Sanitary and Social Lectures, etc Part 3

A little political economy, therefore, will at least do no harm to a woman; especially if she have to take care of herself in after life; neither, I think, will she be much harmed by some sound knowledge of another subject, which I see promised in these lectures: "Natural philosophy, in its various branches, such as the chemistry of common life, light, heat, electricity, etc. etc."

A little knowledge of the laws of light, for instance, would teach many women that by shutting themselves up day after day, week after week, in darkened rooms, they are as certainly committing a waste of health, destroying their vital energy, and diseasing their brains, as if they were taking so much poison the whole time.

A little knowledge of the laws of heat would teach women not to clothe themselves and their children after foolish and insufficient fashions, which in this climate sow the seeds of a dozen different diseases, and have to be atoned for by perpetual anxieties, and by perpetual doctors'

bills; and as for a little knowledge of the laws of electricity, one thrift I am sure it would produce-thrift to us men, of having to answer continual inquiries as to what the weather is going to be, when a slight knowledge of the barometer, or of the form of the clouds and the direction of the wind, would enable many a lady to judge for herself, and not, after inquiry on inquiry, regardless of all warnings, go out on the first appearance of a strip of blue sky, and come home wet through, with what she calls "only a chill," but which really means a nail driven into her coffin-a probable shortening, though it may be a very small one, of her mortal life; because the food of the next twenty-four hours, which should have gone to keep the vital heat at its normal standard, will have to be wasted in raising it up to that standard, from which it has fallen by a chill.

Ladies, these are subjects on which I must beg to speak a little more at length, premising them by one statement, which may seem jest, but is solemn earnest-that, if the medical men of this or any other city were what the world now calls "alive to their own interests"-that is, to the mere making of money; instead of being, what medical men are, the most generous, disinterested, and high-minded cla.s.s in these realms, then they would oppose by all means in their power the delivery of lectures on natural philosophy to women. For if women act upon what they learn in those lectures-and having women's hearts, they will act upon it-there ought to follow a decrease of sickness and an increase of health, especially among children; a thrift of life, and a thrift of expense besides, which would very seriously affect the income of medical men.

For let me ask you, ladies, with all courtesy, but with all earnestness-Are you aware of certain facts, of which every one of those excellent medical men is too well aware? Are you aware that more human beings are killed in England every year by unnecessary and preventable diseases than were killed at Waterloo or at Sadowa? Are you aware that the great majority of those victims are children? Are you aware that the diseases which carry them off are for the most part such as ought to be specially under the control of the women who love them, pet them, educate them, and would in many cases, if need be, lay down their lives for them?

Are you aware, again, of the vast amount of disease which, so both wise mothers and wise doctors a.s.sure me, is engendered in the sleeping-room from simple ignorance of the laws of ventilation, and in the schoolroom likewise, from simple ignorance of the laws of physiology? from an ignorance of which I shall mention no other case here save one-that too often from ignorance of signs of approaching disease, a child is punished for what is called idleness, listlessness, wilfulness, sulkiness; and punished, too, in the unwisest way-by an increase of tasks and confinement to the house, thus overtasking still more a brain already overtasked, and depressing still more, by robbing it of oxygen and of exercise, a system already depressed? Are you aware, I ask again, of all this? I speak earnest upon this point, because I speak with experience.

As a single instance: a medical man, a friend of mine, pa.s.sing by his own schoolroom, heard one of his own little girls screaming and crying, and went in. The governess, an excellent woman, but wholly ignorant of the laws of physiology, complained that the child had of late become obstinate and would not learn; and that therefore she must punish her by keeping her indoors over the unlearnt lessons. The father, who knew that the child was usually a very good one, looked at her carefully for a little while; sent her out of the schoolroom; and then said, "That child must not open a book for a month." "If I had not acted so," he said to me, "I should have had that child dead of brain-disease within the year."

