Household Administration Part 14

If the functions of the home are briefly enumerated under three heads, no hint of exaggeration will attach to the a.s.sertion that by _its_ atmosphere children are modified in soul and body, and that upon _its_ outlook depends the ideals and health of all its occupants.

The first function of the home may be fitly defined as _Protective_.

If its evolution be traced it will be found that home life originated in a craving for warmth, safety, and shelter; in the desire for a place where the weary could rest and where security from ill was a.s.sured.

Physical comfort, sympathy and sanctuary are, or should be, primary characteristics of every home.

The second function of the home is _Educational_. It is largely responsible for the systematic formation of good habits, which should here be stimulated by example and precept, and every advantage taken of the imitative instincts so powerful in early life. Within its precincts care can be exercised to afford opportunity for the development of individuality; it is also, _par excellence_, the place for early training in the judicious expenditure of energy and in the acquirement of self-control. Such training improves brain power, relieves nervous tension, and obviates the tendency to mental and moral confusion and disorderliness which is a.s.sociated with its absence. In a good home the child's sanitary education should be fairly complete, at least in its main principles, before the infection of bad habits from without can interfere with automatic practice or weaken faith in home standards and conduct. Regular washing of the teeth, for instance, should be early inculcated, and rigid conscientiousness in matters of personal cleanliness:--external, by bathing, rubbing, and brushing; internal, by strict daily attention to the bodily functions. Slow and thorough mastication of food should be cultivated, as well as good habits of posture, of enunciation, and of regular exercise. Last, but not least, habits of prompt and cheerful obedience, of truthfulness, and in due course of moral purity, must be wrought into the very fibre of a child's being. The discipline of home ought to be above all things consistent; gentle, though firm and well considered. The virtues of obedience, of self-restraint, and of respect for others should become instinctive almost from infancy; for they sow the seeds of physical morality in later life.

The third function of the home is _Social_. Before the present era of "only" children, the exaggerated individualism was uncommon, of which many of them are now unfortunately the victims. When large families were the fashion, the give-and-take in nursery and schoolroom gave early training in the duty of partic.i.p.ation in the interests, the pleasures, or the sorrows of others; it rubbed off the rough angles of selfishness and gave invaluable lessons in consideration for those whose circ.u.mstances varied from immediate individual experience. The wider social sphere, for which much of the rough and tumble of family life was an excellent preparation, was not familiar then to young children as it is now, when the modern child's premature introduction to its attractions is not only a constant source of physical detriment and of mental exhaustion, but tends to disguise its real character and to stimulate precociously the capacity to respond to its demands. Occasional glimpses of this larger life are a desirable part of home education; but constant familiarity with its excitements is to be sternly deprecated in the causes of health and of mental stability.

Where and when, then, are "only" children to receive this necessary social training, occupants as they are of solitary nurseries; or where are these qualities to be developed in the millions of children reared under circ.u.mstances of such acute overcrowding and poverty that the amenities of life are obscured by its fierce and exhausting conditions?

Observation shows that the function of accomplishing this training is steadily devolving upon the school. Unfortunately, though the school _does_ offer necessary opportunities for social intercourse, this intercourse is relatively of an advanced type, which presupposes some previous training in the more elementary principles of community life, most fitly acquired at home. This tendency to force the school to _supplant_ instead of to _supplement_ home training must be resisted, as it involves loss to parents as well as to the children themselves.

The stress here laid upon the social function of the home may seem to some exaggerated, and its a.s.sociation with the subject of this paper may appear far-fetched; but to the writer its pressing importance calls for this emphasis, for its connection with habits of sanitary practice within and without the home is of the closest. The social spirit is the very essence of sympathy; it exercises the imagination, it widens the horizon, it quickens the sense of duty and of self-respect. If graduation through the school of domestic, social training be omitted in childhood, the realisation of personal responsibility is too often indefinitely postponed. Consideration for others, care for their welfare and personal sacrifice for their protection, must ever bulk largely in importance throughout life, and must always be a.s.sociated with self-respect and self-control. When this sense of personal responsibility is habitual, conduct which makes for limitations of health in self, family, or neighbours will appear unjustifiable; and neglect of either domestic or civic duties will become as unpardonable as it is unpatriotic.

But antecedent to the attainment of this ideal, fundamental even to its entertainment, is the adjustment or readjustment of home influences or methods, as the case may be, to a higher standard. A better understanding of the const.i.tution of those for whose welfare the home is established must also be insisted upon as an integral part of general education.

