A Domestic Problem : Work and Culture in the Household Part 3

CHAPTER VII.

A WAY OUT.

But suppose we leave this part of our subject, and endeavor now to find a way out of this present state of things. Let us keep the situation clearly before us. As things are, woman cannot obtain culture because of being overburdened with work and care, and also because of her enfeebled condition physically. To what is this present state of things owing? Largely to the unworthy views of both men and women concerning the essentials of life, and concerning the requirements of woman's vocation. And these unworthy views of men and women, to what are they owing? In a very great measure to early impressions. Who, chiefly, are responsible for these? Mothers. They are also, as has been shown, responsible for the larger part of the prevailing invalidism of woman. Let us be sure to bear in mind that these evils, these hinderances to culture, can be traced directly back to the influence and the ignorance of mothers; for here is where the whole thing hinges. Here is a basis to build upon. Child-training is at the beginning. Child-training is woman's work. Everybody says so.

The wise say so. The foolish say so. The "oak and vine" man says so.

The "private way, dangerous pa.s.sing" man says so. Very good. If this is woman's work, _educate her for her work_. If "educate" isn't the right word, instruct her, inform her, teach her, prepare her; name the process as you choose, so that it enables her to comprehend the nature of her business, and qualifies her to perform its duties. She requires not only general culture, but special preparation, a technical preparation if you will. Let this come in as the supplementary part of what is called her education. Many will p.r.o.nounce this absurd; but why is it absurd? Say we have in our young woman's cla.s.s at the "Inst.i.tute," thirty or forty or fifty young women. Now, we know that almost every one of these, either as a mother or in some other capacity, will have the care of children. The "Inst.i.tute" a.s.sumes to give these young women such knowledge as shall be useful to them in after life. If "Inst.i.tutes" are not for this purpose, what are they for? One might naturally suppose, then, that the kind of knowledge which its pupils need for their special vocation would rank first in importance. And what kind will they need? Step into the house round the corner, or down the street, and ask that young mother, looking with unutterable tenderness upon the little group around her, what knowledge she would most value. She will say, "I long more than words can express to know how to keep these children well. I want to make them good children, to so train them that they will be comforts to themselves and useful to others. But I am ignorant on every point. I don't know how to keep them well, and I don't know how to control them, how to guide them."

"It is said," you reply, "that every child brings love with it. Is not love all-powerful and all-sufficient?"

"Love does come with every child; but, alas! knowledge does not come with the love. My love is so strong, and yet so blind, that it even does harm. I would almost give up a little of my love if knowledge could be got in exchange."

Here, perhaps, you inquire, somewhat sarcastically, if no instruction on these subjects was given at the "Inst.i.tute." She opens wide her astonished eyes. "Oh, no! No, indeed,--surely not."

"What, then, were you taught there?"

"Well, many things,--Roman history for one. We learned all about the Punic Wars, their causes, results, and the names of the famous generals on both sides."

Now, if a Bostonian were going to Europe, it would do him no harm to be told the names of all the streets in Chicago, the names of the inhabitants of each street, with the stories of their lives, their quarrels, reconciliations, and how each one rose or fell to his position. Acquiring these facts would be good mental exercise, and from a part of them he would learn something of human nature. But what that man wants to know more than any thing is, on what day the steamer sails for Europe: is she seaworthy? what are her accommodations? is she well provisioned, well manned, well commanded? are her life-preservers stuffed with cork or shavings? So, if a man is going to build a boat, you might show him a collection of fossils, and discourse to him of the gneiss system, the mica-schist system, or talk of the atomic theory and protoplasms. Such knowledge would help to enlarge his views, extend his range of vision, and strengthen his memory, but would not help the man to build his boat. He wants to know how to lay her keel straight, how to hit the right proportions, how to make her mind her helm, how to make her go; and he has been taught that the great pachyderms are divided into paleotheria and anoplotheria. The same of our young mother: she wants to know how to bring up her child, and she has been taught "how many Punic wars there were, their causes, results, and the names of the famous generals on both sides."

