The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1881-07-28
Small Things.

A knowledge of many little facts that
are not always 10 be had systematically
laid down in books, but which descend
traditionally from mother to daughter
BY word Of mouth, as the unwritten
music OF the songs OF Shakespeare de-
scends from actress to actress, is often
more useful to the sorely bestead young
house-mistress than all the Latin and
mathematics that she learned at school
can be. She may know how to play
Beethoven's sonatas so as to hold a
drawing-room breathless and entrarced,
but It stands her poorly il, while she
plays, great ink spot on the drawing
room carpet stares her in the face, that
she does not know how to wash out
with milk, and clean up afterward with
warm and nice soap-suds, or grease
spot that could have been absorbed out
Of existence by frequent applications Of
magnesia or Of buckwheat flour, IL she
had only known enough to sprinkle it
abundantly on the spot, and brush it of
afterward. What does it benefit her
that her wit and ready repartee can
keep . whole dinner table gay, while
the fine cookery, that at no end OF
trouble she has taught her cook, keeps
forced all the time to be nervously fiirt-
ing fans and napkins and adjectives
against the pestiferous flies that she
could have driven away by leaving in
the room, an hour or so beforehand, .
little preparation Of equal quantities OF
cream and brown sugar, and half rs
much black pepper, had her mother
ever known IS much, or thought to tell
her Of ftp OF what use is it to her, hv-
| ing possibly far from bakeries and bread
shops, to keep crackers, for instance, in
| the house, If she has never learned how
to freshen them by leaving them fo1
three minutes in hot oven, or to pre-
vent their being nibbled all over by
ants by strewing the store-room shelves
with few cloves, occasionally renewedi
Such things are tribes, each one by
itself, of course, but half hundred
| such things can contribute very materi-
ally to comfort and good nature in
family.
If the knowledge that the steam OF
| green tea viii revive her rusty black
lace, and make it as fresh as new, has
not descended to her, of what good is ii
that the lace hasp Or why should she
have costly bit of the beautiful Brus-
sells lace In her keeping If nobody has
ever told her to shut it away from the
air or from any peculiarly strong per-
furnep She win spend more presently
in frequent repairs and redressings than
the lace cost in the first place. She can
| afford possibly to wear gold embroidery,
in an era of gliding, if she knows enough
to clean it, when it furnishes, with
brush dipped In burned and pulverized
rook-alum; and she may be splendid
and graceful in long, white ostrich
4 plumes that would need as long q purse
to provide frequently il she had not
i seen them dipped again in the thick
warm lather OF curd soap, then rinsed
and dried, and curled over a knitting
kneedle before the fire.
4 What right has she to be the head of
family II she is not sufficiently mistress
of herself and of few surgical facts to ar
rest the bleeding of 8 cut limb by tight
igature between the cut and the pulsing
heartP-h she does not know that always
handy mustard and water will empty
the stomach that has received poison, or
that the white of an egg when admins
tered internally will transform swal-
lowed corrosive sublimate with its dead
ly torture into the simple salvation of
blue massp-if she can not distinguish
between apoplexy and drunkenness by
knowing that the whole limb will con-
vulsively withdraw in the former case il
the sole of the foot be tickled, and does
not then further know that the clothing
must be at once loosened, and blisters
be applied to the calves of the legs, the
pit of the stomach, and the back of the
neckP II she be pioneers wife, it
would be a useful thing for her to re-
member that when her grandmother
4 was q pioneers wife before her, she
found pine sawdust nearly as good as
soap with which to wash her linen.
A myriad such small things as these
might be supposed to form necessary
parts of the education of all women; but
in reality not even O small fraction OF
either facts or women are acquainted
with each other. Few wives know how
to take the white spots out of their old
mahogany, the stain of their artificial
roses from their light silks, to clean
their filigree silver, to choose genuine
silk, to make their own bandoline, or
even more imperative things than any
such as these.
OF course they may never have light
silks or filigree silver, or use bandoline,
and of course it is impossible all at once
to make ones mind an encyclopaedia OF
practical facts and small recipes but il
would seem as if, SO long as all these
trifies form essential features of good
housekeeping, and women are to be
housekeepers, that women should, in
some way or other, be made familiar
with all the processes by which their
possessions are we'll used and well kept,
and turned to the best advantage, and
that IL their own mothers and guardians
do not teach them orally and by exam.
pie at the time when the mind mos,
readily accumulates facts, then some.
body else should teach them. Doubt
less in the next generation a dozen
scholarships may be founded in women's
colleges for the knowledge of the un.
knowable, but none will ever be founded
for the treasuring of these and similar
small facts of useful knowledge; and il
therefore becomes the part of all young
women who have graduated in trigo
nometry and the musical glasses to hum
} up for themselves the things that it may
be bitter for them some day not tc
know, when they have the management
of q household, and husband TO whom
: toirender account, and for want of ira
dition and teaching are obliged to bs
their own instructors andpupils at once
: and to learn the facts that were known
to other women ages ago, when it wa:
all but unlawful for them to learn Il
; read, and one In common life who knew
how TO work out 8 problem in the rul,
Of three was held by men in general Il
be q person of too much knowledge
: who, if given the rein, would soon bt
looked on by them as questionably a.
, the Athenians looked on Aspasia
! -HdTper's Bazaar