It may be wise to point out that no proposal to sweep away in wholesale fashion all the domestic traditions and family methods of this or any other phase of civilisation is even suggested. Apart from the impossibility of such a holocaust, treasures of great worth have been handed on to us by our forebears, of which the majority only need some slight readjustment to enrich many generations yet to come.

To take a somewhat extreme example. The mention of such homely, old-fashioned, domestic remedies as black-currant tea for a bad cough, or soap and sugar plasters for a boil--genuine relics from our grandmothers--now usually excite a smile of derision; nevertheless they have been instanced by one of our most able living pathologists[120] for their admirable adaptation to their purpose, and have been shown to rest upon a hitherto unsuspected basis of physiological therapeutics.

Another ill.u.s.tration may be drawn from the nursery tradition that bad temper is often effectually cured by a dose of rhubarb.[121] Carefully conducted observations upon children confirm the conventional connection of peevishness with disordered digestion. It has been found that gastric indigestion produces oversensitiveness, fretfulness, and irritability, while chronic constipation results in erratic conduct, stupidity, languor, headache, and moodiness. These effects may be so far-reaching that, for no other reason than chronic constipation, children may lose a large proportion of the advantages provided in school life; they may even run the risk of being cla.s.sed as "backward,"

from the interference with mental progress of the food poisons reabsorbed into their circulation.

Modern methods of child training lay great emphasis upon the prevention of these or kindred conditions by early formation of good habits; or, when carelessness necessitates curative treatment, our old nurse's panacea of drugs is the last resort; the first consists in attempts to re-establish normal functions by the more natural means of suited food and special exercise.

It is time, too, that the so-called "hardening fallacies," responsible for the maiming of countless lives, were finally exposed and exploded.

The idea, for example, dies hard that beneficial endurance is cultivated by exposure to cold; therefore, bare necks, arms and legs are lauded as means of developing a Spartan spirit in young children. Now no profound study of hygiene is required to demonstrate the close interdependence of warmth with growth and nutrition, or to show that the chilly and underclothed, sedentary child is both stunted and starved; whereas the suitably clothed and freely active child is able to carry on unhampered the necessary processes of growth and development.[122] So important is warmth to the infant, that _eighty per cent._ of the total energy derived from its food is utilised for the maintenance of the body temperature essential to growth and for the activities of the organic and muscular systems.

Children, in accordance with the law of the relation between ma.s.s and surface in a cube, have, relatively to their ma.s.s, about thrice the body surface possessed by an adult. The greatest loss of heat occurs by radiation from the skin and by the evaporation of sweat, therefore undue loss from this extensive area should be prevented by its suitable covering; otherwise the child is placed at a far more serious disadvantage than would be suffered by an adult similarly situated; for in his case growth as well as equilibrium must be maintained. Few parents realise the further fact that the power of heat regulation is very imperfect at birth; indeed its slow development accounts for the instability of a child's temperature for many years after. The fallacy therefore of seeking to strengthen a young life by inadequate clothing, by enforced and prolonged inactivity, or by abstinence from the source of all energy--food--must be persistently exposed. Quite recently, also, Dr. Eurich has advanced evidence to show that the quality of sleep is adversely affected where the sleeper is insufficiently protected from cold, thus emphasising the injury to health a.s.sociated with going to bed with cold feet.

All parents are ambitious that their offspring shall be distinguished by the energy, the stability, the endurance and the power which characterise the cream of humanity. The lives of young people are carefully planned with this object in view. The waking hours of most girls and boys are distributed in ordered sequence between what is intended to be concentrated work and vigorous more or less exciting play. But the fact has been very commonly ignored that these young people are built up of young cells, which cells are pa.s.sing through almost every conceivable phase of instability in the course of development; consequently recurring periods of leisure and rest are as important to nutrition and nervous stability, more especially in the case of girls, as are the most elaborate arrangements for exercise. Thus it comes about that many youths and maidens suffer from chronic though unrecognised fatigue, while others are unable to employ pleasurably even a short s.p.a.ce of "time to themselves," finding no interest in occupations from which excitement is absent. The habitual limitation of the hours of sleep among the rising generation is equally serious. The loss which would be unbearable,[123] says Dr. Acland, even among our most favoured children, were it not for the indulgence permitted them during their long holidays. Is it not a parental duty to insist upon the necessary provision for rest being made in every school, and ought not inviolable rules upon the subject be laid down in their home circles?

