menu_book Chapter 4

this is chapter four of happy homes and the hearts that make them by samuel smiles read by john greenman this librivox recording is in the public domain chapter four home power live as long as you may the first twenty years is the longest half of your life southey home is the first and most important school of character it is there that every human being receives his best moral training or his worst for it is there that he imbibes those principles of conduct which endure through manhood and cease only with life It is a common saying that manners make the man, and there is a second that mind makes the man, but truer than either is a third that home makes the man.

For the home training includes not only manners and mind, but character. It is mainly in the home that the heart is opened, the habits are formed, the intellect is awakened, and the character moulded for good or for evil. From that source, be it pure or impure, issue the principles and maxims that govern society. Law itself is but the reflex of homes. The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life

afterwards issue forth to the world and become its public opinion, for nations are gathered out of nurseries, and they who hold the leading strings of children may even exercise a greater power than those who wield the reins of government. It is in the order of nature that domestic life should be preparatory to social, and that the mind and character should first be formed in the home. There the individuals who afterwards form society are dealt with in detail and fashioned one by one.

from the family they enter life and advance from boyhood to citizenship thus the home may be regarded as the most influential school of civilization for after all civilization mainly resolves itself into a question of individual training and according as the respective members of society are well or ill trained in youth so will the community which they constitute be more or less humanized and civilized the training of any man even the wisest cannot fail to be powerfully influenced by the moral surroundings of his early years he comes into the world helpless and absolutely dependent upon those about him for nurture and culture from the very first breath that he draws his education begins when a mother once asked a clergyman when she should begin the education of her child then four years old he replied madam if you have not begun already you have lost those four years from the first smile that gleams upon an infant's cheek your opportunity begins however apparently trivial the influences which contribute to form the character of the child

they endure through life the child's character is the nucleus of the man's all after education is but superposition the form of the crystal remains the same thus the saying of the poet holds true in a large degree the child is the father of the man or as milton puts it the childhood shows the man as morning shows the day those impulses to conduct which last the longest and are rooted the deepest always have their origin near our birth it is then that the germs of virtues or vices of feelings or sentiments are first implanted which determine the character for life the child is as it were laid at the gate of a new world and opens his eyes upon things all of which are full of novelty and wonderment at first it is enough for him to gaze but by and by he begins to see to observe to compare to learn to store up impressions and ideas and under wise guidance the progress which he makes is really wonderful

lord brougham has observed that between the ages of eighteen and thirty months a child learns more of the material world of his own powers of the nature of other bodies and even of his own mind and other minds than he acquires in all the rest of his life the knowledge which a child accumulates and the ideas generated in his mind during this period are so important that if we could imagine them to be afterwards obliterated all the learning of a senior wrangler at cambridge or a first-classman at oxford would be as nothing to it and would literally not enable its object to prolong its existence for a week it is in childhood that the mind is most open to impressions and ready to be kindled by the first spark that falls into it ideas are then caught quickly and retained thus scott is said to have received his first bent toward ballad literature from his mother's and grandmother's recitations in his hearing long before he himself had learned to read

Childhood is like a mirror which reflects in afterlife the images first presented to it. The first thing continues forever with the child. The first joy, the first sorrow, the first success, the first failure, the first achievement, the first misadventure, paint the foreground of his life. All this while, too, the training of his character is in progress, of the temper,

the will, and the habits, on which so much of the happiness of human beings in afterlife depends. Although man is endowed with a certain self-acting, self-helping power of contributing to his own development, independent of surrounding circumstances, and of reacting upon the life around him, the bias given to his moral character in early life is of immense importance. place even the highest-minded philosopher in the midst of daily discomfort, immorality, and vileness,

and he will insensibly gravitate toward brutality. How much more susceptible is the impressionable and helpless child amidst such sufferings? It is not possible to rear a kindly nature, sensitive to evil, pure in mind and heart, amidst coarseness, discomfort, and impurity. thus homes which are the nurseries of children who grow up into men and women will be good or bad according to the power that governs them where the spirit of love and duty pervades the home where head and heart bear rule wisely there

where the daily life is honest and virtuous, where the government is sensible, kind, and loving, then may we expect from such a home an issue of healthy, useful, and happy beings, capable, as they gain in the requisite strength, of following the footsteps of their parents, of walking uprightly, governing themselves wisely, and contributing to the welfare of those about them. On the other hand, if surrounded by ignorance, coarseness, and selfishness,

