Household economy : a manual intended for female training colleges and the senior classes of girls' schools

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I

Chapter I. Introductory Address To Teachers

A FEW weeks ago, I went into a Training College for Female Teachers. It was a solemn sight. Probably those who sat there — some indifferent, others idle, others with ringlets or dangling ribbons, busily occupied in watching their neighbours and visitors, others eager to display their cleverness and well-prepared lessons — did not think that it was solemn at all. Perhaps even those gi-ave, modest, intelligent pupils, whom I rejoiced to see there, did not fully realize how solemn and how suggestive it was of anxious and earnest thought.

Dear friends, read with me a passage in your Bibles, which you must often have read before : “ Who can find a virtuous woman 'i for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good, and not evil, all the days of her life. She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. She is like the merchants’ ships ; she bringeth her food from afar. She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens. She considereth a field, and buyeth it : with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms. She perceiveth that her merchandise is good : her candle goeth not out by night. She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. She stretcheth out her hand to the poor ; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of the snow for her household ; for

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DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

all her household are clothed with double garments.^ She maketh herself coverings of tapestry ; her clothing is silk and purple. Pier husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land. She maketh fine linen, and selleth it ; and delivereth gu’dles unto the merchant. Strength and honour are her clothing ; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom ; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh w'ell to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed ; her husband also, and lie praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain : but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.” ^ Then compare these words: “A foolish woman is clamorous : she is simple, and kuoweth nothing. She is loud and stubborn ; her feet abide not in her house. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house. Every wise woman buildeth her house : but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.” ®

You will find here two pictures : the one of woman as she ought to be ; the other of woman as she often is. Were you in the position of other young women of your years, with no one but yourselves to train and teach, or with one or two young sisters around you, or with the distant probabihty of having a few chilli ren of your own, — even then this startling contrast ought to make you think and pray, and learn humbly to choose the better part. How much more when each one of you sitting there, carelessly or calmly, is to have direct influence for many years of your life over successive hundreds of young girls ! The time will come when, with your classes before you, the awful responsibility will rest upon your conscience, whether those youthful beings may become the one kind of woman first described, or the other, the curse or the blessing to themselves and all around them.

Few sights are more significant and touching than the groups of children, gathered out of many homes, around their teacher. What is to be their earthly future ? That little sun-burnt honest face may be a wife in whom the heart of her husband shall trust, whose clothing shall be strength and honour ; that other childish

* See marginal reading.

* ProTerb.s ix. 13 ; vii. 11, 27 ; xxi. 9 ; xir. 1.

■•I Proverbs xxxi. 10-30.

INTKODUCTOllY ADDRESS TO TEACHERS.

form may yet be a luotlier whose chihli'en shall rise up and call her blessed ; that little one with the feir rosy cheeks may, alas ! turn into one laden with many lusts, whose ways are the ways of death ; another may be the good and faithful servant, so rare and so precious in the eye of the Master in Heaven, as well as the master on earth ; another yet may be the brawling woman who bringeth woe to all around her, or a tattler and busybody, spreading mischief from house to house. But how solemn the question, and largely dependent on the other. What shall the everlasting future of these children be 1

Dear friends, is it not, then, a solemn thing to be in training to take upon yourselves much of these two futures 1 Unless

you learn well, you will never be able to teach well. Unless

you educate yourselves, not only by the book, or in the class-room, but in the house, in the highway, in the quiet hours of thought, in the joys and sorrows of life, you will never be able to educate others. Unless you have chosen the portion of God’s Word and God’s Spirit for your own, you cannot help your future pupils to obtain the Strong and Wise Guide, who can alone teach successfully all things, from “the things that are of Jesus,” to the performance of the commonest duties. It has been said that “ The teacher is the parent of the soul : the seat of the teacher is the throne of the world.”^ But the only way of attaining to this honourable position is for the teacher to be and to do what she expects her pupils to be and to do also ; without this element in her work, she is but a name and not a reality. The teaching of the head is not in much danger of being neglected in the present days ; the intellectual progress of her pupils reflects credit upon the teacher, — she is proud of the quick answer, the intelligent definition, and the approbation of school-inspectors and fashionable visitors : but it is not always so with the teaching of the hands. There is, apparently, nothing to excite jiraise and admiration in the neat sewing, the superior knowledge of cookery, the best modes of baking and washing, the intelligent comprehension of common things, too often, alas ! the most uncommon of all kinds of knowledge, the most neglected of all acquii-ements. Who gave the hand, with its beautiful powers of adaptation to every manner of work 1 Who added to the hand of woman, if destitute of the stronger grasp, its more delicate powers of touch

> Archdeacon Allen, in Lectures to Ladies on Practical Suhjects.