Sleep, be it remembered, is the property of animals possessed of brains and endowed with consciousness; it affords mechanical rest, and is accompanied by a respite from the chemical changes which are particularly rapid during childhood and adolescence. The intense activity of the child's waking hours must be counterbalanced by ample periods of entire rest. Habits of prolonged profound sleep are said to be the best investment against mental instability and insanity; yet parents permit a constant loss of from two to four hours' sleep each night throughout the long period of immaturity.[124] Our newspapers and lunatic asylums bear evidence to the price paid for this now inexcusable carelessness.

Many more examples might be given of similar fallacies which apply to later periods of life. How soon will a loving daughter allow herself to learn that the consumption of large quant.i.ties of highly nutritious food will not make for the prolongation of an aged parent's life? The fact that abstemiousness and rigid conformity to the "simple life" are not coincidents of longevity, but contributory to it, should be now common knowledge. When will the day come that the fact will be accepted that alcohol does not warm and protect the consumer, but actually lowers the temperature, and by this means, in cold weather, renders him a more ready prey to the effects of exposure. When will the value of good work cease to be measured by the exhaustion it brings about or the breakdown to which it conduces? Is it not, time that the housewife should be abashed rather than self-commiserating when a bad cold runs through her household, for observation of certain elementary principles of disinfection would go far to avert such a catastrophe? When will the fallacy be destroyed which gauges the strength of a disinfectant by the pungency of its odour? The knowledge now available on these and many other points only awaits a.s.similation by the housekeepers of the empire, to serve as a powerful lever by which to raise the standard of health in its every part.

XVI. HOME LIFE AN IMPORTANT SPHERE FOR SANITARY SCIENCE

The urgent call for a more intimate acquaintance with these tenets of domestic sanitary science calls for no further examples, though at the risk of wearying the reader one or two more may be selected to ill.u.s.trate their claims upon every member of a household.

It behoves the householder, in the first place, to choose his dwelling with care; and, in the second, to maintain the health of its inmates by his own conduct and by compliance with the requirements of public health enactments. He must be generally acquainted, therefore, with the essentials of a healthy home and with the obligations he must fulfil or the demands he may legitimately make upon local authorities and neighbours; otherwise he cannot insure that his own care is not frustrated by derelictions of duty on the part of others. The selection and purchase of the family's food will probably devolve upon his wife, but it rests with him to insist that this food is produced, transported or distributed, with due observance of cleanliness, and that reliable protection from sophistication or adulteration is maintained. If conformity to necessary standards as well as the good quality of their products is to be safeguarded, the premises of dairy, bakehouse, slaughter-house, laundry, market, and local purveyor of goods should come under his intelligent inspection. The surroundings as well as the conveniences of a house also call for careful consideration, especially when some of its inmates are of tender years; and the reminder that to the provision for light and air in its rooms must be a.s.signed a greater prominence than the mere prettiness of external elevation is still necessary. It is the householder who for some time to come must from his wider knowledge of economics personally safeguard his women-folk from unnecessary exertion and chronic fatigue, by the provision of efficient fittings and equipment, by a judicious expenditure upon labour-saving devices, and by insistence upon adequate rest, recreation, and remuneration. To the graduate in the school of personal experience the duty of public service will next arise, in order that the advantages enjoyed in his own home may be extended to those for whom cheap housing must be provided. Civic claims must in the near future appear much more prominently than hitherto in the balance-sheet of duty.

The necessity for a study of child life and its requirements ought to be realised by both parents before the bitter results of inexperience have permanently shadowed their home. This should be pursued by the man as well as the woman before marriage is consummated, if their offspring is to be "well born" and well nurtured.

Maternal care is of course the more conspicuous during the first ten years of a child's life; but during the next fifteen, more especially in the case of his sons, it is the father's example, sympathy, and companionship which will steer them healthily through the stormy seas of adolescence, which will safeguard them from pernicious habits and will extend a helping hand in moments of temptation.

To enumerate the opportunities for hygienic practice by the prime organiser of domestic methods--the mother--is almost superfluous at this point. It is the foundation upon which depends the welfare of each member of a household; for it is the housekeeper who plans the food and is responsible for its character and suitability to age, season, health, and occupation. It is she who superintends, if she does not carry out, the details of cleanliness, so arduous and discouraging in our great cities. It is she who selects the clothing of her family; who directs the order of their lives:--their work and play, their rest and exercise, their sleep and their habits. It is her place to shake faith in popular patent preparations, by good reasons and demonstrations of their exaggerated claims on purse and person.[125] It is her example which sets the tone in recreation, pursuit of hobby, or choice of literature.