they will unconsciously assume the same character, and grow up to adult years rude, uncultivated, and all the more dangerous to society if placed amidst the manifold temptations of what is called civilized life. Give your child to be educated by a slave, said an ancient Greek, and, instead of one slave, you will then have two. The child cannot help imitating what he sees. Everything is to him a model of manner, of gesture, of speech, of habit, of character. For the child, says Richter,

the most important era of life is that of childhood, when he begins to color and mold himself by companionship with others. Every new educator affects less than his predecessor, until at last, if we regard all life as an educational institution, a circumnavigator of the world is less influenced by all the nations he has seen than by his nurse. Models are, therefore, of every importance in molding the nature of the child, and if we would have fine

characters, we must necessarily present before them fine models. Now, the model most constantly before every child's eye is the mother. One good mother, said George Herbert, is worth a hundred schoolmasters. In the home she is loadstone to all hearts, a loadstar to all eyes. Imitation of her is constant, imitation which Bacon likens to a globe of precepts.

But example is far more than precept. It is instruction in action. It is teaching without words, often exemplifying more than tongue can teach. in the face of bad example, the best of precepts are of but little avail. The example is followed, not the precepts. Indeed, precept at variance with practice is worse than useless,

inasmuch as it only serves to teach the most cowardly of vices, hypocrisy. Even children are judges of consistency, and the lessons of the parent who says one thing and does the opposite are quickly seen through. The teaching of the friar was not worth much, who preached the virtue of honesty, with a stolen goose in his sleeve. By imitation of acts, the character becomes slowly and imperceptibly, but at length decidedly formed. The several acts may seem in themselves

trivial, but so are the continuous acts of daily life. Like snowflakes, they fall unperceived. Each flake added to the pile produces no sensible change, and yet the accumulation of snowflakes makes the avalanche. So do repeated acts, one following another, at length become consolidated in habit, determine the action of the human being for good or for evil, and, in a word, form the character.

It is because the mother, far more than the father, influences the action and conduct of the child, that her good example is of so much greater importance in the home. It is easy to understand how this should be so. The home is the woman's domain, her kingdom, where she exercises entire control. Her power over the little subjects she rules there is absolute. They look up to her for everything.

She is the example and model constantly before their eyes, whom they unconsciously observe and imitate. Cowley, speaking of the influence of early example and ideas early implanted in the mind, compares them to letters cut in the bark of a young tree, which grow and widen with age. The impressions then made, however slight they may seem, are never effaced. The ideas then implanted in the mind are like seeds dropped into the ground, which lie there

and germinate for a time, afterwards springing up in acts and thoughts and habits. Thus the mother lives again in her children. They unconsciously mould themselves after her manner, her speech, her conduct, and her method of life. Her habits become theirs, and her character is visibly repeated in them. This maternal love is the visible providence of our race. Its influence is constant and universal. It begins with the education of the human being at the outstart

of life, and is prolonged by virtue of the powerful influence which every good mother exercises over her children through life. When launched into the world, each to take part in its labors, anxieties, and trials, they still turn to their mother for consolation, if not for counsel, in their time of trouble and difficulty. The pure and good thoughts she has implanted in their minds when children continue to grow up into good acts long after she is dead,

and when there is nothing but a memory of her left, her children rise up and call her blessed. It is not saying too much to aver that the happiness or misery, the enlightenment or ignorance, the civilization or barbarism of the world, depends in a very high degree upon the exercise of woman's power within her special kingdom of home. Indeed, Emerson says, broadly and truly, that a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women. Posterity may be said to

lie before us in the person of the child in the mother's lap. What that child will eventually become mainly depends upon the training and example which he has received from his first and most influential educator. Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain, but woman is the heart of humanity. He its judgment, she its feeling, he its strength, she its grace, ornament, and solace. Even the understanding of the best woman seems to work

mainly through her affections. And thus, though man may direct the intellect, woman cultivates the feelings, which mainly determine the character. While he fills the memory, she occupies the heart. She makes us love what he can only make us believe, and it is chiefly through her that we are enabled to arrive at virtue. The respective influences of the father and the mother on the training and developing of character are remarkably illustrated in the life of St. Augustine. While Augustine's