Now, in the face of such facts as these, is it too much to ask of mothers, sisters, aunts, nurses, governesses-all who may be occupied in the care of children, especially of girls-that they should study thrift of human health and human life, by studying somewhat the laws of life and health? There are books-I may say a whole literature of books-written by scientific doctors on these matters, which are in my mind far more important to the schoolroom than half the trashy accomplishments, so-called, which are expected to be known by governesses. But are they bought? Are they even to be bought, from most country booksellers? Ah, for a little knowledge of the laws to the neglect of which is owing so much fearful disease, which, if it does not produce immediate death, too often leaves the const.i.tution impaired for years to come. Ah the waste of health and strength in the young; the waste, too, of anxiety and misery in those who love and tend them. How much of it might be saved by a little rational education in those laws of nature which are the will of G.o.d about the welfare of our bodies, and which, therefore, we are as much bound to know and to obey, as we are bound to know and obey the spiritual laws whereon depends the welfare of our souls.

Pardon me, ladies, if I have given a moment's pain to anyone here: but I appeal to every medical man in the room whether I have not spoken the truth; and having such an opportunity as this, I felt that I must speak for the sake of children, and of women likewise, or else for ever hereafter hold my peace.

Let me pa.s.s on from this painful subject-for painful it has been to me for many years-to a question of intellectual thrift-by which I mean just now thrift of words; thrift of truth; restraint of the tongue; accuracy and modesty in statement.

Mothers complain to me that girls are apt to be-not intentionally untruthful-but exaggerative, prejudiced, incorrect, in repeating a conversation or describing an event; and that from this fault arise, as is to be expected, misunderstandings, quarrels, rumours, slanders, scandals, and what not.

Now, for this waste of words there is but one cure: and if I be told that it is a natural fault of women; that they cannot take the calm judicial view of matters which men boast, and often boast most wrongly, that they can take; that under the influence of hope, fear, delicate antipathy, honest moral indignation, they will let their eyes and ears be governed by their feelings; and see and hear only what they wish to see and hear-I answer, that it is not for me as a man to start such a theory; but that if it be true, it is an additional argument for some education which will correct this supposed natural defect. And I say deliberately that there is but one sort of education which will correct it; one which will teach young women to observe facts accurately, judge them calmly, and describe them carefully, without adding or distorting: and that is, some training in natural science.

I beg you not to be startled: but if you are, then test the truth of my theory by playing to-night at the game called "Russian Scandal;" in which a story, repeated in secret by one player to the other, comes out at the end of the game, owing to the inaccurate and-forgive me if I say it-uneducated brains through which it has pa.s.sed, utterly unlike its original; not only ludicrously maimed and distorted, but often with the most fantastic additions of events, details, names, dates, places, which each player will aver that he received from the player before him. I am afraid that too much of the average gossip of every city, town, and village is little more than a game of "Russian Scandal;" with this difference that while one is but a game, the other is but too mischievous earnest.

But now, if among your party there shall be an average lawyer, medical man, or man of science, you will find that he, and perhaps he alone, will be able to retail accurately the story which has been told him. And why?

Simply because his mind has been trained to deal with facts; to ascertain exactly what he does see or hear, and to imprint its leading features strongly and clearly on his memory.

Now, you certainly cannot make young ladies barristers or attorneys; nor employ their brains in getting up cases, civil or criminal; and as for chemistry, they and their parents may have a reasonable antipathy to smells, blackened fingers, and occasional explosions and poisonings. But you may make them something of botanists, zoologists, geologists.

I could say much on this point: allow me at least to say this: I verify believe that any young lady who would employ some of her leisure time in collecting wild flowers, carefully examining them, verifying them, and arranging them; or who would in her summer trip to the sea-coast do the same by the common objects of the sh.o.r.e, instead of wasting her holiday, as one sees hundreds doing, in lounging on benches on the esplanade, reading worthless novels, and criticising dresses-that such a young lady, I say, would not only open her own mind to a world of wonder, beauty, and wisdom, which, if it did not make her a more reverent and pious soul, she cannot be the woman which I take for granted she is; but would save herself from the habit-I had almost said the necessity-of gossip; because she would have things to think of and not merely persons; facts instead of fancies; while she would acquire something of accuracy, of patience, of methodical observation and judgment, which would stand her in good stead in the events of daily life, and increase her power of bridling her tongue and her imagination. "G.o.d is in heaven, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few;" is the lesson which those are learning all day long who study the works of G.o.d with reverent accuracy, lest by misrepresenting them they should be tempted to say that G.o.d has done that which He has not; and in that wholesome discipline I long that women as well as men should share.

