If, in educating girls, we do not educate them for the _possibility_ of money-earning work, we are exposing them to the possibility of having to do that work without being schooled to it; we are exposing them to the possibility of having to take the first job they see, of having to do _almost anything_ for _almost nothing_; we are doing them a wrong so demonstrable and so grievous that it cannot continue.
The schools which give a direct preparation for industrial life are growing fast.
In the Manhattan Trade School for Girls, in New York City, many hundreds of young girls are, in each year, enrolled. These girls have completed the first five public-school grades. They are learning now to be workers in paste and glue for such occupations as sample-mounting and candle-shade-making, to be workers with brush and pencil for such occupations as photograph-retouching and costume-sketching, to be milliners, to be dressmakers, to be operators of electric-power sewing-machines.
"Nothing to it," says an irritated manufacturer. "Nothing to it at all. I can"t get any good help any more. Back to the old days! Those early New Englanders who made the business of this country what it is, they didn"t have all this technical business. They didn"t study in trade schools."
My dear sir, those early New Englanders not only studied in trade schools, but worked and played and slept in trade schools. They spent their whole lives in trade schools, from the moment when they began to crawl on the floor among their mothers" looms and spinning-wheels.
There were few homes in early New England that didn"t offer large numbers of technical courses in which the father and the mother were always teaching by doing and the sons and the daughters were always learning by imitating.
The facts about this are so simple and so familiar that we don"t stop to think of their meaning.
When in the spring the wood ashes from the winter fires were poured into the lye barrel, and water was poured in with them, and the lye began to trickle out from the bottom of the barrel, and the winter"s savings of grease were brought out, and the grease and the lye were boiled together in the big kettle, and mother had finished making the family"s supply of soap for another year, the children had taken not only a little lesson in industriousness, by helping to make the soap, but a little lesson in industry, too, by observing the technique and organization of the soap business from start to finish. A boy from that family, even if he never learned to read or write the word "soap," might some day have some _ideas_ about soap.
The curriculum of an old New England home, so far as presided over by the wife, may be incompletely suggested as follows:
(N. B. The reader will note the inappropriateness of congratulating the daughters of that home on their not wanting a job. They had it.
And the reader will also note that the education of the early New England girl, rich or poor, began with the education of her _hand_.)
VEGETABLES DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Gardening.
"In March and in April, from morning to night, In sowing and setting good housewives delight."
2. A course in Medicinal Herbs. Borage, fennel, wild tansy, wormwood, etc. Methods of distillation. Aqua composita, barberry conserve, electuaries, salves, and ointments. A most important course for every housewife.
"A speedy and a sovereign remedy, The bitter wormwood, sage and marigold."
--Fletcher: _The Faithful Shepherdess_.
3. A course in Pickling.
In this course pretty nearly everything will be pickled, down to nasturtium buds and radish pods.
PACKING-HOUSE DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Salting Meat in the "powdering" tub.
2. A course in Smoking Hams and Bacons.
3. A course in Pickling Pig"s Feet and Ears.
4. A course in Headcheese and Sausages.
LIQUOR DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Beer. The making of wort out of barley. The making of barm out of hops. The fermenting of the two together in barrels.
(This course is not so much given now in New England, but it is an immemorial heritage of the female s.e.x. Gervayse Markham, in his standard book, "Instructions to a Good Housewife," says about beer: "It is the work and care of woman, for it is a housework. The man ought only to bring in the grain.")
2. A course in Light Drinks, such as Elderberry Wine.
CREAMERY DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Making b.u.t.ter.
2. A course in Making Cheese; curdling, breaking curds in basket, shaping in cheese-press, turning and rubbing cheese on cheese-ladder.
CLEANING DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Soap-Making.
2. A course in Making Brooms out of Guinea-wheat Straw.
3. A course in Starch-Making.
4. A course in Cleaning.
(This last course is very simple. Having manufactured the things to wash and sweep with, the mere washing and sweeping won"t take long.)
FRUIT DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Preserving. In this course everything will be preserved unless it already has been pickled.
BREAKFAST-FOOD DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Mush and forty kinds of Bread--Rhineinjun (sometimes called Rye and Indian), bun, bannock, jannock, rusk, etc., etc.
LIGHTING DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Dips. The melting of tallow or bayberries. The twisting of wicks. The attaching of wicks to rods. The dipping of them into the melted ma.s.s in the kettle. Patience in keeping on dipping them.
(Pupils taking this course are required to report each morning at five o"clock.)
2. A course in Wax Candles. The use of molds.
These departments might give a girl a pretty fair education of the hand and a pretty fair acquaintance with the technique and organization of the working world; but we haven"t yet mentioned the biggest and hardest department of all.
Before mentioning it, let us take a look at the picture reproduced in this chapter from a book published in the year 1493. This book was a French translation of Boccaccio"s collection of stories called "n.o.ble Women." The picture shows a woolen mill being operated in the grounds of a palace by a queen and her ladies-in-waiting. It summons back the days when even the daughters of kings and n.o.bles could not help acquiring a knowledge of the working world, because they were in it.