Heredity is a great, a most important fact; and if only this could be taught in schools, if young men and women would recognise the wickedness of cousins marrying, and of passing on sickly or vicious tendencies to their children, we should look forward more and more hopefully to a future, when health should be demonstrated as the best possession a man can have—the best inheritance he can demand of his parents; for health means happiness and beauty and pleasure, and without health we cannot be either happy, good-tempered, or prosperous, or succeed in a world where life is one constant procession of beauty and surpassing interest, to those whose hearts are in the right place, and whose pure, wholesome blood courses vigorously through the veins and arteries of the whole body.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE SCHOOLROOM.
In the selection of the schoolroom there are several things to be thought of; but if the nursery be done away with, and there should be no upstairs sitting-room, I strongly advise the schoolroom being on the bedroom floor. This is often a most useful institution, for sometimes it serves as a refuge to invalids who are well enough to leave their bedrooms, but not well enough to run the risks of draught on the stairs, while the children are out of the way of visitors, and are not always running up and down the passages in a distracting and untidy manner.
Let me urge on all mothers of families to cling to either a day nursery or a schoolroom until the children are really too old to be glad of some place where they can do actually and positively as they like; that is to say, of course, unless they like to behave like savages, but this rarely happens in a household where the little ones have been accustomed to nice surroundings, and to be treated like human beings from their cradles.
It is most important that children should be let a great deal alone, and to insure this it is perfectly necessary that some room should be set apart for their use entirely, furnished in such a way that one is not constantly obliged to be saying ‘Don’t do this’ and ‘Don’t do that,’ and yet in a manner that shall foster every nice taste and encourage every good habit possible; and great care should be also taken to insure sufficient sunshine, for sunshine is life and health, and a dark and sunless room often fosters a dark and sunless nature.
I should strongly advise the floor of the schoolroom to be covered with Indian matting, if expense be no object, with rugs about at intervals: this is always clean and fresh, and can be changed often. Next to Indian matting comes the stained edge to the floor so often recommended, with the nice square of Kidderminster carpet laid down over carpet felt, and edged with a woollen fringe; the best carpets of this particular make are called ‘three-ply,’ and are sold by the yard, and are infinitely superior in every way to the ‘squares’ sold ready made in different sizes, and edged by a border, which is generally far too large a pattern to look nice. The carpets sold by the yard are much better designs and colours, and wear three times as long as the cheaper makes; but under no circumstances should the schoolroom be the refuge for half-worn costly carpets, which want wearing out, and yet are too shabby for the downstairs apartments. These had far better be got rid of in some sale; for an old carpet is nothing but a dust-bin on a small scale, and can never be fresh enough to pat in a room where there are children.
The walls could be covered with one of the washable sanitary papers, if one can be procured in a sufficiently pretty pattern; but it is emphatically necessary that the walls should have a real dado, either of oilcloth painted some good artistic shade—four coats are necessary to eliminate the pattern—of cretonne, or matting, which would be best of all. This keeps the lower part of the wall tidy always; and if the sanitary paper can be obtained in a self-colour, the plainness of this can be done away with by a good selection of pictures, than which nothing is more necessary in a schoolroom; and the children had far better be plainly dressed and fed than have bad pictures provided for them, or ugly drawings only relating to their work.
In these days of cheap art there is no reason why we should be without pictures of some kind everywhere, and they should be chosen carefully, either for their beauty or for the lesson they teach. Having a positive horror of gambling, horse-racing, or betting in any shape or form myself, I cannot regard any house satisfactorily furnished without autotypes of my father’s pictures of ‘The Road to Ruin.’ These admirable pictures have pointed a moral over and over again in my house, and will, I hope, point many another; for the children are always ready to look at them and make out for themselves the dismal o’er-true tale. If, however, these pictures should be objected to, I should advise autotypes of some of Sir Joshua’s lovely child-pictures, Leader’s ‘At evening time it shall be light,’ ‘Chill October,’ any of the etchings after Burton Barber’s amusing dog-pictures, and those equally entertaining fox-terrier sketches of Mr. Yates Carrington, Waller’s ‘The Day of Reckoning,’ and, in fact, any of the beautiful etchings done of late years, and that average 5l. each; these purchases being infinitely more necessary in a house where there are children than diamonds or plate or smart furniture and expensive decorations, and should be bought, as soon as ever they can be afforded, by any householder who really has the welfare of his family at heart.
The ceiling should be papered in some bright blue and white paper, and should have a good ventilator somewhere in the centre. No gas should be allowed, and light should be furnished by two good hanging lamps conveniently placed; while each child who is old enough to do its work after tea in the winter should have its own shaded Queen’s reading lamp, and should be taught to keep it clean and bright for itself; thus the servants would not be troubled on this subject unduly, though, should there be a schoolroom maid, she could take the lamps under her charge with the rest of the schoolroom belongings.