And now I come to a thrift of the highest kind, as contrasted with a waste the most deplorable and ruinous of all; thrift of those faculties which connect us with the unseen and spiritual world; with humanity, with Christ, with G.o.d; thrift of the immortal spirit. I am not going now to give you a sermon on duty. You hear such, I doubt not, in church every Sunday, far better than I can preach to you. I am going to speak rather of thrift of the heart, thrift of the emotions. How they are wasted in these days in reading what are called sensation novels, all know but too well; how British literature-all that the best hearts and intellects among our forefathers have bequeathed to us-is neglected for light fiction, the reading of which is, as a lady well said, "the worst form of intemperance-dram-drinking and opium-eating, intellectual and moral."

I know that the young will delight-they have delighted in all ages, and will to the end of time-in fictions which deal with that "oldest tale which is for ever new." Novels will be read: but that is all the more reason why women should be trained, by the perusal of a higher, broader, deeper literature, to distinguish the good novel from the bad, the moral from the immoral, the n.o.ble from the base, the true work of art from the sham which hides its shallowness and vulgarity under a tangled plot and melodramatic situations. She should learn-and that she can only learn by cultivation-to discern with joy, and drink in with reverence, the good, the beautiful, and the true; and to turn with the fine scorn of a pure and strong womanhood from the bad, the ugly, and the false.

And if any parent should be inclined to reply: "Why lay so much stress upon educating a girl in British literature? Is it not far more important to make our daughters read religious books?" I answer-Of course it is. I take for granted that that is done in a Christian land.

But I beg you to recollect that there are books and books; and that in these days of a free press it is impossible, in the long run, to prevent girls reading books of very different shades of opinion, and very different religious worth. It may be, therefore, of the very highest importance to a girl to have her intellect, her taste, her emotions, her moral sense, in a word, her whole womanhood, so cultivated and regulated that she shall herself be able to discern the true from the false, the orthodox from the unorthodox, the truly devout from the merely sentimental, the Gospel from its counterfeits.

I should have thought that there never had been in Britain, since the Reformation, a crisis at which young Englishwomen required more careful cultivation on these matters; if at least they are to be saved from making themselves and their families miserable; and from ending-as I have known too many end-with broken hearts, broken brains, broken health, and an early grave.

Take warning by what you see abroad. In every country where the women are uneducated, unoccupied; where their only literature is French novels or translations of them-in every one of those countries the women, even to the highest, are the slaves of superst.i.tion, and the puppets of priests. In proportion as, in certain other countries-notably, I will say, in Scotland-the women are highly educated, family life and family secrets are sacred, and the woman owns allegiance and devotion to no confessor or director, but to her own husband or to her own family.

I say plainly, that if any parents wish their daughters to succ.u.mb at least to some quackery or superst.i.tion, whether calling itself scientific, or calling itself religious-and there are too many of both just now-they cannot more certainly effect their purpose than by allowing her to grow up ignorant, frivolous, luxurious, vain; with her emotions excited, but not satisfied, by the reading of foolish and even immoral novels.

In such a case the more delicate and graceful the organisation, the more n.o.ble and earnest the nature, which has been neglected, the more certain it is-I know too well what I am saying-to go astray.

The time of depression, disappointment, vacuity, all but despair must come. The immortal spirit, finding no healthy satisfaction for its highest aspirations, is but too likely to betake itself to an unhealthy and exciting superst.i.tion. Ashamed of its own long self-indulgence, it is but too likely to flee from itself into a morbid asceticism. Not having been taught its G.o.d-given and natural duties in the world, it is but too likely to betake itself, from the mere craving for action, to self-invented and unnatural duties out of the world. Ignorant of true science, yet craving to understand the wonders of nature and of spirit, it is but too likely to betake itself to non-science-nonsense as it is usually called-whether of spirit-rapping and mesmerism, or of miraculous relics and winking pictures. Longing for guidance and teaching, and never having been taught to guide and teach itself, it is but too likely to deliver itself up in self-despair to the guidance and teaching of those who, whether they be quacks or fanatics, look on uneducated women as their natural prey.

