Household Administration, Its Place in the Higher Education of Women

by Unknown

XI. THE SOURCE OF THESE CAUSES TO BE FOUND IN FAULTY ADMINISTRATION OF THE HOME

May not the causes of some considerable proportion of this apathy be traced to a want of popular faith in the teachings of hygiene? Is 252 not one source of the prevalent unbelief in its tenets to be found in the widespread ignorance of the right administration of human life in the home, which turns out therefore a product of unhealthy, inharmonious citizens, who are a source of weakness to their country and a menace to civilisation? How could it be otherwise? If the cradle of life be defective, and its occupants be debilitated, it is not the nurslings alone upon whom the penalties will fall; whereas if home administration be guided by intelligence, and the quality of the inmates be high, individual and national prosperity are assured. The burden of responsibility or the privilege of promoting progress (according to the spirit in which obligations are assumed) rests with those who propose to be or already are parents; they being influenced in their turn by the educational and social conditions of their surroundings. Parental care and intelligent home management are thus intimately concerned with the physical evolution of the race, as well as with its moral development. They must, therefore, assume an increasing rather than a diminishing importance, if the full development of potentialities is to be insured in the rising generation, and racial progress promoted. Any proclivity to depreciate the dignity or to undermine the influence of these institutions must be carefully examined and, if necessary, sternly repressed.

The fact that such tendencies show signs of sprouting is, it seems to me, a serious reflection 253 upon the parental and domestic methods of the day. There is no smoke without fuel; faults are rarely all on one side; the young are not necessarily always in the wrong; therefore, a course of self-examination into their methods and motives may be a wholesome and fruitful discipline for those who are responsible for the nature and nurture of our children, and for the stability and efficiency of adolescent and adult. The absence of elasticity and adaptation to modern requirements among the elders of a family is often responsible for miserable homes, and for much arrested development in their inmates.