It is her infinite, understanding patience which cements breaches in family love; it is her skilful treatment which heals wounds, spiritual as well as physical. It is her privilege to devise better methods for daily doings and to appreciate the principles of sound economics. It falls on her to discourage futile expenditure of health, time, or temper; to be alive to possibilities of progress; to show by her deeds how profound is her faith in the dignity of a home-maker and her recognition of the extraordinary demands made by her profession on intelligence, moral capacity, and mental attainments.

It has been slowly dawning upon some minds for half a century at least that kitchen methods in many of their details fail to meet the requirements of sanitary science. The ordinary cook does not even suspect what cleanliness means from the laboratory point of view; neither, alas! does her mistress, in the case of 90 per cent. of middle-cla.s.s housekeepers. Both alike cheerfully ignore the relative value as cleansing agents of boiling as compared with "scalding" water; and refer to the broad shoulders of the weather or, quite frankly, to bad luck, the waste of food directly attributable to ignorant and uncleanly methods in market, purveyor's cart, or scullery. Yet no valid excuse can now be offered for ignorance of the real causes of the souring of milk, the tainting of meat, or the decay of vegetables; neither is it permissible to entrust to the untrained the care of larder and refrigerator, except under intelligent supervision. It is of course a sign of progress that the modern housewife prides herself upon the delivery of the daily milk supply in bottles. But a quite superficial acquaintance with bacteriology would show the imperfect character of such a protection. The milk may still be poured by the cook from the unwashed mouth of a bottle, grasped, even if but momentarily, by the hand of a milkman, which shortly before was caressing his horse or serving him as a subst.i.tute for a pocket-handkerchief! When the numerous uses of paper in the kitchen are considered, the advantage of a scientific acquaintance with its const.i.tuents and absorbent properties should hardly need emphasis. But the _laissez-faire_ att.i.tude, common in many households, permits newspaper or brown-paper bags of questionable antecedents to be used indiscriminately for the lining of cake tins or the draining of fried foods. Should this be tolerated any longer?

A sounder knowledge of the risks to health a.s.sociated with unwholesome food would surely check the growing disposition to purchase provisions over the telephone, instead of by personal inspection and careful selection; for the risks a.s.sociated with stale vegetables or with "woolly" fish would be recognised, in the light of this fuller knowledge, as too serious to be encountered by any one responsible for the health of a household. Again, cold storage is so justly credited with the numerous and unquestionable benefits which it confers upon the housewife, that she is apt to forget the coincident dangers; only through tardily acquired experience does she become aware that foods which are thawed after freezing possess a singular faculty for rapid deterioration, and undergo subtle and detrimental changes when so preserved over a long period. No excuse for continued ignorance as to the changes responsible for such deterioration is now permissible; neither can it be condoned in connection with the "flora" of the refrigerator, now known to be accountable for the unpleasant and all-pervading flavours of the food stored in such a receptacle, and itself the product of defective cleanliness. The idiosyncrasies of different groceries, as regards temperature and receptacles, have hitherto received no attention, though the art of preserving fruits, fresh as well as dried, is better appreciated than was formerly the case.

It would be easy to show, too, did s.p.a.ce permit, what ample scope there is for the application of sanitary science in the storeroom, as well as the true hygienic inwardness of frequent coats of limewash in larder and scullery, not to mention the worth of impervious coverings to their wall surfaces and shelves. This suggests the inquiry: How many women to-day are versed in the external tests, simple as some of them are, which can be applied to tins containing foodstuffs, with the object of gauging the quality of their contents; or who among our ordinary housewives understands the reasons for the employment of reliable, _domestic_ methods of preserving the contents of the larder, such as sterilisation by the use of heat, or why fat, sugar, salt, or vinegar are preferable to the seductive yet questionable chemicals, so attractive to the producer and purveyor of provisions?

A better understanding of the relation of sanitary science to daily life would also facilitate some of the painful steps which must inevitably be taken, in order to bridge the gulf set between the feudal methods of the past and the modern problems of domestic service. That the isolation from her kind of a "general" servant predisposes to anaemia is stated as a fact on good authority, but it is certainly not generally known. That absence of opportunity for recreation or social intercourse has led and may lead again to deception, if not to worse, is recognised unwillingly, if at all. That human nature is physiologically similar, however diverse its external appearance and standards, is very hard to realise or to act upon; so the fact that suitable provision for bathing and wholesome sleep by dependents is not always made, is apt to be ignored on economic grounds; and the resultant complications are a.s.signed to any but their real cause.

