VI
It is a delightful and scientifically correct principle which those Utopia builders have embodied in their schemes of world-making who have advocated the restriction of matrimony to those women who have undergone a thorough course of education and training in eugenics and household economy. Most persons will agree that such a system of education for maternal and wifely duties would be a great boon, if practicable. But so long as hearts are swayed by passion, and the subtle currents of human love remain uncontrolled by law, such proposals must remain dreams. Even the modest suggestion of Mrs. Parsons that a “matrimonial white list” be created by establishing continuation schools for training young women in the domestic arts and the principles of child-rearing and giving them certificates or diplomas, as well as certificates of health,[[165]] is so far in advance of anything yet attempted that it sounds almost Utopian. Still, there is nothing fanciful or impossible in the proposal itself.
The preservation of child life must depend largely upon the dissipation of maternal ignorance. Until mothers are enlightened, the infantile death-rate must remain needlessly and unnaturally heavy. And so long as industrial occupations absorb our young girls in the very years which should be spent at home in practical training for the responsibilities of wifehood and motherhood, there must continue to be a very large number of marriages productive of poverty, misery, and disease, because of the ignorance and inefficiency of the wives. So the fight against maternal ignorance, the ignorance which breeds disease and poverty, appears as an almost Sisyphean task. So long as such industrial conditions prevail, ignorance will continue to sap the foundations of family life and mock our efforts at reform. In such important matters of domestic economy as knowledge of food values and how to spend the family income to the best advantage, what but failure can be expected when a young woman worker graduates from mill labor to wifehood? Even where such a young woman, or girl growing into womanhood, feels the need of training in these important matters of domestic economy, she is prevented by the fact that the family cooking and buying are necessarily done during the hours she is at work. By the time she returns home after her day’s labor, little or nothing remains to be done except washing the dishes. Even were it otherwise, she would in most cases be too tired to help. After confinement in a shop or factory for ten or twelve hours, at monotonous tasks entirely devoid of interest or attractiveness, it is natural and right that she should seek recreation and pleasure. Further confinement, either in the home or a school, is extremely liable to prove injurious.
PACKING BOTTLES OF “CLEAN MILK” IN ICE BEFORE SENDING THEM TO THE CITY, ROCHESTER, N.Y.
For these reasons, and others obvious to the reader, I am not very sanguine that much can ever be accomplished by evening classes for working girls. The British Interdepartmental Committee suggests that “continuation classes for domestic instruction” should be formed, and attendance at them, twice each week during certain months of the year, made obligatory, only those employed in domestic service being exempted from compulsory attendance. Realizing that it would be an injury to the girls to impose this attendance and study upon them in addition to their already too long hours of employment, the committee very properly suggests that some modification of the hours of work would have to be introduced, so that in fact the hours of instruction would have to be taken out of their ordinary working time.[[166]] With such a provision as this, a system of compulsory instruction in domestic science might very well be adopted. It is probable, however, that the principal effect would be a considerable diminishing of the employment of girls and young women within the ages prescribed for compulsory attendance at the continuation classes.
The suggested curriculum for such classes is interesting. “The courses of instruction at such classes should cover every branch of domestic hygiene, including the preparation of food, the practice of household cleanliness, the tendance and feeding of young children, the proper requirements of a family as to clothing—everything, in short, that would equip a young girl for the duties of a housewife.”[[167]] The further suggestion is made that the members of these continuation classes should visit from time to time the municipal crèches—the establishment of which is strongly recommended—and receive there practical instruction in the management of infants. This is such a comprehensive and courageous proposal that one would like to see it given a fair trial.