father, a poor freeman of Thagast, proud of his son's abilities, endeavored to furnish his mind with the highest learning of the schools, and was extolled by his neighbors for the sacrifices he made with that object, beyond the ability of his means. His mother Monica, on the other hand, sought to lead her son's mind in the direction of the highest good, and with pious care, counseled him, entreated him, advised him to chastity, and, amidst much anguish and tribulation

because of his wicked life, never ceased to pray for him until her prayers were heard and answered. Thus her love at last triumphed, and the patience and goodness of the mother were rewarded, not only by the conversion of her gifted son, but also of her husband. Later in life, and after her husband's death, Monica, drawn by her affection, followed her son to Milan to watch over him, and there she died when he was in his thirty-third year. But it was in the

earlier period of his life that her example and instruction made the deepest impression upon his mind and determined his future character. There are many similar instances of early impressions made upon a child's mind, springing up into good acts later in life, after an intervening period of selfishness and vice. Parents may do all that they can to develop an upright and virtuous character in their children, and apparently in vain. It seems like bread cast upon the waters,

and lost. And yet sometimes it happens that, long after the parents have gone to their rest, it may be twenty years or more, the good precept, the good example, set before their sons and daughters in childhood, at length springs up and bears fruit. One of the most remarkable of such instances was that of the Reverend John Newton of Olney, the friend of Cowper, the poet. It was long subsequent to the death of both his parents, and, after leading a vicious life as a youth and

as a seaman, that he became suddenly awakened to a sense of his depravity, and then it was that the lessons which his mother had given him when a child sprang up vividly in his memory. Her voice came to him, as if it were from the dead, and led him gently back to virtue and goodness.

Another instance is that of John Randolph, the American statesman, who once said, I should have been an atheist, if it had not been for one recollection, and that was the memory of the time when my departed mother used to take my little hand in hers and cause me on my knees to say, Our Father who art in heaven. But such instances must on the whole be regarded as exceptional. As the character is based in early life, so it generally remains, gradually assuming

its permanent form as manhood is reached. "'Live as long as you may,' said Southey. "'The first twenty years are the longest half of your life, and they are by far the most pregnant in consequences. When the worn-out slanderer and voluptuary, Dr. Wolcott, lay on his deathbed, one of his

friends asked if he could do anything to gratify him. yes said the dying man eagerly give me back my youth give him but that and he would repent he would reform but it was all too late his life had become bound and enthralled by the chains of habit gretry the musical composer thought so highly of the importance of woman as an educator of character that he described a good mother as nature's masterpiece and he was right for good mothers far more than fathers tend to the perpetual renovation of mankind creating as they do the moral atmosphere of the home which is the nutriment of man's moral being as the physical atmosphere is of his corporeal frame by good temper suavity and kindness directed by intelligence woman surrounds the indwellers with a pervading atmosphere of cheerfulness contentment and peace suitable for the growth of the purest as of the manliest natures

The poorest dwelling presided over by a virtuous, thrifty, cheerful, and cleanly woman may thus be the abode of comfort, virtue, and happiness. It may be the scene of every ennobling relation in family life. It may be endeared to a man by many delightful associations, furnishing a sanctuary for the heart, a refuge from the storms of life, a sweet resting place after labor, a consolation in misfortune, a pride in prosperity, and a joy at all times. The good home is thus the best of

schools, not only in youth, but in age. There, young and old, best learn cheerfulness, patience, self-control and the spirit of service and of duty isaac walton speaking of george herbert's mother says she governed her family with judicious care not rigidly or sourly but with such a sweetness and compliance with the recreations and pleasures of youth as did incline them to spend much of their time in her company which was to her great content the home is the true school of courtesy of which woman is always the best practical instructor philanthropy radiates from the home as from a center to love the little platoon we belong to in society said burke is the germ of all public affections

the wisest and the best have not been ashamed to own it to be their greatest joy and happiness to sit behind the heads of children in the inviolable circle of home a life of purity and duty there is not the least effectual preparative for a life of public work and duty and the man who loves his home will not the less fondly love and serve his country but while homes which are the nurseries of character may be the best of schools they may also be the worst between childhood and manhood how incalculable is the mischief which ignorance in the home has the power to cause between the drawing of the first breath and the last how vast is the moral suffering and disease occasioned by incompetent mothers and nurses commit a child to the care of a worthless ignorant woman and no culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done let the mother be idle vicious and a slattern let her home be pervaded by cavilling petulance and discontent and it will become a dwelling of misery a place to fly from rather than to fly to