The solution of another of the acute problems of the day depends upon the women also of this country. I refer to the character of the influence, an influence of the most intimate, to which young children are subjected during infancy. In addition to vulgarities of conduct or enunciation, actual moral harm may be suffered from want of care in the choice of a child's attendant. Bad habits, impossible to eradicate, are to be traced to this source only. Their hygienic import calls for no further stress. Their prevention rests entirely with the child's parents.

Another ill.u.s.tration of the need for a better acquaintance with hygiene is found in the general custom of entrusting the preparation and care of the daily diet to empirically prepared, ill-informed, young women. Ascertained facts in connection with, for instance, "typhoid carriers"[126] should have surely created almost a panic in the households of England; but it is rare to learn that even one mistress has inquired into the personal habits of her cook, or that she has concerned herself personally in the cultivation of most careful attention to necessary hand-washing by her household. A mere tyro in sanitary science would take warning and be on her guard against this and other disgusting and preventable sources of domestic infection.

Finally, the protective function of the home must not be allowed to obscure the educational and social. It is the right of all children to be trained in habits of social, as well as of family, sanitary service.

Very early the love of ceaseless doing, by which these little people are distinguished, can be taken hold of as an agent in this department of education. Habits of neatness and order, of kindness and ready help, of self-sacrifice and self-control, become lifelong in their persistence and develop a physical as well as moral conscience which makes for public health. But, without appropriate stimulus this interest in others, this sense of civic obligation, remains in abeyance. Therefore girls should be encouraged in the educational practice of the domestic arts about the age of thirteen or fourteen; though instruction in the care of children may be postponed for a year or two. Always it should precede marriage and be adapted to the prospective social sphere of the pupils. It would be advantageous to foster the interest of boys in social sanitation by the introduction of some equivalent training into their curriculum.

Enough has been said to show that knowledge of household administration must soon become an indispensable qualification for any woman who undertakes the charge of human lives, whether it be as wife or guardian, as official or philanthropist, as physician or educator, as head of an inst.i.tution (such as orphanage, asylum, hospital or prison), or as almoner of public funds. To be practical and influential this comprehensive subject must be systematically acquired and securely based; it must be accorded the support of men, and it must receive the recognition due to its imperial importance. Thus sustained and fortified, acquaintance with all that is comprehended in the domestic administration for good of human lives will lead our women to redeem their many shortcomings in the past, and will stimulate them to a.s.sume with courageous confidence their weighty responsibilities in the present and future.

Whether prepared or not for their discharge, these responsibilities cannot be evaded. Upon their capable fulfilment depend human health and happiness. "Health and good estate of body are above all gold," said Ecclesiasticus, "and a strong body above infinite wealth." Seen in its true light this great, beautiful, responsible work becomes the highest form of consecrated service to the Source of all Life and to the Giver of all those good things which humanity is intended richly to enjoy.

FOOTNOTES:

[91] "Darwinism and Human Life," by J. Arthur Thomson, M.A., &c.

(Andrew Melrose.)

[92] "The Descent of Man," by Charles Darwin. (J. Murray.)

[93] "Hereditary Genius," by Sir Francis Galton.

[94] "Heredity," by Prof. A. Thomson. (J. Murray.)

[95] "English Sanitary Inst.i.tutions," chap. viii., "The Growth of Humanity in British Politics." Sir J. Simon. (Ca.s.sell & Co.)

[96] _Les Pouvoirs en Matiere d'Hygiene_--Part i. _L'Hygiene dans les Legislations de l'Antiquite._ Alfred Fila.s.sier. (Paris: Jules Rousset.)

[97] "English Sanitary Inst.i.tutions," part i. chap. i. Sir John Simon.

(Ca.s.sell & Co.)

[98] "English Sanitary Inst.i.tutions," part i. chaps. iii., iv., v., vi.

Sir John Simon. (Ca.s.sell & Co.)

[99] "The Family and the Nation," chap. i. Whetham. (Longmans.)

[100] "Selected Essays and Addresses by Sir James Paget, F.R.S."--"The Chronometry of Life," Royal Society Croonian Lecture, May 1859.

Edited by Stephen Paget, F.R.C.S. (Longmans & Co.)

[101] "The Diurnal Course of Efficiency." Howard D. Marsh. (The Science Press, N.Y.)

[102] "Social Psychology," section ii. chap. x. William McDougall.