You will see, I am sure, from what I have said, that it is not my wish that you should become mere learned women; mere female pedants, as useless and unpleasing as male pedants are wont to be. The education which I set before you is not to be got by mere hearing lectures or reading books: for it is an education of your whole character; a self-education; which really means a committing of yourself to G.o.d, that He may educate you. Hearing lectures is good, for it will teach you how much there is to be known, and how little you know. Reading books is good, for it will give you habits of regular and diligent study. And therefore I urge on you strongly private study, especially in case a library should be formed here of books on those most practical subjects of which I have been speaking. But, after all, both lectures and books are good, mainly in as far as they furnish matter for reflection: while the desire to reflect and the ability to reflect must come, as I believe, from above. The honest craving after light and power, after knowledge, wisdom, active usefulness, must come-and may it come to you-by the inspiration of the Spirit of G.o.d.

One word more, and I have done. Let me ask women to educate themselves, not for their own sakes merely, but for the sake of others. For, whether they will or not, they must educate others. I do not speak merely of those who may be engaged in the work of direct teaching; that they ought to be well taught themselves, who can doubt? I speak of those-and in so doing I speak of every woman, young and old-who exercise as wife, as mother, as aunt, as sister, or as friend, an influence, indirect it may be, and unconscious, but still potent and practical, on the minds and characters of those about them, especially of men. How potent and practical that influence is, those know best who know most of the world and most of human nature. There are those who consider-and I agree with them-that the education of boys under the age of twelve years ought to be entrusted as much as possible to women. Let me ask-of what period of youth and manhood does not the same hold true? I pity the ignorance and conceit of the man who fancies that he has nothing left to learn from cultivated women. I should have thought that the very mission of woman was to be, in the highest sense, the educator of man from infancy to old age; that that was the work towards which all the G.o.d-given capacities of women pointed; for which they were to be educated to the highest pitch.

I should have thought that it was the glory of woman that she was sent into the world to live for others, rather than for herself; and therefore I should say-Let her smallest rights be respected, her smallest wrongs redressed: but let her never be persuaded to forget that she is sent into the world to teach man-what, I believe, she has been teaching him all along, even in the savage state-namely, that there is something more necessary than the claiming of rights, and that is, the performing of duties; to teach him specially, in these so-called intellectual days, that there is something more than intellect, and that is-purity and virtue. Let her never be persuaded to forget that her calling is not the lower and more earthly one of self-a.s.sertion, but the higher and the diviner calling of self-sacrifice; and let her never desert that higher life, which lives in others and for others, like her Redeemer and her Lord.

And if any should answer that this doctrine would keep woman a dependent and a slave, I rejoin-Not so: it would keep her what she should be-the mistress of all around her, because mistress of herself. And more, I should express a fear that those who made that answer had not yet seen into the mystery of true greatness and true strength; that they did not yet understand the true magnanimity, the true royalty of that spirit, by which the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.

Surely that is woman's calling-to teach man: and to teach him what? To teach him, after all, that his calling is the same as hers, if he will but see the things which belong to his peace. To temper his fiercer, coa.r.s.er, more self-a.s.sertive nature, by the contact of her gentleness, purity, self-sacrifice. To make him see that not by blare of trumpets, not by noise, wrath, greed, ambition, intrigue, puffery, is good and lasting work to be done on earth: but by wise self-distrust, by silent labour, by lofty self-control, by that charity which hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things; by such an example, in short, as women now in tens of thousands set to those around them; such as they will show more and more, the more their whole womanhood is educated to employ its powers without waste and without haste in harmonious unity.

Let the woman begin in girlhood, if such be her happy lot-to quote the words of a great poet, a great philosopher, and a great Churchman, William Wordsworth-let her begin, I say-

With all things round about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawn; A dancing shape, an image gay, To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

Let her develop onwards-

A spirit, yet a woman too, With household motions light and free, And steps of virgin liberty.

A countenance in which shall meet Sweet records, promises as sweet; A creature not too bright and good For human nature's daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

But let her highest and her final development be that which not nature, but self-education alone can bring-that which makes her once and for ever-

A being breathing thoughtful breath; A traveller betwixt life and death.

With reason firm, with temperate will Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill.

A perfect woman, n.o.bly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command.

And yet a spirit still and bright With something of an angel light.

