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
It may also be objected, that young ladies can get such books, and
attend to them out of school. And so they can get books on Chemistry and
Philosophy, and study them out of school; but _will_ they do it? And why
ought we not to make sure of the most necessary knowledge, and let the
less needful be omitted? If young ladies study such a work as this, in
school, they will remember a great part of it; and, when they forget, in
any emergency, they will know where to resort for instruction. But if
such books are not put into schools, probably not one in twenty will see
or hear of them, especially in those retired places where they are most
needed. And is it at all probable, that a branch, which is so lightly
esteemed as to be deemed unworthy a place in the list of female studies,
will be sought for and learned by young girls, who so seldom look into
works of solid instruction after they leave school? So deeply is the
writer impressed with the importance of this, as a branch of female
education, at school, that she would deem it far safer and wiser to omit
any other, rather than this.
Another reason, for introducing such a branch of study into female
schools, is, the influence it would exert, in leading young ladies more
correctly to estimate the importance and dignity of domestic knowledge.
It is now often the case, that young ladies rather pride themselves on
their ignorance of such subjects; and seem to imagine that it is vulgar
and ungenteel to know how to work. This is one of the relics of an
aristocratic state of society, which is fast passing away. Here, the
tendency of every thing is to the equalisation of labor, so that all
classes are feeling, more and more, that indolence is disreputable. And
there are many mothers, among the best educated and most wealthy
classes, who are bringing up their daughters, not only to know how to
do, but actually to do, all kinds of domestic work. The writer knows
young ladies, who are daughters of men of wealth and standing, and who
are among the most accomplished in their sphere, who have for months
been sent to work with a mantuamaker, to acquire a practical knowledge
of her occupation, and who have at home learned to perform all kinds of
domestic labor.
And let the young women of this Nation find, that Domestic Economy is
placed, in schools, on equal or superior ground to Chemistry,
Philosophy, and Mathematics, and they will blush to be found ignorant of
its first principles, as much as they will to hesitate respecting the
laws of gravity, or the composition of the atmosphere. But, as matters
are now conducted, many young ladies know how to make oxygen and
hydrogen, and to discuss questions of Philosophy or Political Economy,
far better than they know how to make a bed and sweep a room properly;
and they can "construct a diagram" in Geometry, with far more skill than
they can make the simplest article of female dress.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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