by men full of bodily and mental vigour, and a country inhabited by men sunk in bodily and mental decrepitude. Therefore it is that we are not poorer but richer, because we have, through many ages, rested from our labour one day in seven. That day is not lost. While industry is suspended, while the plough lies in the furrow, while the Exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends from the factory, a process is going on quite as important to the wealth of nations as any process which is performed on more busy days. Man, the machine of machines, the machine compared with which all the contrivances of the Watts and Arkwrights are worthless, is repairing and winding up, so that he returns to his labours on the Monday with clearer intellect, with livelier spirits, with renewed corporal vigour. Never will I believe that what makes a population stronger and healthier and wiser and better can ultimately make it poorer.

"If ever we are forced to yield the foremost place among commercial nations, we shall yield it not to a race of degenerate dwarfs, but to some people pre-eminently vigorous in body and in mind."

THE END.

PRINTED AT THE CAXTON PRESS, BECCLES.