The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 1888. THE TRAINING OF GIRLS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1778, 1 March 1888, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 1888. THE TRAINING OF GIRLS.

of children and servants, then she knows how to make a little heaven of horne — how to win her children from the street ; how to keep her husband from the clubhouse, the cambling-table and the winecup. Such a family will be trained to social respectability, to business, success, and to efficiency and usefulness m whatever position may be allotted to them . It may be safe to say that not one girl m ten m our large towns and cities enters into married life who has learnt to bake a loaf ot bread, to purchase a roast, to dust a painting, to sweep a carpet or to cut, and fit and make her own dress. How much the perfect knowledge of these things bear upon tho thrift, the comfort and health of families may be conjectured but not calculated by figures. It would be an immeasurable advantage to make a beginning by attaching a kitchen to every girls' school m the nation, and have lessons given daily m the pi'eparation of all the ordinary articles of food and drink for the table, and how to purchase them m the market to the best advantage, with the result of a large saving of money, an increase of comfprt, and higher health m every family m the land." These are views and recommendations which are worthy of the attention of educationists and of parents and guardians generally, and might be acted upon with the greatest possible advantage.

In these days of the higher education of girls there is no danger of the women of the next generation being deficient m book-learning, and probably large numbers of the wives and mothers of the future will bo brilliaut conversationalists, clever writers, and accomplished musicians, while not a few of them, perhaps, will be found taking their places m the learned professions. But although all this i.s very well so far as it goes, and need not necessarily unfit them for the duties of wifehood and motherhood, it ought to be remembered that the comfort of home consists not m the possession of such accomplishments by its tute'ary deity, woman, but m the perhapß humbler, but comfortproducing qualifications which go to make up what the good old ISaxon tongue describes as housewifeliness. And yet we feer that this very thing is m danger of being forgotten and that our modern systemafcof education are likely to produce more accomplished ladies than clever women, albeit clever women may be every whit as true ladies as the useless, helpless creatures who too frequently come under the former denomination. We are therefore glad to see now and then a wholesome and healthy protest against this one sided education which threatens to render a capable wife and mother the rare exception, and heartily endorse the following sensible remarks en the subject which we take from the editorial columns of "Hall's Journal" : — Training girls for household work ought to be considered as necessary as instruction m reading, writing and arithmetic, and quite as universal. We are m our houses more than half our existence, and it is the household surroundings which effect most largely the happiness or misery of our domestic life. If the wife knows how to " keep house," if she knows how to - " set a table," if she has learned how things ought to be cooked, how beds should be made, how carpets should be swept, how furniture should he dusted, how the clothes should be repaired, and turned, and altered, and renovated ; if she knows how purchases can be made to the best advantage, and understands the laying-in of provisions, how to make them go farthest and longest ; if she ap predates the importance of system, order, tidiness and fltf quiet management