school, and the lowering of the mind to the petty interests of the hour: and it is not long before the neglect of brain exercise and the absence of intellectual stimulus begin to tell upon the health. It is in cases like this, that the Ladies’ Colleges are as great a blessing as they can be in training young women to be educators. The stimulus of companionship, the excellent teaching, the atmosphere of activity, the breadth of view laid open by the diversity of subjects, and the broad treatment of them by tho professors, render study truly captivating to clever and thoughtful girls, and full of interest to any one who is in any degree worthy of the privilege. The study at home goes on vigorously when it is subsidiary to college-work. A kind-hearted parent will be well-pleased to afford his daughter such a pursuit. If he should be disposed to grudge the small expense, it might be well to remind him of the prudence of an expenditure which obviates doctors’ fees, and those journeys for health which are rarely wanted by well-occupied young people.
Another profitable result from this college study will be the discovery of the bent of the girl’s ability. If she has sufficient ability to do or learn eome one thing better than others, she will find it out, and test the degree of tho talent, under the searching influence of this second education: and whether she has to work for an independence, sooner or later, or to fill up her life by her own mental resources, it is of vast importance to have, thus early, the means of self-knowledge.
Very soon after the opening of these colleges, it was observed that they were doing good in rendering girls independent and courageous, and their parents rational, about the walking habits of the pupils. In six months’ time, many who never before would leave home unattended, or cross a square alone, were daily walking considerable distances alone, to and from the college. The steady walk of women bound on some business, is usually a sufficient safeguard in London streets; and women of business seldom or never have anything to tell of adventures in London, any more than in a village street; while the timid young lady, apprehensive of she knows not what, if out in the broad noon of London, may naturally excite observation, and be insecure, because she supposes herself so. It is pleasant to think how many hundreds of girls have walked miles daily in all weathers, with great benefit to health, nerve, and independence, since these colleges were opened.
Among home-studies, that of music has assumed a foremost place, in London, within a few years. Early in the century, one might hear more or less strumming on the piano in most middle-class houses; but not often what was worthy the name of music. Now, it is said that in the evenings, after shop-closing, all along Whitechapel, Cheapside, and the like, the back-parlours are little concert-rooms, where brothers and sisters play various instruments, or practise part-singing, as pupils of the great popular masters of the day, or members of the Sacred Harmonic, or other societies of a high order. Thus is a new and delightful interest introduced into citizen homes, to the great benefit of the daughters. The singing is good for the chest: but the ideas and emotions created and exercised by the study of good music are more important still.
A different kind of occupation from any of these is, in my opinion, no less essential to health of body and mind. Domestic employments of the commonest kind have their own charms to most, and their special value to all women who are properly trained to them. The worst thing about girls’ schools is, that they put out of sight for the time all housekeeping matters, and break the salutary habit of domestic employment. When a girl comes home to her father’s house, she should begin at once upon this chapter of feminine study. When a child, she had probably been allowed and encouraged to help her mother in the store-room and kitchen, as well as with the household needle-work. She had probably gone with her mother to the fishmonger’s and the green-grocer’s. If so, she has now only to brush up her old associations, and set to work at a more advanced point. If not, it is high time she was beginning to learn.
I wish the people of a higher and a lower class, and Americans and other foreigners, could be made to understand how much domestic business is actually transacted by middle-class women in England. I do not like the discredit of the popular notion, that our English girls are too genteel to understand how to cook, and to do shopping, and manage the house. Whether the business is properly done or not, women should insist on its being regarded as a duty, that there may be the better chance for its being done. If the daughter we are now contemplating is a rational girl, she will presently be in possession of the keybasket, and getting into training under her mother. She will be up early (thereby ensuring the early rising of the servants), and off to the fishmonger’s, or the vegetable market,—having the benefit of an early choice of good things. She will have planned with her mother the dinners of the week (with a margin for unexpected occurrences); and therefore, when she has made breakfast, she is ready for her conference with the cook. She chooses to know how to do everything that she requires to be done; and, as far as may be, by experience. She experiments upon cakes and puddings; and the syllabubs, tarts, and preserves are of her making, till she is satisfied of her proficiency. The linen in the housemaid’s department is under her care, and it will be her fault if a table-cloth has a jagged corner, or the sheets a slit in the middle. These matters, so far, occupy very little time, while they afford more or less of exercise and amusement to a healthy mind.
The sewing is another affair. It is still the curse of girlhood in too large a portion of the middle class. There can hardly be another woman in that class more thoroughly fond of the needle than myself: and few, probably, have done more needlework of all kinds in the course of their lives: yet it is my belief that thousands of parents are actually cruel to their daughters in requiring from them tho amount of needlework customary in this and a few other countries. Fathers and brothers suppose that the women of the household are to sit down to make linen for the house and its inhabitants, every day after breakfast, and to stick to the work all day,