The facts about this are so simple and so familiar 52 that we don’t stop to think of their meaning.
When in the spring the wood ashes from the winter fires were poured into the lye barrel, and water was poured in with them, and the lye began to trickle out from the bottom of the barrel, and the winter’s savings of grease were brought out, and the grease and the lye were boiled together in the big kettle, and mother had finished making the family’s supply of soap for another year, the children had taken not only a little lesson in industriousness, by helping to make the soap, but a little lesson in industry, too, by observing the technique and organization of the soap business from start to finish. A boy from that family, even if he never learned to read or write the word “soap,” might some day have some ideas about soap.
The curriculum of an old New England home, so far as presided over by the wife, may be incompletely suggested as follows:
(N. B. The reader will note the inappropriateness of congratulating the daughters of that home on their not wanting a job. They had it. And the reader will also note that the education 53 of the early New England girl, rich or poor, began with the education of her hand.)
VEGETABLES DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Gardening.
“In March and in April, from morning to night,
In sowing and setting good housewives delight.”
2. A course in Medicinal Herbs. Borage, fennel, wild tansy, wormwood, etc. Methods of distillation. Aqua composita, barberry conserve, electuaries, salves, and ointments. A most important course for every housewife.
“A speedy and a sovereign remedy,
The bitter wormwood, sage and marigold.”
—Fletcher: The Faithful Shepherdess.
3. A course in Pickling.
In this course pretty nearly everything will be pickled, down to nasturtium buds and radish pods.
PACKING-HOUSE DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Salting Meat in the “powdering” tub.
2. A course in Smoking Hams and Bacons.
3. A course in Pickling Pig’s Feet and Ears.
4. A course in Headcheese and Sausages.
LIQUOR DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Beer. The making of wort out of barley. The making of barm out of hops. The fermenting of the two together in barrels.
(This course is not so much given now in New England, but it is an immemorial heritage of the female sex. Gervayse Markham, in his standard book, “Instructions to a Good Housewife,” says about beer: “It is the work and care of woman, for it is a housework. The man ought only to bring in the grain.”)
2. A course in Light Drinks, such as Elderberry Wine.
CREAMERY DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Making Butter.
2. A course in Making Cheese; curdling, breaking curds in basket, shaping in cheese-press, turning and rubbing cheese on cheese-ladder.
CLEANING DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Soap-Making.
2. A course in Making Brooms out of Guinea-wheat Straw.
3. A course in Starch-Making.
4. A course in Cleaning.
(This last course is very simple. Having manufactured the things to wash and sweep with, the mere washing and sweeping won’t take long.)
FRUIT DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Preserving. In this course everything will be preserved unless it already has been pickled.
BREAKFAST-FOOD DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Mush and forty kinds of Bread—Rhineinjun (sometimes called Rye and Indian), bun, bannock, jannock, rusk, etc., etc.
LIGHTING DEPARTMENT
1. A course in Dips. The melting of tallow or bayberries. The twisting of wicks. The attaching of wicks to rods. The dipping of 56 them into the melted mass in the kettle. Patience in keeping on dipping them.
(Pupils taking this course are required to report each morning at five o’clock.)
2. A course in Wax Candles. The use of molds.
These departments might give a girl a pretty fair education of the hand and a pretty fair acquaintance with the technique and organization of the working world; but we haven’t yet mentioned the biggest and hardest department of all.
Before mentioning it, let us take a look at the picture reproduced in this chapter from a book published in the year 1493. This book was a French translation of Boccaccio’s collection of stories called “Noble Women.” The picture shows a woolen mill being operated in the grounds of a palace by a queen and her ladies-in-waiting. It summons back the days when even the daughters of kings and nobles could not help acquiring a knowledge of the working world, because they were in it.
One of the ladies-in-waiting is straightening out the tangled strands of wool with carding combs. The other has taken the combed and 57 straightened strands and is spinning them into yarn. The queen, being the owner of the plant, has the best job. She is weaving the yarn into cloth on a loom.
