Femina, A Work for Every Woman — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Femina, A Work for Every Woman
John Stuart Mill · en
When the thoughts and memory of girls of tender age are too long and
too laboriously engaged, there will be an abnormal development of the
nervous centers; they will grow or develop beyond the muscular or
physical strength, and a morbid impressibility, great feebleness of the
muscular system, and a marked tendency to disease of the pelvic organs,
is established. Parents may refer with pride to the precocious talents,
the refined and cultivated tastes, of their daughters, as qualities to
be admired and appreciated, but without a physical substratum it is
a dreamy delusion. It would be much better for the children if their
parents took more pride in rotund figures and robust constitutions,
for these would ever be a source of joy, while the cultivated talents,
especially at the expense of their health, will not only be of little
practical value to them in after years, but often incapacitate them
for wives and mothers, by making them restless, discontented, and
physically unfit for maternal functions.
There is entirely too much scholastic education imparted to our girls,
and not enough domestic education. I believe that the most favored
should not have too much of one and not enough of the other, because if
parents do not prepare girls for household duties in early life, they
run desperate chances of laying the foundation for a failure in the
remote future.
Children must be constantly reminded that they are in this world to
serve a useful purpose, and that co-equal with every accomplishment is
a utilitarian training.
We take a pride if our boys trade pocketknives, especially when our
own gets the better one of the two, because we appreciate the natural
business trait. He will be no less a good candidate for some of the
learned professions, and, indeed, it has come to this, that material
success in the professions depends as much on shrewd business tact as
it does upon proficiency in professional attainments.
The knowledge or even wisdom of a person is of no earthly use to
himself or the world if he or she do not possess the faculty of letting
the people know of this superior wisdom; and that is why some persons
often become more celebrated and even renowned than others, who are
intellectually their superiors, because the former possess the faculty
and cunning to make people believe in their superiority. By this I
simply desire to impress upon parents not to be over-anxious about
their daughters standing _first_ in their class room, but, rather, to
be very anxious that they attain a healthy and vigorous growth, and
that sufficient practical knowledge of domestic affairs be imparted to
them so that they can creditably fill their mother’s places some day.
This I consider the best legacy.