and the children whose misfortune it is to be brought up there will be morally dwarfed and deformed the cause of misery to themselves as well as to others napoleon bonaparte was accustomed to say that the future good or bad conduct of a child depended entirely on the mother he himself attributed his rise in life in a great measure to the training of his will his energy and his self-control by his mother at home nobody had any command over him says one of his biographers except his mother who found means by a mixture of tenderness severity and justice to make him love respect and obey her from her he learnt the virtue of obedience a curious illustration of the dependence of the character of children on that of the mother incidentally occurs in one of mr tufnell's school reports the truth he observes is so well established that it has even been made subservient to mercantile calculation

i was informed he says in a large factory where many children were employed that the managers before they engaged a boy always inquired into the mother's character and if that was satisfactory they were tolerably certain her children would conduct themselves creditably no attention was paid to the character of the father it has also been observed that in cases where the father has turned out badly become a drunkard and gone to the dogs provided the mother is prudent and sensible the family will be kept together and the children probably make their way honourably in life whereas in cases of the opposite sort where the mother turns out badly no matter how well conducted the father may be the instances of oft a success in life on the part of the children are comparatively rare the greater part of the influence exercised by women on the formation of character necessarily remains unknown they accomplish their best works in the quiet seclusion of the home and the family by sustained effort and patient perseverance in the path of duty

their greatest triumphs because private and domestic are rarely recorded and it is not often even in the biographies of distinguished men that we hear of the share which their mothers have had in the formation of their character and in giving them a bias towards goodness yet are they not on that account without their reward the influence they have exercised though unrecorded lives after them and goes on propagating itself in consequences forever We do not so often hear of great women as we do of great men. It is of good women that we mostly hear, and it is probable that by determining the character of men and women for good, they are doing even greater work than if they were to paint great pictures, write great books, or compose

great operas. It is quite true, said Joseph de Maestra, that women have produced no masterpieces. They have written no Iliad, nor Jerusalem delivered, nor Hamlet, nor Phaedra, nor Paradise lost, nor Tartuffe. They have designed no church of St. Peter's, composed no Messiah, carved no Apollo Belvedere, painted no Last Judgment. They have invented neither algebra, nor telescopes, nor steam-engines but they have done something far greater and better than all this for it is at their knees that upright and virtuous men and women have been trained the most excellent productions in the world

de maistre in his letters and writings speaks of his own mother with immense love and reverence her noble character made all other women venerable in his eyes he described her as his sublime mother an angel to whom god had lent a body for a brief season to her he attributed the bent of his character and all his bias towards good and when he had grown to mature years while acting as ambassador at the court of st petersburg he referred to her noble example and precepts as the ruling influence in his life one of the most charming features in the character of samuel johnson notwithstanding his rough and shaggy exterior was the tenderness with which he invariably spoke of his mother a woman of strong understanding who firmly implanted in his mind as he himself acknowledges his first impressions of religion he was accustomed even in the time of his greatest difficulties to contribute largely out of his slender means to her comfort and one of his last acts of filial duty was to write rossellus for the purpose of paying her little debts and defraying her funeral charges

george washington was only eleven years of age the eldest of five children when his father died leaving his mother a widow she was a woman of rare excellence full of resources a good woman of business an excellent manager and possessed of much strength of character she had her children to educate and bring up a large household to govern and extensive estates to manage all of which she accomplished with complete success her good sense assiduity tenderness industry and vigilance enabled her to overcome every obstacle and as the richest reward of her solicitude and toil she had the happiness to see all her children come forward with a fair promise into life filling the spheres allotted to them in a manner equally honorable to themselves and to the parent who had been the only guide of their principles conduct and habits the biographer of cromwell says little about the protector's father but dwells upon the character of his mother whom he describes as a woman of rare vigor and decision of purpose a woman he says possessed of the glorious faculty of self-help when other assistants failed her

ready for the demands of fortune in its extremest adverse turn of spirit and energy equal to her mildness and patience who with the labor of her own hands gave dowries to five daughters sufficient to marry them into families as honorable but more wealthy than their own whose single pride was honesty and whose passion was love who persevered in the gorgeous palace at whitehall the simple tastes that distinguished her in the old brewery at huntingdon and whose only care amidst all her splendor was for the safety of her son in his dangerous eminence we have spoken of the mother of napoleon bonaparte as a woman of great force of character not less so was the mother of the duke of wellington whom her son strikingly resembled in features person and character while his father was principally distinguished as a musical composer and performer but strange to say wellington's mother mistook him for a dunce and for some reason or other he was not such a favorite as her other children until his great deeds in after life constrained her to be proud of him

