A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at SchoolBeecher, Catharine Esther
General
A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School
Beecher, Catharine Esther
Home economics
Again; a young lady went to reside with a married sister, in a distant
State. While on this visit, the elder sister died, and there was no one
but this young lady to fill the vacant place, and assume all the cares
of the nursery, parlor, and kitchen.
Again; a pupil of the writer, at the end of her schooldays, married, and
removed to the West. She was an entire novice in all domestic matters;
an utter stranger in the place to which she removed. In a year, she
became a mother, and _her health failed_; while, for most of the time,
she had no domestics, at all, or only Irish or Germans, who scarcely
knew even the names, or the uses, of many cooking utensils. She was
treated with politeness by her neighbors, and wished to return their
civilities; but how could this young and delicate creature, who had
spent all her life at school, or in visiting and amusement, take care of
her infant, attend to her cooking, washing, ironing, and baking, the
concerns of her parlor, chambers, kitchen, and cellar, and yet visit and
receive company? If there is any thing that would make a kindly heart
ache, with sorrow and sympathy, it would be to see so young, so amiable,
so helpless a martyr to the mistaken system of female education now
prevalent. "I have the kindest of husbands," said the young wife, after
her narrative of sufferings, "and I never regretted my marriage; but,
since this babe was born, I have never had a single waking hour of
freedom from anxiety and care. O! how little young girls know what is
before them, when they enter married life!" Let the mother or teacher,
whose eye may rest on these lines, ask herself, if there is no cause for
fear that the young objects of her care may be thrown into similar
emergencies, where they may need a kind of preparation, which as yet has
been withheld.
Another reason for introducing such a subject, as a distinct branch of
school education, is, that, as a general fact, young ladies _will not_
be taught these things in any other way. In reply to the
thousand-times-repeated remark, that girls must be taught their domestic
duties by their mothers, at home, it may be inquired, in the first
place, What proportion of mothers are qualified to teach a _proper_ and
_complete_ system of Domestic Economy? When this is answered, it may be
asked, What proportion of those who are qualified, have that sense of
the importance of such instructions, and that energy and perseverance
which would enable them actually to teach their daughters, in all the
branches of Domestic Economy presented in this work?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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