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aud action ? Wiio but the Giver of every good and perfect gift 1 He it is, moreover, who has so cast the lot of woman, that to be ignorant and idle in the use of the hands, is a curse of which no goocbiess of intention, no education of the mind, nay, even no religion of the heart can prevent the bad and dangerous consequences to those depending on her. It is this teaching of the hands, — combined with proper application of the head, without which it is of no avail, — to which the following book is to be especially dedicated.

Both teachers and pupils often look down upon the common things which form the subjects of instruction in “ Domestic Economy,” as unworthy of intelligent and educated women, and when obliged to perform a certain routine of these duties, they hurry them over as quite apart from the more noble and interesting parts of education. To do so, only shows ignorance and want of thought. Do you know what “ domestic economy” means ? or when you have heard it defined in the class-room, have you really thought and understood that it does not mean only saving money, or being stingy and narrow-minded and stupid. Economy will teach you how to give and to save, how to buy and to sell, how to lend and to spend, how to be just and how to be generous. Economy will teach you “ how to live and how to make others live in the best possible way.” Economy means “ the wise management of labour,” whether shown “ in the administration of a house or a kingdom,” or of God’s beautiful world. The weak woman and the mighty statesman, are, or ought to be, putting into practice the same principle which created and which governs the universe.

Domestic economy is the salt which would preserve the nation from much of its festering and loathsome corruption. Yes, my friends, it is to be the work of you, and such as you, to train and teach the future wives and mothers of your country. A far different nation would England be, if no husbands, no fathers, no brothers, were driven to the taverns and gin-palaces, and from thence to the prisons, the hulks, and the gallows, by women ignorant of common things, — by homes destitute of common comforts. Of these things as well as many others, it may be said that

“ Great floods have flown from simple sources.”

Listen to these words : “ A nation is made powerful and to be honoured in the world, not so much by the number of its people, as by the ability and character of that people ; and the ability and

INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO TEACHERS.

character of a people depend in a great measure upon the economy of the several families which make up that nation. There never yet was, and never yuII be, a nation permanently great consisting for the greater part of WTetched and miserable families.” ^

Domestic economy is the chief way of preserving and using that wonderful gift, ivomaris influence ; and bringing it to bear upon higher things. Women may be proud of this power, may try to prove that they possess much of it, may think that they use it bravely ; they may call up their pretty looks, their winning ways, their clever speeches, their religious intentions, their knowledge of reading and w'riting, and crochet and dancing, but without common sense and practical knowledge, they will still be useless and unhappy wives and mothers. In the tradesman’s kitchen, in the working-man’s cottage, or in houses of greater wealth and higher pretension, they will still be women without influence, or rather (as that is impossible) women exerting a bad and deteriorating influence upon husbands, children, friends, and servants.

To consider that the teaching of the hands is a thing separate and far apart from the teaching of the head, is also another proof of ignorance, whether exhibited by the teacher or the pupil. The education of “ common things” cannot he rightly imparted or received without the exercise of thought and intellect : it will be productive of a far higher and more complete intelligence than the education consisting only of the rules of arithmetic — the correct geographical lessons — the glibly repeated historical dates and events. To be taught to think, is the basis of all education. To sisk and to be answered, and to be able to tell again, the how and the wherefore of the daily material of the daily work of the hands, is a direct and successful exertion of observation and mental power, — requiring, moreover, no slight or superficial knowledge of what has been called “ Household Science,” comprising the nature of the atmosphere, the effects of light and heat, the products of the soil, the properties of the different substances used as food, the processes by which the fibres of the plant, the lining of the nut, and the threads of the worm, are manufactured into useful and beautiful articles of clothing. It has been well said, “ If woman has been trained to live by How and Why, always pouring down by these conductors the whole energy of the mind upon the matter actually on hand, she will surely make a wise wife or a clever servant.

