TRAINING GIRLS FOR HOME LIFE.
By Miss Mary L. Sawyer, Boxford, Mass.
At our annual meeting at Worcester, a part of Thursday afternoon was devoted to the reading of papers and to the delivery of addresses on Women’s Work for Women.
We gave in our last issue some brief extracts of the addresses on that occasion by Rev. A. H. Plumb and Rev. E. N. Packard. In this number we publish portions of the papers read by Miss Sawyer and Miss Emery, which our readers will find to be interesting, pertinent and profitable.
You all know of the degradation of the colored women in the South. You are ready to believe in their dirty, comfortless huts, yet I could take you into many a pleasant home among the colored people, where neatness and order reign supreme, where man’s industry and woman’s taste have combined with charming result, and where it would be hard to say which was exerting the greater or better influence—the earnest Christian man, or his equally earnest wife. Tasteful pictures on the walls, books of standard authors on the table, shades at the shining windows, a clean, white bed, a clock, perhaps a cabinet organ, would meet your wondering gaze. With keen insight the women and girls recognize the primary cause of such a home and the influence that has molded its founders. So, in ever-increasing numbers, ignorant, uncouth girls, apply for admission to the missionary school, which, in some mysterious way, is to transform them; and their poverty-stricken mothers give of their scanty store all that can be spared, and more, and wait with joyful anticipation for the time when the daughters may become the teachers from whom they in turn may learn the more excellent way. To us, then, comes the work of educating them, not out of their positions in life, but for them; to train them in such habits that they may look upon uncleanliness, either physical or moral, with utter loathing, and yet to implant that Christlike spirit which shall lead them to count no home too repulsive, no work degrading, if only it is the Lord’s place and work for them.
With such an end in view, school work means much. Not only is the dormant intellect to be awakened and the knowledge of books imparted, but also that practical knowledge of every-day life in which, strange to say, they may be even more deficient. Nor do they always come with that keen thirst for improvement that insures success. How can they, when the consciousness of their own shortcomings has not yet dawned upon them? Their acquaintances are as ignorant as themselves; their own bare home is as good as their neighbors’. Not until they have mingled in the school life with companions far beyond themselves in attainment do they realise their own need, and begin to climb. Personal neatness is to be inculcated; dress, deportment, speech, expression, manner, must be watched and toned by careful teachers. A sense of honor must be cultivated, and, above all, conscience aroused and trained, that the end of all our labor may be attained and Christ be found in them.
Much of their future usefulness depends on the industrial training which is becoming more and more a feature of our schools. The difficulty of uniting this branch of instruction with the regular school duties was long ago recognized by so eminent a teacher as Mary Lyon; and what was hard in New England is even harder in Georgia and Alabama. But the need is greater, too; and on missionary ground the question cannot be, “Is it difficult?” but only “Is it best?” and, since there could be but one answer, all over the South, this work in many forms is being carried on to-day. Due attention is paid both to theory and practice. Lectures on cooking, for instance, are followed by conversations on the subject, where questions can be freely asked and difficulties explained, after which the pupils are required to test their knowledge by making bread, cooking meals and the like. This practice is repeated day by day, and the examinations are as rigid as in any other department. Sewing is as carefully taught, a part of each day being devoted to it. Darning and patching become an art, until some specimens of their skill in this line could be ranked almost as ornamental needlework. Not only sewing, but the cutting of garments, is taught; and this affords good opportunity for those wise counsels on economy, simplicity and kindred subjects which these girls need so much.
Housekeeping in its minutest details receives careful attention, and here, as everywhere else, precept follows precept and theory is supplemented by practice.
Another and no less important branch is that of nursing the sick. The ignorance of the very simplest remedies and of hygienic laws on the part of many of the colored people is appalling. The treatment of a cold, or a slight accident, is as much beyond their knowledge as the most complicated disease would be, while a sudden emergency, as a case of poisoning, would paralyze them with fear. Medicine to them is simply medicine, and one kind as good as another. “I didn’t have no sugar,” said the mother of a sick baby to the missionary who was attending to its needs, “and so I put a spoonful of the medicine that didn’t want sweetening into a spoonful of the medicine that did want sweetening and it seemed to do him good.” That this ignorance was not unusual may be inferred from the estimate that in the city where this mother lives the death rate among the negroes is three times that of the whites.
The method of imparting this knowledge of nursing varies in different schools. In every case opportunity for practice is abundant; sometimes in their own homes, sometimes among the poor of the city or in the women’s wards of the hospital. A prominent physician of Memphis, noting the examination questions required of the girls of Le Moyne School, said: “If your girls answered those questions, they ought not only to make safe nurses, but also fair physicians.” The object, however, is not to make physicians, but to give a thorough acquaintance with the details of nursing, including all those little thoughtful attentions to the sick which Northern girls learn from the lips and the practice of gentle, efficient mothers, but of which the colored women seem as ignorant as their daughters.
You can hardly imagine a more desolate scene than a case of sickness in a cabin home. There is no isolation—all family work performed in sight of the patient, the glaring light falling full on the bed, water either for drinking or bathing seeming an unknown luxury, and noise everywhere. Into such homes these eager girls penetrate, adapting their knowledge to the surroundings with wonderful tact, hanging an old quilt or shawl to give isolation, shading the light, preparing with neatness and dispatch some tempting morsel of food, and administering with their own hands that thorough bathing which is often the most potent medicine. No wonder that after such treatment one poor old creature should ejaculate, “Thank the Lord, when we get to Heaven we shall all get on clean clothes.” Alas, that in so many homes the inmates seem perfectly content to wait till that time for the delightful sensation!
Of course cleanliness and other hygienic laws are placed first in importance, and just here we are finding one answer to the question so near our hearts, “How can we make the homes better.” The lessons learned by the daughters at school are duly repeated to the mothers at home, who are the more ready to receive new ideas of house-keeping from the young teachers who have first revealed to them the secrets of health-keeping. It is idle to hope to accomplish the greatest good for these girls unless for a time they are wholly under our control. Evil influences cannot be forgotten or overcome in a month or a term. They must come into our boarding-schools for a term of years, and the money to keep them there must come in part from you. By the industrial system, they can be helped to some extent and the idle and careless sifted out; but after all is done, the last hard-earned penny paid over, the last work tried, there is still need.
But there are so many calls, and you are so busy. Yes, so was one of old, and you remember, “As thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone.”
Just so will it be here. The work for these girls must be done now. If we do not help them, there is no help for them, and instead of life and light there is nothing but blackness of darkness before them. Their influence will widen and deepen just the same, only instead of a blessing it will bring a curse, until the old sentence may be repeated for us, and our lives go for their lives and our people for their people.