It may be asked here, in what way, or by what studies, shall the young woman's cla.s.s at the "Inst.i.tute" be taught the necessary knowledge? It would be presumption in one like me to attempt a complete answer to that question. But the professors, presidents, and stockholders of our "Inst.i.tutes" are learned and wise. If these will let their light s.h.i.+ne in this direction as they have let it s.h.i.+ne in other directions, a way will be revealed. But, while learning and wisdom are getting ready to do this, mere common sense may offer a few suggestions. Suppose the young woman's cla.s.s were addressed somewhat in this way: "It is probable that all of you, in one capacity or another, will have the care of young children, and that for the majority it will be the chief duty of your lives. There is, then, nothing in the whole vast range of learning so important to you as knowledge on this subject." This for a general statement to begin with. As for the particular subjects and their order, common sense would ask, first, What does a young mother want to know first? First, she wants to know how to keep her child alive, how to make it strong to endure or defy disease. She needs to be taught, for instance, why a child should breathe pure air, and why it should not get its pure air in the form of draughts. She needs to know if it makes any difference what a child eats, or how often, and that a monotonous diet is injurious. She needs to know something of the nutritive qualities of different kinds of food, and why some are easy of digestion and others not, and in what way each kind builds up the system. She needs to understand the chemistry of cookery, in order to judge what kinds of food are calculated to make the best blood, bones, and muscles. She needs to have some general ideas in regard to ways of bringing back the system from an abnormal to a healthy state; as, for instance, equalizing the circulations. Learned professors, women physicians, will know how to deliver courses of lectures on all such subjects, and to tell what books have been written on them, and where these books may be found. And, as for the absurdity of teaching these things beforehand, compare that with the absurdity of rearing a race to hand over to physicians and undertakers, and choose between.

And even apart from their practical bearing, why are not such items of knowledge as well worth learning, as simply items of knowledge, as the hundreds of others which, at present, no young woman's course can be without? There is no doubt that if mothers were given a knowledge of these matters beforehand, instead of being left to acquire it experimentally, the present frightful rate of infant mortality (nearly twenty-five per cent) would be reduced. Plenty of light has been thrown on this subject, but the community does not receive it. Here is some which was contributed to one of the Board of Health reports by a physician.

"The mother," he says, "requires something more than her loving instincts, her ready sympathies. With all her good-will and conscientiousness, mistakes are made. The records of infant mortality offer a melancholy ill.u.s.tration of the necessity of the mother's previous preparation for the care of her children. The first-born die in infancy in much larger proportion than their successors in the family. The mother learns at the cost of her first child, and is better prepared for the care of the second, and still better for the third and fourth, whose chances of development into full life and strength are much greater than those of the oldest brothers and sisters."

Think of the mother learning "at the cost of her first child," and of the absurd young woman learning beforehand; and choose between. Also please compare the "previous preparation" here recommended with the mere bureau-drawer preparation, which is the only one at present deemed necessary. Another writer, an Englishman, speaking of the high rate of infant mortality, says, "It arises from ignorance of the proper means to be employed in rearing children," which certainly is plain language. Such facts and opinions as these would make an excellent basis for a course of lectures at the "Inst.i.tute," to be given by competent women physicians. The advertis.e.m.e.nts of "Mrs.

Winslow's Soothing Syrup" would be remarkably suggestive in this connection. A mother of three little children said to me, "I give the baby her dose right after breakfast; and she goes to sleep, and sleeps all the forenoon. That's the way I get my work done." We all know why the baby sleeps after taking its dose. We do not know how many mothers adopt this means of getting their work done; but the fact that the proprietor of this narcotic gained his immense wealth by the sale of it enables us to form some idea.

The importance of educating nursery-girls for their calling, and the physical evils which may arise from leaving young children entirely to the care of nursery-girls, would be exceedingly suggestive as lecture subjects. Mr. Kingsley asks, "Is it too much to ask of mothers, sisters, aunts, nurses, and governesses, that they should study thrift of human health and human life by studying somewhat the laws of life and health? There are books--I may say a whole literature of books--written by scientific doctors on these matters, which are, to my mind, far more important to the schoolroom than half the trashy accomplishments, so called, which are expected to be known by our governesses."