The Napiers were blessed in both parents, but especially in their mother, Lady Sarah Lennox, who early sought to inspire their sons' minds with elevating thoughts, admiration of noble deeds, and a chivalrous spirit which became embodied in their lives, and continued to sustain them until death in the path of duty and of honor. Among statesmen, lawyers, and divines, we find marked mention made of the mothers of Lord Chancellors Bacon, Erskine, and Brougham,

all women of great ability, and in the case of the first, of great learning, as well as of the mothers of Canning, Curran, and President Adams, of Herbert, Paley, and Wesley. Lord Brougham speaks in terms almost approaching reverence of his grandmother, the sister of Professor Robertson, as having been mainly instrumental in instilling into his mind a strong desire for information, and the first principles of that persevering energy in the pursuit of every kind of knowledge,

which formed his prominent characteristic throughout life. Canning's mother was an Irish woman of great natural ability, for whom her gifted son entertained the greatest love and respect to the close of his career. She was a woman of ordinary intellectual power. Indeed, says Canning's biographer, were we not otherwise assured of the fact from direct sources, it would be impossible to contemplate his profound and touching devotion to her,

without being led to conclude that the object of such unchanging attachment must have been possessed of rare and commanding qualities. She was esteemed by the circle in which she lived as a woman of great mental energy. Her conversation was animated and vigorous, and marked by a distinct originality of manner and a choice of topics fresh and striking, and out of commonplace routine. To persons who were but slightly acquainted with her,

the energy of her manner had even something of the air of eccentricity. curran speaks with great affection of his mother as a woman of strong original understanding to whose wise counsel consistent piety and lessons of honorable ambition which she diligently enforced on the minds of her children he himself principally attributed his success in life the only inheritance he used to say that i could boast of from my poor father was the very scanty one of an unattractive face and person like his own and if the world has ever attributed to me something more valuable than face or person or than earthly wealth it was that another and a dearer parent gave her child a portion from the treasure of her mind when ex-president adams was present at the examination of a girls school in boston he was presented by the pupils with an address which deeply affected him

and in acknowledging it he took the opportunity of referring to the lasting influence which womanly training and association had exercised upon his own life and character as a child he said i enjoyed perhaps the greatest of blessings that can be bestowed on man that of a mother who was anxious and capable to form the characters of her children rightly from her i derived whatever instruction religious especially and moral has pervaded a long life i will not say perfectly or as it ought to be but i will say because it is only justice to the memory of her i revere that in the course of that life whatever imperfection there has been or deviation from what she taught me the fault is mine and not hers the wesleys were particularly linked to their parents by natural piety though the mother rather than the father influenced their minds and developed their characters

the father was a man of strong will but occasionally harsh and tyrannical in his dealings with his family while the mother with much strength of understanding and ardent love of truth was gentle persuasive affectionate and simple she was the teacher and cheerful companion of her children who gradually became moulded by her example it was through the bias given by her to her sons minds in religious matters that they acquired the tendency which even in early years drew to them the name of methodist in a letter to her son samuel wesley when a scholar at westminster in seventeen o nine she said i would advise you as much as possible to throw your business into a certain method by which means you will learn to improve every precious moment and find an unspeakable facility in the performance of your respective duties this method she went on to describe exhorting her son in all things to act upon principle and the society which the brothers john and charles afterward founded at oxford is supposed to have been in a great measure the result of her exhortations

in the case of poets literary men and artists the influence of the mother's feeling and taste has doubtless had great effect in directing the genius of their sons and we find this especially illustrated in the lives of gray thompson scott southey bulwer schiller and goethe Gray inherited, almost complete, his kind and loving nature from his mother, while his father was harsh and unamiable. Gray was, in fact, a feminine man, shy, reserved, and wanting in energy, but thoroughly irreproachable in life and character. The poet's mother maintained the

family after her unworthy husband had deserted her, and, at her death, Gray placed on her grave an epitaph describing her as the careful, tender mother of many children, one of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her. The poet himself was, at his own desire, interred beside her worshipped grave. Goethe, like Schiller, owned the bias of his mind and character to his mother, who was a woman of extraordinary gifts. She was full of joyous, flowing mother-wit,

and possessed in a high degree the art of stimulating young and active minds, instructing them in the science of life out of the treasures of her abundant experience. After a lengthened interview with her, an enthusiastic traveller said, Now do I understand how Goethe has become the man he is. Goethe himself affectionately cherished her memory.

