LADIES' COLUMN

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume II, Issue 170, 5 November 1880, Page 1 (Supplement)

LADIES' COLUMN

THE IDLENESS OF GIRLS,

Another great mistake that many of our girls are making, and that their mothers arc either encouraging or alloAving them to make, is that of spending their time out of school in idleness or in frivolous amusements, doing no Avork to speak of, and learning nothing about the practical duties and the serious cares of life. It is growing up indolent and unpractised in household Avork; indeed, i. think that more attention is paid to the industrial training of girls in the Avcalthier families than in the families of mechanics and people in moderate circumstances, where the mothers are compelled to work hard all the Avhile. ‘Within the last Aveek,’ says one of my correspondents, ‘1 have heard two mothers, worthy Avomen in most respects, say, the first, that her daughter never did any sweeping. Why if she wants to say to her companions, 1 1 never swept a room in my life,’ and takes any comfort in it let her hay it ; and yet that mother is sorrowing much over the shortcomings of (hat very daughter. The other said she would not let her daughter to do anything in the kitchen. Poor deluded Aioinan ! She did it all her lierself instead ! The habits of indolence and of helplessness that are thus termed are not the greatest evils resulting trout this bad practice : the selfishness that it fosters is the worst thing about it. How devoid of conscience, how lacking iu all true sense of tenderness or even of justice, a girl must be who Avill thus consent to devote all her time out of school to pleasuring, ivliiie her mother is bearing all the heavy Guldens of the household. And the foolish Avav in Avhich mothers sometimes talk about this, even in the presence of their children, is mischievous in the extreme. ‘Oh ! Hattie is so absorbed with her books, or her crayons, or embroidery, that she. takes no interest in household matters, and I do not like to call upon her. As if the daughter belonged to a superior order of beings, and must not soil her hands or rullle her temper Avith necessary housework. The mother is the drudge; the daughter is the lino lady for Avhom she toils. No mother who suffers such a state of tilings as this can preserve the respect of her daughter, and the respect of her daughter no mother can afford to lose. The result of a.l this is to form in the minds of many gifted girls not only a distaste for labour, but a contempt of it, and a purpose to aA r oid it as long as they live by some means or other. There is scarcely one letter I have icceWed Avhich does not mention this as one of the chief errors in the training of our girls at the present day. It is not uuiA'crsal, but it is altogether too prevalent. And I Avant to say to you girls, that if you are allowing yourselves to grow up Avith such habits of indolence ami such notions about work, you :uo preparing, for yourselves a miserable future. Hoax W. (Hadden.