But, supposing a mother succeeds in keeping her child alive and well, what knowledge does she desire next? She desires to know next how to guide it, influence it, mould its character. She does all these, whether she tries to or not, whether she knows it or not, whether she wishes to or not. Says Horace Mann, "It ought to be understood and felt, that in regard to children all precept and example, all kindness and harshness, all rebuke and commendation, all forms, indeed, of direct or indirect education, affect mental growth, just as dew, and sun, and shower, or untimely frost, affect vegetable growth. Their influences are integrated and made one with the soul. They enter into spiritual combination with it, never afterward to be wholly decompounded. They are like the daily food eaten by wild game, so pungent in its nature that it flavors every fibre of their flesh, and colors every bone in their bodies. Indeed, so pervading and enduring is the effect of education upon the youthful soul, that it may well be compared to a certain species of writing ink, whose color at first is scarcely perceptible, but which penetrates deeper and grows blacker by age, until, if you consume the scroll over a coal-fire, the character will still be legible in the cinders."

In regard to inherited bad traits, the question arises, if even these may not be changed for the better by skilful treatment given at a sufficiently early period. Children inheriting diseased bodies are sometimes so reared as to become healthy men and women. To do this requires watchfulness and wise management. How do we know that by watchfulness and wise management children born with inherited bad traits may not be trained to become good men and women? But the majority of mothers do not watch for such traits. It seldom occurs to them that they should thus watch. Why not bring the subject to the consideration of young women "beforehand," when, being a.s.sembled in companies, they are easy of access? It is too late when they are scattered abroad, and burdened each with her pressing family duties.

"Forewarned is forearmed."

Some are of the opinion that the badness which comes by inheritance cannot be changed. This is equivalent to believing that there is no help for the evil in the world. Unworthy and vicious parents are continually transmitting objectionable traits to their children, who in turn will transmit them to theirs, and so on to the end of time.

Shall we fold our hands, and resign ourselves to the prospect, while our educators go on ignoring the whole matter, and leaving those who might affect a change ignorant that it is in their power to do so?

"But," says one, "the children of those people who thought so much about education, and who started with model theories, behave no better than other people's children." This may be true, and still prove nothing. "Those people" might not have thought wisely about education.

Their model theories might not have been adapted to the various temperaments often found in one family. Their children might have been exceptionally faulty by nature; unsuspected inherited traits may have developed themselves, and interfered with the workings of the model theories. The failure of "those people" shows all the more the need of preparation given "beforehand," and given by those who make the subject a special study, just as the professor of history, or mathematics, or natural philosophy, makes his department a special study.

When we consider how much is at stake, it really seems as if learned and wise professors could not employ their learning and wisdom to better purpose than in devising ways of enlightening the "young woman's cla.s.s" upon any and every point which has a bearing on the intellectual and moral training of children.

CHAPTER VIII.

SUGGESTIONS FOR LECTURE TOPICS.

It is not to be supposed that enlightenment on subjects pertaining to the intellectual and moral training of children can be given to a young woman in text-book fas.h.i.+on, cut and dried, put up in packages, and labelled ready for use. But it will be something gained to set her thinking on these subjects, to make her feel their importance, and to inform her in what books and by what writers they have been considered. All this, and more to the same purpose, could be done by lectures and discussions, for which lectures and discussions even humble common sense need be at no loss to suggest topics. There are, for instance, the different methods of governing, of reproving, of punis.h.i.+ng, and of securing obedience; the evils of corporal punishment, of governing by ridicule, of showing temper while punis.h.i.+ng. Then there are questions like these: How far should love of approbation be encouraged? What prominence shall be given to externals, as personal appearance, the minutia of behavior, politeness of speech? How may perfect politeness be combined with perfect sincerity? Ways of inculcating integrity. How to teach self-reliance, without fostering self-conceit. How to encourage prudence and economy, and at the same time discourage parsimony. How to combine firmness with kindness. Implicit obedience a good basis to work on. How to enter into a child's life, and make it a happy one. How not to become a slave to a child's whims. The different amounts of indulgence and of a.s.sistance which different temperaments will bear. How shall liberality be inculcated, and extravagance denounced? On deceitfulness as taught by parents. On lying as taught by parents. On the impossibility of making one theory work in a whole family of children, or always on a single child. Shall obedience be implicit, and how early in the child's life shall it be exacted? On marriages. On the true issues of life. When shall ambition and the spirit of emulation be encouraged, and when repressed? The possibility of too much fault-finding making a child callous. If mere common sense discovers so many subjects, what number may not learning and wisdom discover when their attention shall be turned in this direction?

The "nursery-girl" topic might come up again, and be considered in its moral and intellectual aspects. Some mothers see their small children only once or twice a day, while the nurse is with them constantly.