She was worthy of life, he once said of her, and when he visited Frankfurt he sought out every individual who had been kind to his mother, and thanked them all. It was Ari Schaeffer's mother, whose beautiful features the painter so loved to reproduce in his pictures of Beatrice, St. Monica, and others of his works, that encouraged his study of art, and by great self-denial provided him with the means of

pursuing it. While living at Dordrecht in Holland, she first sent him to Lille to study, and afterwards to Paris, and her letters to him, while absent, were always full of sound motherly advice and affectionate womanly sympathy. If you could but see me, she wrote on one occasion, kissing your picture, then, after a while, taking it up again, and, with a tear in my eye, calling you my beloved son, you would comprehend what it costs me to use sometimes the stern language

of authority, and to occasion to you moments of pain. Work diligently, be above all modest and humble, and when you find yourself excelling others, then compare what you have done with nature itself, or with the ideal of your own mind, and you will be secured by the contrast which will be apparent against the effects of pride and presumption. Long years after, when Arie Schaeffer was himself a grandfather,

he remembered with affection the advice of his mother, and repeated it to his children, and thus the vital power of good example lives on from generation to generation, keeping the world ever fresh and young. Writing to his daughter, Madame Marjolin, in 1846, his departed mother's advice recurred to him, and he said, The word must. Fix it well in your

memory, dear child. Your grandmother seldom had it out of hers. The truth is that through our lives nothing brings any good fruit except what is earned by either the work of the hands or by the exertion of one's self-denial. Sacrifices must, in short, be ever going on if we would obtain any comfort or happiness. Now that I am no longer young, I declare that few passages in my life afford me so much satisfaction as those in which I made sacrifices or denied myself

enjoyments. The forbidden is the motto of the wise man. Self-denial is the quality of which Jesus Christ set us the example. The French historian Michelet makes the following touching reference to his mother in the preface to one of his most popular books, the subject of much embittered controversy at the time at which it appeared. While writing all this, I have had in my mind a woman whose strong and serious mind would not have failed to support me in these

contentions. I lost her thirty years ago. I was a child then. Nevertheless, ever living in my memory she follows me from age to age. She suffered with me in my poverty, and was not allowed to share my better fortune. When young I made her sad, and now I cannot console her. I know not even where her bones are. I was too poor then to buy earth to bury her. And yet I owe her much i feel deeply that i am the son of woman every instant in my ideas and words not to mention my features and gestures i find again my mother in myself

it is my mother's blood which gives me the sympathy i feel for bygone ages and the tender remembrance of all those who are now no more what return then could i who am myself advancing towards old age make her for the many things i owe her one for which she would have thanked me this protest in favor of women and mothers but while a mother may greatly influence the poetic or artistic mind of her son for good she may also influence it for evil thus the characteristics of lord byron the waywardness of his impulses his defiance of restraint the bitterness of his hate and the precipitancy of his resentments were traceable in no small degree to the adverse influences exercised upon his mind from his birth by his capricious violent and headstrong mother she even taunted her son with his personal deformity and it was no unfrequent occurrence in the violent quarrels which occurred between them

for her to take up the poker or tongs and hurl them after him as he fled from her presence it was this unnatural treatment that gave a morbid turn to byron's after-life and careworn unhappy great and yet weak as he was he carried about with him the mother's poison which he had sucked in his infancy in like manner though in a different way the character of mrs foote the actor's mother was curiously repeated in the life of her joyous jovial-hearted son though she had been heiress to a large fortune she soon spent it all and was at length imprisoned for debt in this condition she wrote to sam who had been allowing her a hundred a year out of the proceeds of his acting dear sam i am in prison for debt come and assist your loving mother e foote to which her son characteristically replied dear mother so am i which prevents his duty being paid to his loving mother by her affectionate son sam foote