NAUSICAA IN LONDON; OR, THE LOWER EDUCATION OF WOMEN.

FRESH from the Marbles of the British Museum, I went my way through London streets. My brain was still full of fair and grand forms; the forms of men and women whose every limb and att.i.tude betokened perfect health, and grace, and power, and self-possession and self-restraint so habitual and complete that it had become unconscious, and undistinguishable from the native freedom of the savage. For I had been up and down the corridors of those Greek sculptures, which remain as a perpetual sermon to rich and poor, amid our artificial, unwholesome, and it may be decaying pseudo-civilisation, saying with looks more expressive than all words-Such men and women can be; for such they have been; and such you may be yet, if you will use that science of which you too often only boast. Above all, I had been pondering over the awful and yet tender beauty of the maiden figures from the Parthenon and its kindred temples. And these, or such as these, I thought to myself, were the sisters of the men who fought at Marathon and Salamis; the mothers of many a man among the ten thousand whom Xenophon led back from Babylon to the Black Sea sh.o.r.e; the ancestresses of many a man who conquered the East in Alexander's host, and fought with Porus in the far Punjab. And were these women mere dolls? These men mere gladiators? Were they not the parents of philosophy, science, poetry, the plastic arts? We talk of education now. Are we more educated than were the ancient Greeks? Do we know anything about education, physical, intellectual, or aesthetic, and I may say moral likewise-religious education, of course, in our sense of the world, they had none-but do we know anything about education of which they have not taught us at least the rudiments? Are there not some branches of education which they perfected, once and for ever; leaving us northern barbarians to follow, or else not to follow, their example? To produce health, that is, harmony and sympathy, proportion and grace, in every faculty of mind and body-that was their notion of education. To produce that, the text-book of their childhood was the poetry of Homer, and not of-But I am treading on dangerous ground. It was for this that the seafaring Greek lad was taught to find his ideal in Ulysses; while his sister at home found hers, it may be, in Nausicaa. It was for this, that when perhaps the most complete and exquisite of all the Greeks, Sophocles the good, beloved by G.o.ds and men, represented on the Athenian stage his drama of Nausicaa, and, as usual, could not-for he had no voice-himself take a speaking part, he was content to do one thing in which he specially excelled; and dressed and masked as a girl, to play at ball amid the chorus of Nausicaa's maidens.

That drama of Nausicaa is lost; and if I dare say so of any play of Sophocles', I scarce regret it. It is well, perhaps, that we have no second conception of the scene, to interfere with the simplicity, so grand, and yet so tender, of Homer's idyllic episode.

Nausicaa, it must be remembered, is the daughter of a king. But not of a king in the exclusive modern European or old Eastern sense. Her father, Alcinous, is simply primus inter pares among a community of merchants, who are called "kings" likewise; and Mayor for life-so to speak-of a new trading city, a nascent Genoa or Venice, on the sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean. But the girl Nausicaa, as she sleeps in her "carved chamber," is "like the immortals in form and face;" and two handmaidens who sleep on each side of the polished door "have beauty from the Graces."

To her there enters, in the shape of some maiden friend, none less than Pallas Athene herself, intent on saving worthily her favourite, the shipwrecked Ulysses; and bids her in a dream go forth-and wash the clothes. {110}

Nausicaa, wherefore doth thy mother bear Child so forgetful? This long time doth rest, Like lumber in the house, much raiment fair.

Soon must thou wed, and be thyself well-drest, And find thy bridegroom raiment of the best.

These are the things whence good repute is born, And praises that make glad a parent's breast.

Come, let us both go washing with the morn; So shalt thou have clothes becoming to be worn.

Know that thy maidenhood is not for long, Whom the Phoeacian chiefs already woo, Lords of the land whence thou thyself art sprung.

Soon as the shining dawn comes forth anew, For wain and mules thy n.o.ble father sue, Which to the place of washing shall convey Girdles and shawls and rugs of splendid hue, This for thyself were better than essay Thither to walk: the place is distant a long way.

Startled by her dream, Nausicaa awakes, and goes to find her parents-

One by the hearth sat, with the maids around, And on the skeins of yarn, sea-purpled, spent Her morning toil. Him to the council bound, Called by the honoured kings, just going forth she found.