This fact might be made strikingly significant by placing it side by side with Horace Mann's words: "In regard to children, all precept and example, all kindness and harshness, all rebuke and commendation, all forms, indeed, of direct or indirect education, affect mental growth, just as dew and sun and shower, or untimely frost, affect vegetable growth. Their influences are integrated and made one with the soul.

They enter into spiritual combination with it, never afterward to be wholly decompounded,"--also with a previously quoted a.s.sertion, founded on actual experiments, that "it is the medium in which a child is habitually immersed" which helps most in forming the child's character. The kind of reading which falls into the hands of the young would be found to be a lecture topic of appalling interest. Striking ill.u.s.trations for such lectures could be taken from the advertis.e.m.e.nts and statistics of story-paper and dime-novel publishers. The ill.u.s.trated papers which can be bought and are bought by youth are crammed to overflowing with details of vice and barbarity. They have columns headed "A Melange of Murder," "Fillicide, or a Son killing a Father," "l.u.s.t and Blood," "Fiendish a.s.sa.s.sination," "Particulars of the Hanging of John C. Kelly," "Carving a Darky," "An Interesting Divorce Case in Boston," "A Band of Juvenile Jack Sheppards." And the pictures match the reading,--a jealous lover shooting a half-naked girl; a father murdering his family; an inquisitive youth peering into a ladies' dressing-room. If the contents of these papers are bad for us to hear of, what must they be to the youth who read them? Dime novels are advertised in these same papers as being issued once a month, and supplied by all the news companies, "Sensational stories from the pens of gifted American novelists!" "The Sharpers' League,"

"Lyte, or the Suspected One," "The Pirate's Isle," "Darrell, the Outlaw," "The Night Hawks, containing Midnight Robbery, Plots dark and deep," "The Female Poisoner," "Etne of the Angel Face and Demon Heart," "The Cannibal Kidnappers, a Sequel to the Boy Mutineers,"

"Life for Life, or the Spanish Gipsy Girl," "Tom Wildrake's School-days." Some of these papers are ent.i.tled "Boys' and Girls'"

weeklies. The old saying is, "Build doves' nests, and doves will come." What kind of "nests" are being built by the young readers of these publications, of which it may almost literally be said, "no boy can do without one"? The boy at school has one between the leaves of his geography; the boy riding, or sailing, or resting from his work or his play, draws one from his pocket; the grocer's boy comes forward to serve you, tucking one under his jacket. In the way of statistics, it might be stated that nineteen tons of obscene publications and plates for the same were seized at one time in New-York City. Should representatives of "our best families" ask, "How does this affect us and ours?" it could be answered that catalogues of academies and boarding-schools are obtained, and that these publications are then forwarded to pupils by mail.

Topics of this kind would naturally suggest those of an opposite kind, as modes of awakening in children an appreciation of the beauty, the sublimity, the wonderfulness, of the various objects in the world of nature; also of cultivating in their minds a taste for the beautiful and the refined in art, literature, manners, conversation. These considerations could be effectively introduced into a lecture or lectures "On the Building of Doves' Nests." Is it not "essential" that mothers should have the time, the facilities, and the knowledge necessary for accomplis.h.i.+ng what is here suggested, and that they be made sensible of its importance? But there is many a busy mother now who can scarcely "take time" to look out when her children call her to see a rainbow, much less to walk out with them among natural objects.

The object of these lectures should not be to teach any particular theories on which to act in the management of children, but to so instruct, so to enlighten young women, that when the time for action comes they will act intelligently. With the majority of women the management of children is a mere "getting along." In this "getting along" they often have recourse to deception; thus teaching deceitfulness. They are often unfair, punis.h.i.+ng on one occasion what they smile at or wink at on another; thus teaching injustice. They lose self-control, and punish when in anger; thus setting examples of violence and bad temper. It is probable that a young woman who had been educated with a view to her vocation would be more likely to act wisely in these emergencies and in her general course of management, than one who had not. There would be more chance of her taking pains to consider. She would not work so blindly, so aimlessly, so "from hand to mouth," as do some of our mothers.

Such enlightenment is an enlightenment for which any good mother will be thankful. She wants it to work with. She feels the need of it every hour in the day. Why, then, is it not given to young women as a part of their education, and as the most important part? They are instructed in almost every thing else. They can give you the areas, population, boundaries, capitals, and peculiarities of far-away and insignificant provinces; the exact measurements of mountain ranges, lakes, and rivers; statistics, in figures, of the farthest isle beyond the farthest sea. They are lectured on the antediluvians, on the Milky Way, on the Siamese, j.a.panese, North Pole, on all the ologies; on the literature, modes of thought, and modes of life, of extinct races.