> Cnbbett’s Cotlape. Efonomt/.

DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

There is nothing in English men and women to prevent the vast majority of them from going about their work in this way, except tlie want of early stimulus to a free and full habit of thought, this being the defect of nearly all our schools.”^ Nor is such education destitute of beauty ; it will not teach you or force you to teach your future pupils to become so dry and practical, that you will turn into scientific drudges, or useful pokers, — you may train yourselves, and you may train them to see in all these things that marvellous adaptation which is the principle of all beauty, and that interest which must ever result from a knowledge of the wise and beautifid gifts of the Good Giver. We only need to teach and to be taught How to observe, or How to have our eyes open in places full of beauty, which we have hitherto walked through with sealed eyes and locked hearts.

The object of this introductory chapter will not have been answered unless you are prepared to go through the remainder of the volume with an interest and an anxiety which you did not feel before, unless you have cast away any scorn of practical everyday work which, like “ ill weeds,” has been growing apace in your minds, and unless you are determined to learn as those who are to teach “ common things” with the earnestness and sympathy of educated and intelligent women. No good will ever be done by those who think that they are “ above” such things, and who teach them as something belonging to their pupils, and not to themselves. They belong, or ought to belong, to the scholar in her homely cottage, to the teacher in her spacious schoolroom, to the wife in her one room, be it cellar or garret, to the lady in her drawing-room, and to the peeress in her castle.

' Dickens’ Household Words.

HOW TO KEEP WELL.

Chapter II

Without health there can be but partial domestic economy at the best : generally speaking, when health fails, there is an end of all economy. Sad it is for the poor man’s household when sickness enters there, — when the father cannot go to his daily labour, when the mother is prevented fron carrying out her plans of activity and industry ; when doctors and drugs take up at one sweep the savings of the past, and the earnings of the present, and there is no resource for the most prudent but ranning into debt. I have, therefore, placed health foremost in my instructions upon domestic economy. Perhaps you are surprised that it should form a part of instruction at all, and are disposed to think that health is a blessing for which we can only be thankful when we have it, and resigned when it is taken away. Health, however, is very much more within our own reach than is generally supposed ; eommon sense, common care, and common preventives will do much, and therefore I would earnestly recommend the subject to your careful attention, so that in your future teachings you may never forget that “ how to keep well,” is a far easier and more useful lesson, than “ how to be cured when we are ill.” I shall divide this chapter into six sections — I. The choice of a house. II. Light. HI. The use of bathing. IV. External cleanliness. V. Ventilation. VI. How to escape fever poisons.

I. T/ie Choice of a House . — The importance of this consideration cannot be too strongly impressed upon women who may become the wives of artisans or tradesmen. Too often, they think, that it does not belong to them to interfere, and the matter is left to John or Thomas ; those fatal words, “ It doesn’t signify,” or a

DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

“ anything will do for us,” are heard, because it only concerns the health and happiness of themselves and their children for many years of life, — words that are never heard when finery of dress or “ gentility” of furniture are in (question, which are considered as strictly feminine objects of interest. If the house be low and damp there will be agues, and rheumatisms, and colds, and depression of spirits : to work and to be cheerful will be “ under difficulties,” because when the air is already saturated with moisture, it refuses to receive the additional portion offered to it from the lungs and skin, which therefore returns into the sj'-stem. The poisonous or unhealthy vapoura also, which arise in a dwelling, are debarred from their usual way of escape into a fresh dry air, and thus epidemic diseases are much more common in a damp than in a dry locality. If the exposure be to the north, more fuel will be required to waim the chill dark rooms. If there are bad drains and polluted air, the inhabitants will be liable to cholera, and typhus, and consumption, and scrofula, because, as will be more fully explained to you in another section, the atmosphere is thus filled with poisonous vaj)Ours, which go into the system, and cause disease and death as surely as the fatal draught of the poisoner. If there be only one room in which are to be huddled father and mother and children — and perhaps a lodger — health, cleanliness, and propriety become almost impossible. What urgent need, then, to teach your scholars the importance of these things, that they may afterwards use their influence modestly but firmly. Men have often no time to think about such matters, and therefore it is doubly needful that women should know and should be able to point out to their husbands, and even if need be, to their landlords, what is necessary for the health and respectability of their families. A cheerful, well-lighted exposure, a dry, well-drained dwelling (if possible on a gravelly soil), a kitchen and two or three bedrooms, where father and mother, boys and girls, may have seemly and comfortable rest by night, and space by day, ought to be insisted upon. More rent must of course be given than for a miserable and unhealthy hovel, but every wise woman commencing housekeeping, will set herself to save this increased outlay by greater economy in funiiture and dress, or in miscellaneous expenditure, which, as we shall see in another chapter, 1 swallows up the “ lion’s share” of the poor man’s means. Besides, the increase of health, strength, and cheerfulness (three

