CONCERNING DAUGHTERS.
“As is the mother so is the daughter.”
Ezekiel xvi., 44.
I am far from thinking Ezekiel knew much about it. True he was a married man and a householder, but I remember no evidence of his being the father of daughters. At all events if he thought that the education and bringing up of daughters was an inferior thing because of the authority of mothers, I think he was gravely mistaken. When the daughters of the middle ages were part of the household plant their mothers turned them out with certain practical qualities that made them a valuable asset to the comfort of mankind.
It was when unthinking fathers began to meddle in the affair and to consider the subject of the education of their daughters that the trouble began. The fathers—particularly the middle class Early Victorian father—discovered that it was a desirable thing to be a gentleman. Remembering and misapplying one of the catch words of his own education that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, he thought it was equally important to the success of his family that as his sons were to be gentlemen his daughters should be gentlewomen.
And this is where he missed it. The word “gentlewoman” is obscure, but it is certainly not the grammatical feminine of gentleman. True it has a narrow technical dictionary meaning, but it is used popularly to signify the result of a well-to-do middle class father’s education of his daughters, as in the phrase “Gentlewoman’s Employment Association” the name of an excellent society for helping daughters of the well-to-do father when he is deceased or has ceased to be well-to-do.
Concerning daughters then, and to help their fathers to bring them up as gentlewomen I take upon myself as one who has given grave personal consideration to the subject, to offer a few suggestions of a practical nature; for I have found the gentleman father in the matter of the education of girls—like his namesake the gentleman farmer in matters of agriculture—to be an enthusiastic and amiable, but eccentric amateur.
And remember my dear sir, that there are two main objects to be kept in view in the education of a daughter. The first is to fit her for the ultimate ownership of a well-to-do husband, the second is to guard her from acquiring any knowledge or capacity that might take her out of the ranks of the unemployable.
And first of marriage. Charlotte Lucas when she has made up her mind to the inevitable Mr. Collins, “was,” writes Jane Austen, “tolerably composed. She had gained her point and had time to consider it. Her reflections were in general satisfactory. Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible nor agreeable: his society was irksome and his attachment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly of either man or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness must be their pleasantest preservative from want.”
How refreshing in these neurotic days is Charlotte’s old-fashioned commonsense. And once recognising that marriage is the “pleasantest preservative from want” a father may be wise to leave the affair to mothers and daughters and chance. Holding, as I do, the extreme doctrine that anything that a mother does is of necessity absolutely right, I do not propose to enlarge upon this branch of the subject. There is a belief, however, among social naturalists that the solvent son-in-law is fast becoming extinct. This may be from the fact that he has been hunted with too great rigour in the past. The handsome but non-solvent variety though ornamental in the house is vastly expensive. Then there is the larger question of grandchildren. Here, too, sentiment finds itself again opposed by considerations of economy.
The problem of training one’s daughters to become in Charlotte Lucas’s phrase “well educated” or as Miss Austen and Miss Edgeworth so constantly word it “gentlewomen” is a far easier matter, and may therefore be the more safely left in the hands of a father. Still in this, as in the more serious amusements of life, there are principles to be followed.
The main object of such education to-day should be to give girls what their brothers describe as “a good all round time.” Avoid anything that hints of serious work, eschew “grind,” choose a multitude of accomplishments rather than any one serious study, encourage the collection of useless objects and the manufacture of much fancy-work, and by this means there will be little fear of your girls attaining any real knowledge of affairs. So may your daughter be as one of the polished corners of the Temple, in the world and of the world, and in her you will see reflected the delightful patterns of the society by which she is surrounded.
But to descend to particulars. In early life commence with home-training. Beware of kindergartens. They are too often taught by women trained from early life in habits of work. They are apt to instil ways of industry, and to cultivate a socialistic tendency towards unselfishness, and might even at an early age suggest to the girl baby that the mission of women is to work as well as to weep. The poet must not however be taken too literally about this. Men must work and women must weep, but intervals ought clearly to be allowed for joint amusement, and the length of these is for one’s own decision. In her young days then let the girl be taught that she alone exists in the world, and that other human beings are mere dream persons. The difference, never to be bridged over, between herself and the household servants, ought to be constantly insisted upon. A nursery governess is a suitable companion. Some of these neither know nor desire to know how to scrub a nursery, and teaching is not their mission. Obtain one if possible, who is a nursery governess only in name, she will be cheap, and what is more important to you—ladylike. In a few years a school becomes a necessity; partly from the irksomeness of constant association with a spoiled child, but more immediately in the real interests of the girl herself. Choose by all means a school that you cannot well afford. Here your daughter will meet with companionship that must fill her young mind with ideals of life and society that cannot possibly be attained by her in after life. Be careful, too, not to thwart her expenditure in dress or amusement. Shun the modern craze—sprung up now I fear even among the wealthiest—for instruction in such subjects as cookery, dressmaking, and the like. A camera is a necessity. It enables inaccurate representations to be produced without skill or labour, and checks that desire for detailed information, which might easily develop into scientific study. The presence of a camera has saved many a young person from serious attention to art. It is an excellent plaything. By all means let your daughter learn French, for it is the language of the menu, and there is no great harm in a little Latin, but let it be ladylike. Whenever you are in difficulties, Mrs. Malaprop—who is always with us—will be only too glad to tell you in further detail what kind of education becomes a young woman, and the school where it can be found.
If you are “carriage people”—and by all means be “carriage people” if your wealthier neighbours are—then of course your daughter will not learn to cycle, but will rather learn to regard the cyclist as the curse of the highway, which was obviously built for her pleasure. The omnibus or tramcar will, I hope, always be regarded as impossible. Remember that people who nowadays possess motor-cars are not necessarily “carriage people.” It is becoming daily more difficult to diagnose “carriage people” by the symptoms of their outward circumstances.
When your daughter leaves school, if your income is less than £x, and you are spending more, you should certainly have your daughter presented at Court. She will naturally desire it, and it may for the moment go far towards appeasing your creditors who, I take it, will by this time be pressing you after the vulgar fashion of such people.
Bring out your daughter at a ball, similar in cost and style—but especially the former—to that given by Mrs. Goldberg Dives, when your daughter’s dear school friend, Aurora “came out,” as the saying is. You remember that on that occasion young Dives brought home Lord Bareacre’s youngest son from Oxford, and the marriage that ensued, was followed by that entertaining case so recently decided in the third division of the Probate and Admiralty Court. Who knows what good fortune your daughter may have if you follow these high examples.
But if during the prolonged pursuit of pleasure—which after her careful education your daughter ought now to be able to plan and carry out for herself—no son-in-law solvent or insolvent appears, then when you have departed to another sphere leaving behind assets insufficient to meet your worldly liabilities, or—as we may hope will be your case, dear reader,—when you have called together the callous creditors into an upper chamber of some persuasive accountant who can explain to them cheerily the true inwardness of your estate, and tender, with fitting apology, the pence that now represent the pound that was,—think not with the austere moralist that this costly education of your daughter has been a rash and hazardous speculation. Let us be thankful that the world is not at one with the Inspector-General of Bankruptcy with his sallow views of the possibilities of life. True your daughter will know nothing, and be fit for nothing, true it will take her years of misery to make herself capable of the meanest employment. She has eaten dinners she cannot cook, she has worn dresses she cannot make, she has lived in rooms she cannot sweep, and she has grumbled at the service of others she could not herself perform, but at least you can say that she has been brought up as other gentlewomen are, and that shall be your boast.