They can converse in foreign tongues; they are familiar with dead languages, and with the superst.i.tions, observances, and quarrels of certain races, barbarous or otherwise, who existed thousands of years ago. In fact, they are taught, after some fas.h.i.+on, almost every thing except what their life-work will specially require. Little will it avail a mother in her seasons of perplexity or of bereavement to remember "what wars engaged Rome after the Punic Wars, and how many years elapsed before she was mistress of the Mediterranean." This and the following questions are taken from the "Examination Papers" of a popular "Inst.i.tute" for young ladies.

"Give names and dates of the princ.i.p.al engagements of the Persian wars, with the names of the great men of Greece during that period."

"Show cause, object, and result of the Peloponnesian war."

"Give names and attributes of the seven kings of Rome."

"After the kings were driven out, what does the internal history mainly consist of?"

"What were the social, and what were the civil wars?"

Common sense might ask why every child born in the nineteenth century must go to work so solemnly to learn the minute particulars of those old wars! Still common sense would not declare such knowledge to be altogether worthless; it would only suggest that woman wants the kind which will help her in her special department, more than she wants this kind. Said a lady in my hearing,--an only child reared in the very centre of wealth and culture,--"I was most carefully educated; but, when I came to be the mother of children, I found myself utterly helpless."

It is gratifying to know that in regard to these matters common sense has very respectable learning and wisdom on its side. A celebrated writer and thinker says, "If by some strange chance not a vestige of us descended to the remote future, save a pile of our school-books, or some college examination papers, we may imagine how puzzled an antiquary of the period would be on finding in them no indication that the learners were ever likely to be parents. 'This must have been the curriculum for their celibates,' we may fancy him concluding: 'I perceive here an elaborate preparation for many things; especially for reading the books of extinct nations (from which, indeed, it seems clear that these people had very little worth reading in their own tongue), but I find no reference whatever to the bringing up of children. They could not have been so absurd as to omit all training for this gravest of responsibilities. Evidently, then, this was the school-course of one of their monastic orders.' Seriously, is it not an astonis.h.i.+ng fact, that though on the treatment of offspring depend their lives or their deaths, and their moral welfare or ruin, not one word on such treatment is ever given to those who will hereafter be parents? Is it not monstrous, that the fate of a new generation should be left to the chances of unreasoning custom, impulse, fancy, joined with the suggestions of ignorant nurses and the prejudiced counsel of grandmothers? To tens of thousands that are killed, add hundreds of thousands that survive with feeble const.i.tutions, and millions that grow up with const.i.tutions not so strong as they should be, and you will have some idea of the curse inflicted on their offspring by parents ignorant of the laws of life. With cruel carelessness they have neglected to learn any thing about these vital processes which they are unceasingly affecting by their commands and prohibitions; in utter ignorance of the simplest physiological laws, they have been, year by year, undermining the const.i.tutions of their children, and have so inflicted disease and premature death not only on them but on their descendants. Consider the young mother and her nursery legislation. But a few years ago she was at school, where her memory was crammed with words, names, and dates; where not one idea was given her respecting the methods of dealing with the opening mind of childhood. The intervening years have been pa.s.sed in practising music, in fancy work, in novel-reading, and in party-going; no thought having been yet given to the grave responsibilities of maternity. And now see her with an unfolding human character committed to her charge,--see her profoundly ignorant of the phenomena with which she has to deal, undertaking to do that which can be done but imperfectly even with the aid of the profoundest knowledge.... Lacking knowledge of mental phenomena, with their causes and consequences, her interference is frequently more mischievous than absolute pa.s.sivity would have been."

This writer, it seems, would also have young men educated with a view to their probable duties as fathers, and so, of course, would we all; and much might be said on this point, especially of its bearing on the solution of our problem; still, as Mr. Frothingham said in a recent address, "The mother, of all others, is the one to foster and control the individuality of the child." It was "good mothers" which Napoleon needed in order to secure the welfare of France. "Such kind of women as are the mothers of great men," is a significant sentence I have seen somewhere in print. In fact, so much depends on mothers, that there seems no possible way by which our problem can be fully solved until the right kind of mothers shall have been raised up, and their children be grown to maturity.