1 See Chapter VII. — “ How shall we manage the purse ?”

now TO KKEP WELL.

important requisites for working and making money), would soon repay the additional house rent. Asphalte — a hard yet light

bituminous substance — is now employed largely in the building of houses, especially those of one story ; it is veiy cheap, and is used for lining the walls, the roofs, and the foundations, eiiectually keeping off damp, and rendering the dwelling warm and comfortable.

II. Light . — Plants turn their leaves to the light : they thrive under the influence of the blessed sun ; whereas they become sickly, and their bright colours are “ blanched ” or whitened, when kept in darkness. Sir Humphrey Davy, an eminent philosopher, found by experiment that red rose-trees carefully excluded from the light produce roses almost white. Vegetables and fruits are also favourably affected by light — they ripen sooner, and their flavour becomes richer. It is good for man, also, to live in lightsome places. To have plenty of windows in a house, and those windows admitting the beams of the rising, noonday, or western sun, will promote the health and cheerfulness, strength, digestion, and good colour of its inmates : now that glass is cheap, the light of heaven is a luxury which all may endeavour to obtain. The want of proper light in schoolrooms produces effects that show the importance of attending to it in dwellings. It has been found that teachers and pupils become sluggish and stupified in an ill-lighted room ; while the eyes of the teacher have a strangely painful and excited appearance at the end of a day of such depressing and difficult exertion.

The lights which we use in feeble imitation of the glorious sun, are all more or less injurious to the eyesight, especially gas, which is the cheapest and brightest of all. This is peculiarly the case when it is improperly placed opposite to the eyes ; the light should fall upon the book or work, and not upon the eyes. Blue and green shades or reflectors are easily made of paper or silk, which not only shade the eyes, but collect the rays of light, and fix them upon the part where they are required. Common white paper reflectors will give more light, though less protection, than the coloured ones. It is more from the want of care than from anything intrinsically dangerous, that those who require to labour long by artificial light, so frequently injure their sight. I have read that the Chinese take great care of their workwomen’s eyes ; in the north of China the embroiderers always have their rooms painted green, and have green blinds, so that a popular

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Look of patterns is called “ The book of the lady of the green window,”

III. Ust of Bathing . — It might be thought, in looking into many a cottage home, that the princi]>al use of water is to boil up with tea, or mix with spirits, or at most to give the children a drink when they are thirsty, or wash tlieir clothes when they are particularly dirty. Again may we learn a lesson from the beautiful little plants ; not only do they turn from the dark side of things to the sunshine which God gives them — not only do they eagerly drink tlie fresh rain from heaven, but that rain is of as much use to them in cleansing and invigorating their tender green skins as water is to those men, women, and children who are wise enough to understand and to prize its uses in bathing. The surface of each green leaf is covered with numerous little mouths, by which they feed upon their airy nourishment, or drink in the showers. On a single square inch of the leaf of the common lilac tree, 120,000 of these mouths have been counted by the aid of the microscope. They become languid and clogged up with dust, and thus water not only quenches their thirst, but, washing the dusty surfaces of the leaves, it cleans these little mouths, so that with fresh vigour they can suck in new nourishment.

The human body has two skins. Like the leaf, the outer skin or cuticle is formed of millions of little mouths or pores, but unlike the leaf, they are not freely open to the air. If they v^ere so, the body would take into itself all sorts of poison j there is, therefore, situated between the cuticle and the true skin a gland or tube, which provides oily matter to bedew the surface of the outer skin, which does not prevent things from going out, though it prevents things from coming in too freely. This oil catches hold, therefore, of dust and impurity, and cements them into an oily layer or varnish of dirt, which is also assisted and thickened by the dregs of the perspiration which escapes into the air by small tubes, and leaves behind it a little collection of animal and saline matter. Still further is it aided by the cells of the cuticle, which, as they lose their liquid contents by evaporation, flatten into thin scales, which wear ofl' in powder, and are replaced by new growths from below. If this cnist of dust be not punctually and thoroughly removed, it will obstruct the mouths or pores, choke up the drains, arrest free perspiration, render the oily system sluggish, and, of course.

