CHAPTER XXXII
A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
The women's-righters are so often accused, and justly, too, of trying to disturb the equilibrium of happiness in family life, that they should immediately be praised when they do something likely to establish it on a firmer basis.
In Paris they have just succeeded in starting, under the best and happiest auspices, schools where girls will be taught how to bring up babies and how to keep house. When it is considered that, out of about a million children which are born annually, over 260,000 die before the age of five, it calls for the utmost care in the watchfulness and habits of parents with regard to young children.
Of all European countries, it is perhaps in France that mortality among babies is largest. France is being depopulated, or at least is not increasing her population. Enough children are born, but not enough are brought to grown-up age. This problem, over the solution of which our legislators are very anxious, is vital to France. It will not be solved by laws enacted, congresses held, and leagues founded. It will be solved by a reform in the manners and habits of the people, by making marriage easier, by marrying for love more often, and by teaching French women that the first duty of a mother is to raise her children herself, and the second to know how to do it. This new school, just established in France, will help in the right direction.
The teaching of household duties will also tend to make marriages happier by enabling wives to be more clever and economical. If we consider that in England and France, which each has a population of about 40,000,000, only about 100,000 men in each country have an income of more than £500 a year, it will soon be clear that the great problem of happiness can only be solved by the good management of wives.
Girls will be taught family hygiene, domestic economy, and the art of cooking, including that of utilizing the remnants of a previous meal. They will be taught how to 'shop' intelligently; that is to say, to distinguish good material from shoddy, and thus obtain the worth of their money. They will, I hope, also be taught how to make a bargain, a talent which I must say is practically inborn in every French woman of the middle and lower classes. No woman in the world knows as she does how to bring down the price of things to what she wants it to be, in Paris especially.
Perhaps they will advise her to do what I would advise every visitor to Italy. I take it that you do not speak Italian. Never mind that; three words will serve your purpose perfectly. When you are in an Italian shop and you ask the price of an article you wish to buy, say to the man 'Quanto?' (how much?); as soon as he has named it, say 'Troppo' (too much). Then he will say something else. Just remark 'Mezzo' (half that), and then pay, and you will find that the shopkeeper has still 40 or 50 per cent. profit.
When I consider that women's-righters, as a rule, complain bitterly of men for being of opinion that the only thing which young girls should think about is to prepare to become one day good wives and mothers, I believe that great credit should be given to them for having had the idea of starting schools where young girls will be taught all the duties of attentive mothers and economical wives.