we have spoken of the mother of washington as an excellent woman of business and to possess such a quality as capacity for business is not only compatible with true womanliness but is in a measure essential to the comfort and well-being of every properly governed family habits of business do not relate to trade merely but apply to all the practical affairs of life to everything that has to be arranged or be organized to be provided for to be done and in all those respects the management of a family and of a household is as much a matter of business as the management of a shop or of a counting-house it requires method accuracy organization industry economy discipline tact knowledge and capacity for adapting means to ends all this is of the essence of business and hence business habits are as necessary to be cultivated by women who would succeed in the affairs of home in other words who would make home happy as by men in the affairs of trade of commerce or of manufacture the idea has however heretofore prevailed that women have no concern with such matters and that business habits and qualifications relate to men only

take for instance the knowledge of figures mr bright has said of boys teach a boy arithmetic thoroughly and he is a made man and why because it teaches him method accuracy value proportions relations But how many girls are taught arithmetic well? Very few, indeed. And what is the consequence? When the girl becomes a wife, if she knows nothing of figures, and is innocent of addition

and multiplication, she can keep no record of income and expenditure, and there will probably be a succession of mistakes committed which may be prolific in domestic contention. The woman, not being up to her business, that is, the management of her domestic affairs in conformity with the simple principles of arithmetic, will, through sheer ignorance, be apt to commit extravagancies, though unintentional, which may be most injurious to her family peace

and comfort. Method, which is the soul of business, is also of essential importance in the home. Work can only be got through by method. Method demands punctuality, another eminently business quality. The unpunctual woman, like the unpunctual man, occasions dislike, because she consumes and wastes time, and provokes the reflection that we are not of sufficient importance to make her more prompt. To the business man, time is money, but to the

business woman, method is more. It is peace, comfort, and domestic prosperity. Prudence is another important business quality in women, as in men. Prudence is practical wisdom, and comes of the cultivated judgment. It has reference in all things to fitness, to propriety, judging wisely of the right thing to be done, and the right way of doing it. It calculates the means, order, time, and method of doing. Prudence learns from experience, quickened by knowledge. For these,

Among other reasons, habits of business are necessary to be cultivated by all women in order to their being efficient helpers in the world's daily life and work. Furthermore, to direct the power of the home aright, women, as the nurses, trainers, and educators of children, need all the help and strength that mental culture can give them. Mere instinctive love is not sufficient.

instinct which preserves the lower creatures needs no training but human intelligence which is in constant request in a family needs to be educated the physical health of the rising generation is entrusted to woman by providence and it is in the physical nature that the moral and mental nature lies enshrined it is only by acting in accordance with the natural laws which before she can follow woman must needs understand that the blessings of health of body and health of mind and morals can be secured at home without a knowledge of such laws the mother's love too often finds its recompense only in a child's coffin that about one-third of all the children born in this country die under five years of age can only be attributable to ignorance of the natural laws ignorance of the human constitution and ignorance of the uses of pure air pure water and of the art of preparing and administering wholesome food there is no such mortality among the lower animals

woman was not meant to be either an unthinking drudge or the merely pretty ornament of man's leisure she exists for herself as well as for others and the serious and responsible duties she is called upon to perform in life require the cultivated head as well as the sympathizing heart her highest mission is not to be fulfilled by the mastery of fleeting accomplishments on which so much useful time is now wasted for though accomplishments may enhance the charms of youth and beauty of themselves sufficiently charming they will be found of very little use in the affairs of real life the highest praise which the ancient romans could express of a noble matron was that she sat at home and spun in our own time it has been said that chemistry enough to keep the pot boiling and geography enough to know the different rooms in her house was science enough for any woman while byron whose sympathies for woman were of a very imperfect kind professed that he would limit her library to a bible and a cookery book

but this view of woman's character and culture is as absurdly narrow and unintelligent on the one hand as the opposite view now so much in vogue is extravagant and unnatural on the other that woman ought to be educated so as to be as much as possible the equal of man undistinguishable from him except in sex equal to him in rights and votes and his competitor in all that makes life a fierce and selfish struggle for place and power and money speaking generally the training and discipline that are most suitable for the one sex in early life are also the most suitable for the other and the education and culture that fill the mind of the man will prove equally wholesome to the woman indeed all the arguments which have yet been advanced in favor of the higher education of men plead equally strongly in favor of the higher education of women in all the departments of home intelligence will add to woman's usefulness and efficiency it will give her thought and forethought enable her to anticipate and provide for the contingencies of life

