But it is just here that the difficulty lies: how can a mother give the child these early lessons of piety and devotion, if she has never learned them herself? How can she train it to raise its young heart to that Heavenly Father, and ask Him for His continued mercy and blessings, of whose name or law she has never been informed or instructed in the Public Schools? How can she impart to her child that knowledge which she herself has never learned in the Public Schools, and which she has always been taught to look upon as unnecessary? Can she teach the child to love God and keep His commandments, to hate sin, and avoid it for the love of God?—To love, honor, and obey its parents, not from natural motives alone, but because, in so doing, it would love, honor, and obey God in the person of its father and mother, and have thus not only a great reward, and length of days here below, but also the joys of heaven above? This lesson the poor mother was never taught in the Public Schools. How can she teach her sweet child that it has an immortal soul, that God sees even the inmost thoughts of the soul, that it is this soul that sins by consenting to the evil inclinations of the heart; that when the child is tempted to pride, gluttony, anger, disobedience, theft, lies, or any manner of uncleanness, even in thought as well as deed, that it must call on God and its good guardian angel to come to its assistance, and keep its soul from consenting, and its body from doing, any of those things that might offend its good God? All this the poor mother has not been taught in the Public Schools. The State claims the right to educate her, and it did not regard this kind of knowledge necessary, else it would have provided it.
Let us again bear in mind that the Public School-girls of to-day will be the women of to-morrow.
The most majestic kingdom for woman to reign in is home. A woman nowhere looks more lovely, more truly great, more fascinating, and more really beautiful and useful, than when in her own house, surrounded by her children, giving them what instruction she is capable of, or devising some plan of intellectual entertainment. Depend on it that this is the grandest position in this world for a woman, and this home-audience is nearer and sweeter to the affectionate heart of a mother whose brain is properly developed, than all the applause and flatteries that the outer world can bestow. It is not in the court-room, the pulpit, and rostrum, but it is among the household congregation that woman's influence can achieve so much, and reign paramount. This, however, is not easily understood and practised by women who have been educated without religion. And it is for this reason that such women cannot make faithful wives and tender mothers.
Young ladies whose education has been devoid of moral and religious instruction, whose imagination, always over-ardent and vivacious, has been still more stimulated by a class of exercises, public examinations, and studies better calculated to give them an unreal than a sober view of life, are not prepared to fulfil their divine mission on earth. An illustration of this truth is the fact that quite recently over six hundred personal applications—mostly made by girls of from fifteen to twenty—were made in one day at the Grand Opera House in New York to fill places in the ballet and Oriental marches of the spectacle of Lalla Rookh. Assuredly this fact is evidence that the women in New York, like so many women in all quarters of the land, are unwilling to do the work which properly belongs to them to do, and prefer any shift, even the degrading one mentioned above, to honest household labor. There are thousands of ladies to whom the following description, written by a lady herself, may well be applied:
"How is it that there is not more nature in the present age, and less sophistication in society, and that mothers do not teach their daughters to fit themselves for wives and mothers? For they all seem to be setting traps to get husbands. Why, the young ladies of the present day are quite ashamed should they be ignorant of the name of the last new opera and its composer, but would feel quite indignant if they were asked whether they knew how to make good soup, or broil a beefsteak, or mend stockings.
"Above all, you can notice in the young ladies of the present day a madness beyond description for dress, for balls, theatres, watering-places, and all kinds of worldly amusements; you can see in them the greatest desire to appear ladies. They go and spend the whole day at the perfumer's, where they purchase their complexion; at the goldsmith's and the milliner's, where they get their figures. A few days ago, the father of one of these ladies had to pay a bill of forty-nine hundred dollars at the milliner's, for his daughter. The chief mental agony of the masses of the young women of the present day seems to be, who shall have the largest possible waterfall, the smallest bonnet, and make themselves the greatest fright. They do nothing from morning till night but read novels, and look at their white hands, or the passers-by in the street. They all seem to be senseless creatures, for their capacious brain soars no higher than dress, fashion, pleasure, comfort of life. Were it not for their vain daughters, hundreds of parents at this moment would have a happier countenance, and not that careworn, wretched look that we so frequently see when honest people get in debt, incurred by living beyond their means. Were it not for the extravagancy of young women, young men would not be afraid to marry, consequently would not be led into the temptations that they are in the single state, for marriage is one sure step towards morality, and consequently tends to the decrease of crime.
"Very many young ladies act as catch-traps, with their painted faces and affected sweetness, to lure young men into the swamps of iniquity.
"I frequently read comments about servants not knowing and performing their proper duties; in fact, of their incompetency to fill the office they apply for: and it is true.
"In Boston, a short time ago, one hundred and eighty unfortunate girls were arrested in one night; and I doubt not that the greater portion of them could have once been respectable servants, but considered the office and name too low! Men think it no disgrace to become carpenters and masons, and it is certainly as respectable to clean a house, and keep it in order, as it is to build it. And what kind of a name have these girls now? What future have these women to look forward to? Generally the world's cold, nipping scorn, combined with ill-health and destitution. A girl would much rather work in a factory, or a 'saloon,' because she can be called 'Miss,' dress finer, and imagine she will be thought a lady! Poor girl! It is this delusion, this false pride, that crowds the streets nightly with pretty young girls, some of whom count only twelve short summers. With Hamlet, I exclaim, 'Oh, horrible! most horrible!' I lived in a house in which there was a girl, Annie C., not seventeen, and she attended in a restaurant. I once said to her, 'Why do you not take the situation of a seamstress, or a nurse in a gentleman's family?' She turned upon me in the most insolent way, saying, 'Me be a servant! That will do very well for Irish, or Dutch, or English girls, but I am an American, and feel myself as good as anybody.'
"However, this girl afterwards went as a ballet-girl at one of the lowest places in Boston; and the last account I heard of her was, she was travelling with an Ethiopian troop alone. Poor young creature! what will be her end? The truth is, that after a girl is fifteen years old, in this country, she considers herself a person of sound judgment, and the parents look up to these sprites with a sort of deferential fear. These girls are simply living pictures walking about the earth, deriding everything they are incapable of understanding. And who could be charmed with such women? with such 'Grecian Bends,' Grecian noses? The genuine well-bred woman will shine out from beneath the plainest garb; and shoddy vulgarity, even should it be incased in rubies and diamonds, will only be rendered the more obvious and conspicuous to those who at a glance can discover the difference—to those who cannot be deceived, even by the radiant sparkling of these richest of gems."