HOW TO KEEP WELL.

seriously interfere with the healtli. The derangement of the oily system produces a strange and unpleasant external result. Ihe contents of the oil tubes not being able to escape freely, are choked up in the passages, and form little pimples, within which the microscope has revealed an animalcule called “ the animal ot the oily product of the skin.” Let us, then, not only put into practice, but do our best to induce others to put into practice, the daily abundant use of water, in order to restore the loaded and impure skin to a free healthy state, and to banish these living and disgusting tenants. Water alone will not be sufl&cient, as oil is the basis of the coating of dirt ; soap is needed to make it dissolve freely in water. ^

It is true that baths may not be within the reSiCh of all, but a wash-tub, a sponge, soap, fresh water, and a hard towel, are not expensive luxuries. You will confer a benefit, indeed, on your pupils if you can make them intelligently understand, and diligently practise, the use of bathing for themselves and their children. A cold bath every morning, or even twice or thrice a week,^ will take little time, cost nothing, and produce an amount of comfort, healthiness, cheerfulness, and even self-respect, of which those have no idea whose principal idea of washing, from year s end to year’s end, consists of a hasty “ wiping ” of face and hands. Such unhappy people wonder at their depressed spirits, eiuptions of the skin, aptitude to catch cold, and craving for stimulants. The simple remedy of washing is what they need, to restore tone to their systems, purity to their skins, and buoyancy to their s})irits. Children especially ought to have their hair kept short, to be washed all over every morning, and rubbed very dry with a hard towel ; in winter, a little warm water and salt may be added if they are delicate.

IV. Eodeimal Cleanliness. — Cleanliness of person is not all that is to be aimed at. Each member of a family may be well washed and rubbed every morning, yet disease, which is only another form of dirt, may be hovering all around. The dunghill at the veiy door (too frequently seen in Scotch villages), the ill-aired and noisome common stair, the dirty court or narrow street, are all giving rise to evil and noxious influences, which even the wellwashed, though stronger to resist, may finally sink under. This

I Vouman'B Handbook of Household Science.

DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

then is the time for the intelligent active woman to step forward, and say, “ These things shall not be ; I speak for the lives of myself and my children ; dirt is disease, and disease is death.” By a little friendly influence, aided by a pair of active hands, and a good-humoured tongue, she might probably persuade the neighbours to help in getting the court and pavements before the doors cleansed and repaired, the stair thoroughly scrubbed once a week, and all nuisances removed and prevented. If she should fail, however, let her call in the police, and insist on help in performing those duties upon which depend so much of the health both of mind and body. “ When the house ceases to be a sty, and possesses the conditions which render it capable of being made a house, then, but not till then, may it receive with some hope of benefit the schoolmaster and the minister of religion.” ^

Houses should be whitewashed once a year, and also common stairs. If all the inhabitants would unite in doing it, the expense would be merely for the lime : it ought to be done with a proper brush for the purpose, which would last for many a whitewashing. This is said to be a good and cheap recipe : “ Put half a peck of lime into a tub, pour in some water by degrees, and stir it well with a stick that is broad at one end. When the lime and water are well mixed, and are of the thickness of mud, strain it through a sieve into another vessel, when it will settle to the bottom ; strain off the little water that remains at the top, and when you are going to use it, mix it up with cold water to the thickness of thin })aint. The house will be quite dry in two hours, and may then be scoured.”

There is a vaUey in the island of Java, known by the name of the “ Poison Valley,” which is filled with a poisonous gas, which no living being can enter without death being the penalty. It is covered with the skeletons of human beings, tigers, pigs, deer, and birds ; a fowl thrown into it died in a minute and a half, and a dog in seventeen minutes. ^ This sounds startling and awful, yet the poison that is abroad in the closes, courts, and narrow streets, in which are gathered many of our Scotch and English homes, is as sure though slower in its deadly work.