Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-07-30
Teaching Little Americans is
the Task.
FOREIGN NURSES BEGIN
AFTER THAT 1T IS GoVERNESSES
AND MASTER.
What It Costs From Birth to Social
Debut-A Reasonable
Figure.

Written for The Evening Star.
While the government is spending mill
Hons annually to turn youthful immigrants
into good American citizens by the public
school method. the rapidly growing mil
lionaire class of this country is spending its
thousands to train its rising generation in
the way a good cosmopolitan should go.
The thousands and tens of thousands of
foreign-born children. from Irish to Russian
Jew. whose parents are focking into the
United States. will be educated by American
teachers in American free schools. The
youngsters born with gold-lined spoons in
their mouths will absorb knowledge from
an ever-changing and progressing line of
foreign-born tutors.
The wee heiress to millions realizes in a
vague way that she has parents. There is
big, fine-lookng man, with crows feet
around his eyes. who drops in to say how
de to her when he stops off between bust
ness trips to London or Hongkong when
he comes back from cruise around the
world. When he dies little Miss Millions
realizes that he was busy laying up treas
ure for her to spend lie was a very good
father In this respect.
There is dream-lady who bends over
her crib occasionally in the night or who
comes in during the morning If the doctor
iAdS StiIO blLdl HttIc MISS Millions Is not
well. The dream-lady thinks 1t is very in
considerable of little Miss Millions to be i'll
and very careless of nurse to let 1t happen.
Then she touches the little girls feverish
cheek with her cool. well-manicured hand.
leaves the telephone number of the house
where she Is helping to receive" that af-
ternoon and floats out. q filmy, cloudlike
wrath In pale, transparent silks and laces.
And little Miss Millions cuddles down In the
faithful nurses arms and dreams of a
fairy land where little girls have real
mothers"
Little Miss Millions.
And few years later-it seems Just
few because events crowd thick and fast
for little Miss Millions-she goes abroad
and marries a title and hears that she has
very clever, good mother. She thinks 1t
must be so, because everyone tells her of it.
And so She settles down and makes a nice,
un-American American countess.
II must not be thought that the success
sion or nurses governesses. companions
ana chaperons who guard over little Miss
Millions are OF the common, vulgar herd of
servants. Far from It, Their references
and standing must be above reproach.
Little Miss Millions is being trained to be
q good cosmopolitan. and the grooming
process Is conducted by foreigners who can
prepare her for the station which 1t may
please her inheritance and her skillful
mother to place her.
If little Miss Millions is the first born her
mother may nurse her. She really feels
some sentiment about this first baby,
Later on she finds the maternal duty inter
1eres too seriously with her social engage
ments.
SO when Miss Millions is No. or No.
she has either wet nurse or q trained
erly Irish woman. or perhaps an italian or
German. The physician decides upon her
desirability. II Miss Millions first lessons
are In the proper methods OF drinking from
aaln rhot 10,
known as the trained infant nurse, q grad
uate from training school, whose special
~ Is raising babies on the bottle. If the
child is very delicate. OF the heiress to a
particularly notable fortune she may have
two nurses.
$50 Month.
The trained Infant nurse receives a salary
of s25 a week. and she often has an under
nurse to perform the mental nursery du-
ties, whose salary Is $50 per month. There
is no objection to trained nurse of simple
American extraction, but the preference is
given to the German trained nurse 1t is
not so important. however because the
baby is not yet able to talk and a little
intercourse with woman of her own ma
tionality cannot be harmful at this stage
men the child Is year old the trained
nurse departs, and the undernurse Ger
man or Swiss Is now In charge of the nur-
sery and reigns therein until little Miss
Millions arrives at the mature age of five,
WHEN Sile uiN4utS ner reign with Kinder
gartner preferably a German. Now the
child can speak German quite fuently and
the kindergarten knows not only FrOebel
and his methods, but the French language
as il is spoken in Paris. where little Miss
Millions, as good American, is bound to
go some day. The duties of the nurse be-
come more mental. and the Kindergarten
becomes the guardian of the chld's daily
walk or drive, combining nature studies
with lectures on department In public
places.
Her Maid at Fourteen.
AT seven or eight years. enter the gov
erness, who is either German or French
according as the parents measure the
value of mind and manners. At fourteen
Miss Millions is given a maid. and the
nurse Is retired. The maid attends T. h..
toilet and accompanies her TO the danoin:
parties, to which she is now permitted to
go, while the governess attends ker On
walks, drives, trips to art galleries and to
lectures.
The staff of Instructors gradually In
crea ses. a French dancing master teaches
her to be graceful, an Italian cultivates
her voice and a German teaches her in
strumental music She speaks French
German. Italian and when she gets a
chance, with some OF her young friends
she speaks plain United States-that s.
PROVIDED, of course, that her governess is
NOT an English woman who cuItivat.s in
her young charge the purest of accen.s i'm
ported straight from King Edwards realm
which accomplishment will greatly enhance
the governess value in the eyes of Miss
Millions mother.
Thanks to this foreign tutelage Miss
Millions takes her first trip abroad with
the utmost GOODNESS. She would know the
Row and Pail Mall without the aid Of
street sign or a bobby. In Paris she could
find her way alone to the Tuilleries gardens
or Rue de lOpera. But II some one were to
tell her that bears ravaged the streets of
Minneapolis she would not say the speaker
nay.
II u happens to be Master Millions in
stead of Miss. the early training is much
the same only tutors are substituted for
governesses
His Eighth Birthday.
The first tutor arrives on the scene on
Master Millions eighth birthday. AS a
rule he is young Englishman or German.
trained for the work. He prepares the boy
for college or at least for the preparatory
school which precedes college and accom-
panles him everyw. ere. winter and summer
even sharing his athletic sports. At the
college gates they part, and the tutors
place - taken by a valet, usually a servant
VINO has been long with the family in the
capacity Of under butler
These statements regarding the training
OF the wealthy American child can be VERT
fled at the agencies which supply nurses