The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1873-01-18
Improved Education.
GOOD ADVICE TO MOTHERS.

What do we do with our daughters? Send
| them to school Yes, and they learn Latin
| and French, mathematics and hlstory-all use
full and valuable to give mental breadth and
depth and strength.
What do they do when they come home
Study their lessons Yes, and, 10 the inter-
walls, worsted work crochet-a novel, perhaps
something always that keeps their hands
close to their breasts, and their sight and energy
concentrated in a narrow point-a game OF
authors, conversation, cards, or a pretty little
drawing under the evening lamp, always the
cramped position, the narrow, concentrated field.
Throw away the crochet and the crewel
work-scatter the cards Shorten the study
hours at home. You are the buyer in school
matters insist on your choice fewer studies
more room to breathe, in between the ologies.
Drop an exercise here, a theoremt there. Insist
that in five or six mortal hours the lessons all
be done.
Then, in the out of school time, let your daugh-
ters take part in the steady business of home.
There is time enough in the early morning to
make bed, and set a room in order, if the girl
be not conjugating Latin verb till the break
fast bell rings. There is time to take in the
arrangement of the table or in the kitchen
even. A breakfast is not an elaborate meal,
and there never was child yet that did not
admire" to grind the coffee mill. When tea
time comes, dainty tea table is pretty thing.
Let not your az ghters como to IL as though ~
a hotel, unobservant, uninteresteu. II they
have helped to make the ca Ike, to have the toast
crisp and brown, to arrange the china and sill
yer, and have it all fresh and bright and pretty,
think you they have no enjoyment of the oc-
casion
Then comes the Saturday holiday devoted,
as girls 60, to unmeaning calls, or lounging
through the morning, tired to death with the
study of the week, and refreshing themselves
with novel by the parlor register"
Nal he Gafu rAav
ing and baking an hour in the linen closet,
those lavender sanctuaries, dear 10 every wo-
mans heart the marketing, the grocers or
ders; here is wide field Of variety for young
interest and young energy.
would give girl household ambition. /
would make her positively unhappy until she
could produce a loaf of bread lighter than
Bridgets. l would make the order and neat
ness OF her own room, or the library or parlor,
her especial accountability and charge.
"Would you leave no time for play Z" Yes,
time tor play, time to dance. time for skating
and croquet. But would fill in the hours in
geniously. | would have no "dawdling," none
of those precious cohtrivances Of bone and ivory
that cramp the growing chest and dim the
bright young eyes. In the school hours the
mind expands, or is supposed 10. In the home
hours, there is no such bodily expansion,
growth and balance, as comes frcm healthy
household work.
DuI now Will servants stanu IL 10 nave cnnu
rem bothering round, interfering with their
work . Ny dear madam, areyou mistress of
the establishment? Doyou give or take orders
1t will require tact and judgment On your part,
of course, so to adjust matters in the outlying
provinces, but it has its reward.
But this shortening of the study hours will
surely keep the girls years longer at school
than they would otherwise be Every like,
very like" Whatifitadd a full decade to their
lives as well?
Instead of being shot out on Commencement.
Day, utterly finished in more senses than one
landing in the paternal parlor fit only for a
parlor ornament or for professors chair, and
with the whcle theory of domestic life before
them yet to learn; undsciplned, untred; you
will have balance and litr ess, readiness for any
place in the world.
So you see, Mr.. Editor, when the time for ap.
premiership to trade or a profession comes
to the young girl, she knows her housekeeping
as boy knows his swimming, his baseball |
and cricket; it has become part of her fibre,
of her growth.
She may be ready then to keep books or keep
house, to doctor other folks babies or sing her
own to sleep Build the foundation broad and |
deep of faculty and home knowledge of affairs, |
and on this firm base you may rear your
''sea Captains, il you will"
-ChristiGn Union |