suggest improved methods of management and give her strength in every way in disciplined mental power she will find a stronger and safer protection against deception and imposture than in mere innocent and unsuspecting ignorance in moral and religious culture she will secure sources of influence more powerful and enduring than in physical attractions and in due self-reliance and self-dependence she will discover the truest sources of domestic comfort and happiness but while the mind and character of women ought to be cultivated with a view to their own well-being they ought not the less to be educated liberally with a view to the happiness of others men themselves cannot be sound in mind or morals if women be the reverse and if as we hold to be the case the moral condition of a people mainly depends upon the education of the home then the education of women is to be regarded as a matter of national importance not only does the moral character but the mental strength of man find its best safeguard and support in the moral purity and mental cultivation of woman

but the more completely the powers of both are developed the more harmonious and well ordered will society be the more safe and certain its elevation and advancement when about fifty years since the first napoleon said that the great want of france was mother's he meant in other words that the french people needed the education of homes presided over by good virtuous intelligent women indeed the first french revolution presented one of the most striking illustrations of the social mischiefs resulting from the neglect of the purifying influence of women when that great national outbreak occurred society was impenetrated with vice and profligacy morals religion virtue were swamped by sensualism the character of woman had become depraved conjugal fidelity was disregarded maternity was held in reproach family and home were alike corrupted domestic purity no longer bound society together france was motherless the children broke loose and the revolution burst forth amidst the yells and the fierce violence of women

but the terrible lesson was disregarded and again and again france has grievously suffered from the want of that discipline obedience self-control and self-respect which can only be truly learnt at home it is said that the third napoleon attributed the recent powerlessness of france which left her helpless and bleeding at the feet of her conquerors to the frivolity and lack of principles of the people as well as to their love of pleasure which however it must be confessed he himself did not a little to foster it would thus seem that the discipline which france still needs to learn if she would be good and great is that indicated by the first napoleon home education by good mothers The influence of woman is the same everywhere. Her condition influences the morals, manners, and character of the people in all countries.

Where she is debased, society is debased. Where she is morally pure and enlightened, society will be proportionately elevated. Hence, to instruct woman is to instruct man. To elevate her character is to raise his own. To enlarge her mental freedom is to extend and secure that of the whole community, for nations are but the outcomes of homes and peoples of mothers.

But while it is certain that the character of a nation will be elevated by the enlightenment and refinement of woman, it is much more than doubtful whether any advantage is to be derived from her entering into competition with man in the rough work of business and politics. women can no more do men's special work in the world than men can do women's and wherever woman has been withdrawn from her home and family to enter upon other work the result has been socially disastrous indeed the efforts of some of the best philanthropists have of late years been devoted to withdrawing women from toiling alongside of men in coal-pits factories nail-shops and brick-yards it is still not uncommon in the north for the husbands to be idle at home while the mothers and daughters are working in the factory the result being in many cases an entire subversion of family order of domestic discipline and of home rule and for many years past in paris that state of things has been reached which some women desire to effect among ourselves the women there mainly attend to business while the men lounge about the boulevards

but the result has only been homelessness degeneracy and family and social decay nor is there any reason to believe that the elevation and improvement of women are to be secured by investing them with political power there are however in these days many believers in the potentiality of votes who anticipate some indefinite good from the enfranchisement of women it is not necessary here to enter upon the discussion of this question but it may be sufficient to state that the power which women do not possess politically is far more than compensated by that which they exercise in private life by their training in the home those who whether as men or as women do all the manly as well as womanly work of the world the radical bentham has said that man even if he would cannot keep power from woman for that she already governs the world with the whole power of a despot though the power that she mainly governs by is love

and to form the character of the whole human race is certainly a power far greater than that which women could ever hope to exercise as voters for members of parliament or even as lawmakers there is however one special department of women's work demanding the earnest attention of all true female reformers though it is one which has hitherto been unaccountably neglected we mean the better economizing and preparation of human food the waste of which at present for want of the most ordinary culinary knowledge is little short of scandalous if that man is to be regarded as a benefactor of his species who makes two stalks of corn to grow where only one grew before not less is she to be regarded as a public benefactor who economizes and turns to the best practical account the food products of human skill and labor the improved use of even our existing supply would be equivalent to an immediate extension of the cultivatable acreage of our country not to speak of the increase in health economy and domestic comfort

were our female reformers only to turn their energies in this direction with effect they would earn the gratitude of all households and be esteemed as among the greatest of all practical philanthropists End of chapter 4 Home Power Read by John Greenman