A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School

by Catharine Esther Beecher

As the only legitimate object of amusements, is, to prepare mind and body for the proper discharge of duty, any protracting of such as interfere with regular employments, or induce excessive fatigue, or weary the mind, or invade the proper hours for repose, must be sinful.

In deciding what should be selected, and what avoided, the following rules are binding. In the first place, no amusements, which inflict needless pain, should ever be allowed. All tricks which cause fright, or vexation, and all sports, which involve suffering to animals, should be utterly forbidden. Hunting and fishing, for mere sport, can never be justified. If a man can convince his children, that he follows these pursuits to gain food or health, and not for amusement, his example may not be very injurious. But, when children see grown persons kill and frighten animals, for sport, habits of cruelty, rather than feelings of tenderness and benevolence, are induced.

In the next place, we should seek no recreations, which endanger life, or interfere with important duties. As the only legitimate object of amusements, is to promote health, and prepare for more serious duties, selecting those which have a directly opposite tendency, cannot be justified. Of course, if a person feel that the previous day's diversions have shortened the hours of needful repose, or induced a lassitude of mind or body, instead of invigorating them, it is certain that an evil has been done, which should never be repeated.

A third rule, is, to avoid those amusements, which experience has shown to be so exciting, and connected with so many temptations, as to be pernicious in tendency, both to the individual and to the community. It is on this ground, that horse-racing and circus-riding are excluded. Not because there is any thing positively wrong, in having men and horses run, and perform feats of agility, or in persons looking on for the diversion; but because experience has shown so many evils connected with these recreations, that they should be relinquished. So with theatres. The enacting of characters, and the amusement thus afforded, in itself may be harmless; and possibly, in certain cases, might be useful: but experience has shown so many evils to result from this source, that it is deemed wrong to patronize it. So, also, with those exciting games of chance, which are employed in gambling.

Under the same head, comes dancing, in the estimation of the great majority of the religious world. Still, there are many intelligent, excellent, and conscientious persons, who hold a contrary opinion. Such maintain, that it is an innocent and healthful amusement, tending to promote ease of manners, cheerfulness, social affection, and health of mind and body; that evils are involved only in its excess; that, like food, study, or religious excitement, it is only wrong, when not properly regulated; and that, if serious and intelligent people would strive to regulate, rather than banish, this amusement, much more good would be secured.

On the other side, it is objected, not that dancing is a sin, in itself considered, for it was once a part of sacred worship; not that it would be objectionable, if it were properly regulated; not that it does not tend, when used in a proper manner, to health of body and mind, to grace of manners, and to social enjoyment: all these things are conceded. But it is objected to, on the same ground as horse-racing, card-playing, and theatrical entertainments; that we are to look at amusements as they are, and not as they might be. Horseraces might be so managed, as not to involve cruelty, gambling, drunkenness, and every other vice. And so might theatres and cards. And if serious and intelligent persons, undertook to patronize these, in order to regulate them, perhaps they would be somewhat raised from the depths, to which they are now sunk. But such persons, know, that, with the weak sense of moral obligation existing in the mass of society, and the imperfect ideas mankind have of the proper use of amusements, and the little self-control, which men, or women, or children, practise, these will not, in fact, be thus-regulated. And they believe dancing to be liable to the same objections.

As this recreation is actually conducted, it does not tend to produce health of body or mind, but directly the contrary. If young and old went out to dance together, in the open air, as the French peasants do, it would be a very different sort of amusement, from that which is witnessed, in a room, furnished with many lights, and filled with guests, both expending the healthful part of the atmosphere, where the young collect, in their tightest dresses, to protract, for several hours, a kind of physical exertion, which is not habitual to them. During this process, the blood is made to circulate more swiftly than ordinary, in circumstances where it is less perfectly oxygenized than health requires; the pores of the skin are excited by heat and exercise; the stomach is loaded with indigestible articles, and the quiet, needful to digestion, withheld; the diversion is protracted beyond the usual hour for repose; and then, when the skin is made the most highly susceptible to damps and miasms, the company pass from a warm room to the cold night-air. It is probable, that no single amusement can be pointed out, combining so many injurious particulars, as this, which is so often defended as a healthful one. Even if parents, who train their children to dance, can keep them from public balls, (which is seldom the case,) dancing in private parlors is subject to nearly all the same mischievous influences.

As to the claim of social benefits,—when a dancing-party occupies the parlors, and the music begins, most of the conversation ceases; while the young prepare themselves for future sickness, and the old look smilingly on.

As to the claim for ease and grace of manners,—all that is gained, by this practice, can be better secured, by Calisthenics, which, in all its parts, embraces a much more perfect system, both of healthful exercise, graceful movement, and pleasing carriage.

The writer was once inclined to the common opinion, that dancing was harmless, and might be properly regulated; and she allowed a fair trial to be made, under her auspices, by its advocates. The result was, a full conviction, that it secured no good effect, which could not be better gained another way; that it involved the most pernicious evils to health, character, and happiness; and that those parents were wise, who brought up their children with the full understanding that they were neither to learn nor to practise the art. In the fifteen years, during which she has had the care of young ladies, she has never known any case, where learning this art, and following the amusement, did not have a bad effect, either on the habits, the intellect, the feelings, or the health. Those young ladies, who are brought up with less exciting recreations, are uniformly likely to be the most contented and most useful, while those, who enter the path to which this diversion leads, acquire a relish and desire for high excitement, which make the more steady and quiet pursuits and enjoyments of home, comparatively tasteless. This, the writer believes to be generally the case, though not invariably so; for there are exceptions to all general rules.