XLV.
INSTITUTIONS FOR THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
VASSAR is, we think, the first college for women ever established. The liberal provision for its maintenance, in accordance with the wishes of the founder,—the chapel, library, cabinet, recitation-rooms; the houses for the professors; the dormitories for the students; the dining-hall and kitchen; the laundry and the bakehouse,—every needed accommodation, are all completed in the most approved manner. The whole is heated by steam, and lighted by gas. Here physical culture receives all the care that modern science and experience can give. A floral garden is managed by the young ladies. Gymnastic exercises, horseback riding, driving, boating, or skating have their full share of encouragement and attention. The whole establishment and its arrangements are most excellent, securing a suitable amount of exercise to insure good health, and also clear heads for the hours devoted to study.
But in this generous provision for accomplishments for our young daughters, and thorough training in all healthful exercise, there seems to have been one department entirely overlooked, which certainly demands a large share of attention, and where, we think, faithful instruction in the rudiments should, in connection with other departments, begin in the earliest and most simple lessons, with the full understanding that it must go hand in hand with other branches through the whole course. We mean a full and most thorough instruction in all that belongs to domestic economy and household lore.
The preparatory instruction and full collegiate course, in a girl’s education, should embrace more years than are thought necessary to prepare a boy to graduate and enter upon the duties of manhood, because we are sure our girls’ minds are overburdened by an attempt to crowd too many studies into each year, thus keeping them constantly hurried and overtaxed. They have many things to do while in school that boys are not expected to do, or, at any rate, which they never undertake. No young lady, we trust, would sit down to her studies, in the morning, until her room was neatly put in order. Many little touches are needed to secure this, which they cannot depend upon a chamber or parlor maid to do well, and which it would not be consistent with womanly neatness to leave undone. Then a girl has her wardrobe to watch over; rips to mend, buttons to replace, and numerous other things which a boy has done for him or leaves undone. In girlhood as in later life, woman’s duties are more complex and varied than man’s. There are so many little things, insignificant in themselves, but of wonderful importance, in that skillful combination which must be woven together to make the perfect whole in a woman’s character, that it is unsafe to skim lightly over any. Some items appear very trifling and unimportant, when not viewed as connecting links, without whose aid the whole noble structure must be incomplete.
No one can tell, while the process of constructing and perfecting is going on, through what deep and stormy waters the precious bark, once launched, may be compelled to force its way. Therefore it is wise, in laying the foundations, to be sure that no timber, screw, or rivet, however insignificant it may seem at the time, has been discarded or insecurely fastened.
Even if it could be guaranteed that most of the young ladies who graduate from our excellent seminaries would never be placed in a position where they might find it convenient, if not necessary, to labor to secure home comforts, or prepare food for husband or children, yet there is no place free from care, where it would not be more conducive to comfort and happiness for the mistress, not only to know thoroughly what was proper to be done about the house, but also to know how to do it herself, should it ever be necessary. To know how to do it well will do no harm; not knowing how may sometimes subject one to great discomfort and mortification.
We once called on a lady of great wealth. Her establishment and style of living demanded a large retinue of servants, who received the highest wages. There had just been some disturbance among her servants. The cook, receiving forty dollars a month, imagined that her subordinate in the kitchen did not render her the proper assistance. She, the sub-cook, was quite above such service as was exacted. Neither would yield, and both left. The waitress, laundress, and nurse had been nursing a feud for some time, which only needed this explosion in the kitchen and the atmosphere it engendered to develop the final catastrophe. The noise and smoke of the battle had but just subsided when we rang the bell, which was answered by the lady herself with a laughing, happy face, in no wise ruffled by this unusual state of things. After our errand was done, she was led by it to tell us a merry story of the day’s experience.
“And what will you do now?”
“O, I have sent my dressing-maid to the nursery, sent the seamstress to look for others to replace the deserters, and the coachman to market. I will attend the door till they return, and then I mean to surprise my husband on his return with a dinner of my own cooking. Mother used to let me play cook sometimes when I was young. She thought every girl should at least know how to get a dinner. I learned a good deal then which I think I have not forgotten, and I owe it to her that this little disturbance, the first I have had, doesn’t trouble me at all.”
To be sure, those who keep but one or two servants will think that she had but little to disturb her while a dressing-maid, seamstress, and coachman were on hand. But we think those who keep the greatest number of servants are the most to be pitied, and when changes come it requires much patience and some skill to rearrange those who remain, if one extra step is demanded of them.
We know two little girls whose mother is training them to meet such inconvenient changes when they are women, in the same independent spirit. They have a large-sized toy cooking-stove, but one in which they can make real pies, as the little ladies say, and real bread and real cake can be made on it, though of lilliputian size. The stove is kept in mother’s room, the pipe passing into the nursery flue. They have a little molding-board and rolling-pin, and all needed implements on a small scale, and no richer reward can be given than to be allowed to bake a cake, or something of their own making, to be placed on the family table. Of course they work under mother’s eye and by her instructions, and in later years these little girls will thank their mother for this early teaching.
This playing cook is an easy and pleasant way of teaching little girls the first lessons, and if, as in other days, they were fully taught at home the very important accomplishment of housekeeping by their mothers, there would be no necessity for a union of domestic and intellectual institutions in our schools and seminaries; but, unfortunately, very few, comparatively, of the mothers of the present day have health to teach their daughters as thoroughly as would be satisfactory or available; or, if health be given, the disposition to devote their time and attention to the matter is wanting. For this reason we see no better way than to have this part of our girls’ education incorporated, if possible, with the other branches taught in schools and colleges, so that sewing, sweeping, washing, and cooking—all minutiæ of household knowledge—may be as fully taught as reading, writing, or the so-called higher studies; or, if this union is not possible, at least the domestic education might be made a supplementary course,—the scholars understanding that no one can “graduate” until she has passed through that department.
We fear the good old times of mother-teaching will not very soon be revived, and our idea of uniting this important part of woman’s education with that which is thought higher and more intellectual arose from the impression that, if not in some way instructed in home duties, our girls in the course of four or five years of sedentary life would acquire a distaste for more active employment, or, having destroyed their health by injurious and long-continued application, would be utterly incapacitated for it.
We offer these suggestions in the hope that the attention of some of our progressive spirits may be called to this subject with more effective earnestness than has been shown.