CHAPTER IX.

WAYS OF IMMEDIATE ESCAPE.

But is there no possible way by which mothers now living may escape from this present unsatisfactory condition? Yes; but not many will adopt it. Simplicity in food and in dress would set free a very large number. A great part of what are called their "domestic" occupations consists in the preparation of food which is worse than unnecessary. A great part of their sewing work consists in fabricating "tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs"

which are worse than useless, even considering beauty a use, which it is. Let these simplify their cooking and their dressing, and time for culture will appear, and for them our problem be solved. We preach against the vice of intemperance, and with reason. Let us ask ourselves if intemperance in eating and in dressing is not even more to be deplored. The former brings ruin to comparatively a few: by means of the latter the whole tone of mind among women is lowered; and we have seen what it costs to lower the tone of mind among women. We must remember that not only is the condition of the mother reflected in the organism of her child, but that the child is taught by the daily example of its mother what to look upon as the essentials of life. "I feel miserable," said a feeble house-mother, just recovering from sickness; "but I managed to crawl out into the kitchen, and stir up a loaf of cake." Now, why should a sick woman have crawled out into the kitchen, to stir up a loaf of cake? Was that a paramount duty,--one which demanded the outlay of her little all of strength?

This is the obvious inference, and one which children would naturally draw. A lady of intelligence, on hearing this case stated, expressed the opinion that the woman did no more than her duty. Said this lady, "If her husband liked cake, it was her duty to provide it for him at whatever sacrifice of health on her own part."

Now, it seems reasonable to suppose that an affectionate couple would have a mutual understanding in regard to such matters. It seems reasonable to suppose that an affectionate husband would rather partake of plain fare in the society of a wife with sufficient health and spirits to be companionable, than to eat his cake alone while she was recovering from the fatigue of making it.

Speaking of inferences, it is obvious what ones a child will draw from seeing its mother deprive herself of sleep and recreation and reading-time in order to trim a suit _a la mode_. And these inferences of children concerning essentials have a mighty bearing on our problem. Some ladies defend the present elaborate style of dress on the ground that it affords the means of subsistence to sewing-girls. There is something in this, but I think not so much as appears. Go into the upper lofts where much of this sewing is done, and what will you find? You will find them crowded with young girls, bending over sewing-machines, or over work-tables, breathing foul air, and, in some cases, engaged in conversations of the most objectionable character. Their pay is ridiculously small,--a dollar and a half for doing the machine-work on a full-trimmed fas.h.i.+onable "suit." I learned this, and about the conversations, from a worker at one of these establishments. Clothes, especially outside clothes, they must have and will have; consequently the saving must be made on food. Some, too poor to pay board, hire attic rooms, and pinch themselves in both fire and food. They often carry their dinner, say bread, tea, and confectioner's pie, and remain at the store all day. They are liable to be thrown among vile a.s.sociates; they are exposed to many temptations. They enrich their employers, but not themselves. In dull seasons their situation is pitiable, not to say dangerous. A great number of them come from country homes. Of these, many might live comfortably in those homes, and others might earn a support by working in their neighbors' houses, where they would be considered as members of the families, have good lodging and nouris.h.i.+ng food, and where their a.s.sistance is not only desired, but in some cases actually suffered for. They prefer the excitements of city life. (Of course, these remarks do not apply to all of them.) Fas.h.i.+onable ladies may not employ shop-girls directly or indirectly, but their example helps to make a market for the services of these girls. Another consideration is, that the poor seamstress who is benefited directly by the money of fas.h.i.+onable ladies is taught as directly, by their example, false views as to the essentials of life; so that what helps in one way hinders in another. All this should be considered by those who bring forward "sewing-girls' needs" as an argument for an elaborate style of dress. Even were this argument sound, it fails to cover the case. A very large proportion of our women have not money enough to hire their sewing done, and it is upon these that the wearisome burden falls. To keep up, to vary with the varying fas.h.i.+on, they toil in season and out of season. Day after day you will see them at their work-tables, their machines, their lap-boards; ripping, st.i.tching, turning, altering, furbis.h.i.+ng; complaining often of sideache, of backache, of headache, of aching all over; denying themselves outdoor air and exercise and reading-time,--and all because they consider dressing fas.h.i.+onably an essential of life. With them, what costs only time, health, and strength, costs nothing.