It is our fear of taking disease, very often, which makes us take it. The sum total of the danger to the community, as a community, of contracting even contagious disease, will actually be much lessened, rather than increased, by all our young females being trained in the art and practice of nursing the sick. And the same might be said of the danger from bad air; because, the better the nurse is—that is, the more thoroughly and scientifically she understands her profession—the more pains will be taken in regard to ventilating, both the rooms of the sick and of those who are healthy.
I know, very well, that to be a complete professional nurse, requires a good deal of instruction in anatomy, physiology, hygiene and chemistry—to say nothing of botany, and pharmacy, and materia medica. But are not females fully competent to all this? Are they not as much so, to say the least, as males? Besides, the same information which is so indispensable to a nurse, if it should not be much wanted for this purpose, (for some females would not be needed as nurses, to a very great extent,) would be of inestimable value in the early management of a family.
What can be more pitiable, than to see a young widowed mother—say at twenty-five or thirty years of age—in poverty, in a situation remote from neighbors, with three or four children sick with some epidemic disease, while she is utterly unacquainted with the best methods of taking care of them. Let it be supposed, still further, that she is without a physician, and destitute of a nurse, excepting herself. What is she to do? Take care of them herself she cannot, as she may honestly tell you; having never taken care of a sick person, even a near relation, for so much as a single day or night in her whole life!
"I was sick and ye visited me," is represented, moreover, by the Judge of all the earth, as one of the grounds—not of salvation from sin—but of final reward in the world of spirits. But can any one believe our Saviour here means those empty, hollow-hearted visits now so common among us?—just going, I mean, to a sick neighbor's door, and asking how she does—or peradventure stepping in, only to stare at the sufferer, and with a half suppressed breath and a sigh, to hope to comfort her by wishing she may ultimately recover? No such thing. The Saviour, by visiting the sick, meant those kind and valuable offices which are worthy of the name; especially, when performed by the kind and gentle hand of a lovely, intelligent, benevolent and pious woman.
Oh, young woman! hadst thou but a glimpse of one half the angelic offices in thy power, how wouldst thou labor and pray for those qualities and that education, which would enable thee to act up to the dignity of thy nature, in the sight of God, angels and men! How wouldst thou labor to accomplish thy noble destiny.
CHAPTER XXX.
INTELLECTUAL IMPROVEMENT.
Futility of the question whether woman is or is not inferior to man. Conversation as a means of improvement. Taciturnity and loquacity. Seven rules in regard to conversation. Reading another means of mental progress. Thoughts on a perverted taste. Choosing the evil and refusing the good. Advice of parents, teachers, ministers, &c. Advice of a choice friend. Young people reluctant to be advised. Set hours for reading. Reading too much. Reading but a species of talking. Composition. Common mistakes about composing. Attempt to set the matter right. Journalizing. How a journal should be kept. Music. Vocal music something more than a mere accomplishment. Lectures and concerts. Studies. Keys of knowledge.
Much has been said, incidentally, in the preceding chapters, of the importance of extended intellectual improvement. Besides, I have treated at large on this subject in another volume, [Footnote: See the Young Wife, chap. xxxiii. p. 292.] to which, as scarcely less adapted to the condition of young women than that of young wives, I must refer the reader. What I have to say in this work, will be little more than an introduction to the views there presented.
The long agitated question, whether woman is or is not equal to man in capacity for intellectual improvement, need not, surely, be discussed in this place. It is sufficient, perhaps, to know, that every young woman is capable of a much higher degree of improvement than she has yet attained, and to urge her forward to do all she can for herself, and to do it with all her might.