The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1896-10-17
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COMMON SENSE EDUCATION.

There are many, very many things,
which should be taught at home-taught
the child, girl or boy, before he ever sters
over the threshold Of school room. These
things, all-important to life, health ard
happiness, should be dealt on by fathers
and mothers 4 distinguished writer says,
of some of them
1t is due to the man one is to maIry-it
is due to the child that is to be born, that
the wife and the mother should avail her
self of every legitimate source of wisdom
and Of strength.
Some one inquired of the late DIR. Oliver
Wendell Holmes, "When should the cul-
ture of the child hcgin?" The great scien-
test and philosopher answered: "A hun
bred years before it is born" Unfortu-
nately for our Offspring we cannot turn
back the wheels of time to that extent; but
we can begin so the right story may be
told hundred years hence
No woman who aspires to the dignity of
wifehood has right to be ignorant of the
practical duties of well ordered house
hold. She has no right to shun her own
kitchen, or to be unlearned in the chemis-
try of cooking. How can she direct stupid.
and careless, and ill-traned servants in a
science of which she herself knows nothing?
Americans as class, are ashamed of de-
nestle service, and are willing to grant
its monopoly to a set of incompetent bog
trottrrs imported for the purpose. To
their stupcndous ignorance and tender
mercies we cntrust the selection and prep
aration Of our daily food and the cleani-
ness of our premises.
"Filthy' is the word which mostly de-
scribes the part over which they rule
supreme.
The teacher of a certain female academy,
not ia: away, makes her boast that SIZE
knows no culinary art except to make me-
lasses candy! Fortunately, she has never
succeeded in catching a husband else he
would be surfeited in sweets; but what an
example she makes of herself to the young
ladies of her class. According to their re-
spcct for her, they despise housework.
Did YOU ever notice how many mothers
are invalidS before they are thirty; and
broken down, wrinkled and prematurely
cid by the time they have reached tie age
of forty?
1t is rot woman's fault if she is not
born handsome and strong; but it is largely
her own fault, and that of her education, if
she does not attain to some measure of
beauty and strength by the time she has
reached middle life.
Yet, alas! how closely marriage and in
validism have become associated in the
public mind.
The Frenchman Nichelet, speaking of
American women. says, ''She is an exquisite
invalid, with parental headache and a
tendency toward nervous prostration"
Myriads of young girls in the very
threshold of womanhood, are standing with
shattered systems, who, if they knew and
could explain the cause, would say, "My
mother never told me-"
Between the parent and the growing
youth or maiden there should be the most
perfect confidence and freedom of conversa-
ton on the most intimate laws of life and
of hygiene.
The mother who cannot intuitively I'M
derstand even the temptation Of her son
has no right to have a son. The woman
who cannot so order her own HE, and SO
prescribe anti-natal conditions as to reduce
temptations to minimum and bring re-
sistance to temptations to it's maximum,
has no right to be mother. The Ma
tional Educator.