Letters to Persons Who Are Engaged in Domestic Service. Catharine Esther Beecher

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СКАЧАТЬ and tradesmen, can bestow money on charitable objects, can secure a superior education, and many other agreeable things that make it pleasant to others to associate with them. Why are persons of talent and learning honourable? Because their talents and knowledge give them power in various ways to promote their own interest and to do good to others.

      The mere possession, then, of a power to do good, is what makes one station more honourable than another. But another thing that makes a station honourable, is the actual using of this power in doing good.

      If kings and queens are selfish and wicked, and use their power to oppress their people, they are never as much honoured as when they use it to do good.

      If presidents, governors, and judges use their power to do evil, they are not honoured like those who use it to do good. If a minister of the gospel uses his influence to do harm rather than good, he is more despised than he is honoured. If rich people spend their wealth in selfish indulgences, or in harmful vices, they are not honoured as they would be, if they spent it for useful and benevolent purposes. If persons who have talents and learning, spend their time and influence to do evil, they are not honoured or respected as they would be, if they employed them to do good.

      Now I think you clearly see, that the two things which make a station honourable are, the power to do good, and the use of this power in a proper manner. If, then, I can show that domestics have great power to do good given them, and that they really use this power in doing good, I shall prove that the station of a domestic is an honourable and respectable one. And if I can show that domestics have more power, and actually do more good, than many who think themselves above them, I shall prove, too, that they have the more honourable and respectable station. I will therefore point out the power of doing good which is given to domestics. In the first place, then, they do more than any other class of persons to sustain that most important institution of God, the family state. How much benefit and comfort mankind receive through this institution, few of us can realize. To help you to do so, just imagine the state of things in this country, if all the homes in the land were broken up, and all classes of persons herded together in common, like flocks of animals.

      In this case the father and husband would have no quiet home to go to for comfort, and the mother would have no house of her own where she could train her children. Every child, too, would be turned out into the community to take care of itself, with no parents to watch over it by day and night, no brothers and sisters to sleep and play with, no regular meal to call all the children together around their kind parents.

      In a cold and selfish world, without guardians, without a home, without parental restraint and tenderness, each young child would go into the common herd, to grow up selfish, unhappy, unloving and unloved.

      Instead of this, God ordains that parents shall have a home of their own, where they can have their children to themselves, to train them up in love and peace and plenty. And one main support of this blessed institution of family and home is, those domestics who are hired to do the chief labours of the family. Just take away from this country all the cooks, chambermaids, waiters, washers, and house cleaners, and what would be the result? The fathers could not leave their business to do the family work, the mothers would not have strength to do it, and the family state would be broken up. And thus unnumbered miseries and crime would come in floods upon the land.

      The position and the work of a domestic, then, are among the most useful, the most important and the most honourable. They have a power given them to do good and to save from evil, not surpassed by that of any other class in the community. Let any one select the class of persons that could be dispensed with last of all, and it would be found that lawyers, merchants, doctors, and ministers would all be given up, before every family would agree to give up all aid from cooks, washers, nurses and every kind of hired service in the family.

      But, in addition to the power thus given to domestics in sustaining the family state, they have another most important position of usefulness. This relates to the power they exercise in forming the characters of young children. The period of life from infancy to twelve years old, is the time in which the foundations of future character are laid. During this time, children are in the society of domestics almost as much as they are with their parents, and in many cases, they talk with those hired to take care of them much more than they do with their parents. Children are creatures of imitation and sympathy, and they soon learn to think, and feel and act like those around them. Of course domestics are constantly exerting a powerful influence in forming the opinions, tastes, habits, and character of children, more so, probably, than any other class in the community. To estimate this power properly, we must remember that the happiness of children depends almost entirely on the character they form. If they learn to control their appetites, to be honest, truthful, benevolent, and industrious, they will be useful and happy in future life. If they do not learn to control their appetites, if they learn to be deceitful, dishonest, selfish and irritable, they certainly will be unhappy and unprosperous. And our whole nation is to be made up of children, whose happiness and prosperity will depend, to a great degree, on the influences exerted over them by domestics in early life. And the next generation is to depend, for happiness and prosperity, on the manner in which the present generation is trained. And the next after that, depends in like manner, on the one before it, so that the influence which domestics exert on one generation of children is to go down to generation after generation, for hundreds of years.

      And yet, this is not half of the mighty power, which is given to domestics to use, either for good or for evil. All these children, who from generation to generation are thus influenced in character, by domestics who take care of them, are to live forever, and their happiness for endless ages, is to depend on the character which they form in this life! Oh eternity! eternity! who can estimate the power of those who are doing so much, in forming the character of beings who can never, never die!

      Another particular in which domestics have great power is, the influence they exert in making home pleasant to husbands and sons. In a family where most of the work is done regularly and well, by domestics, the mother has time to take good care of her children, and her mind is cheerful and free from excessive cares. In this case, the husband and sons find a comfortable and pleasant home, and are not tempted to resort to dangerous amusements abroad. But when every thing is going wrong in the kitchen and nursery, the wife and mother is perplexed and harassed, and often is low-spirited or irritable. The father and sons, when they come home, find the house in disorder, their food ill cooked and served, their linen out of order, their beds uncomfortable, the housekeeper gloomy, the children unregulated, and every thing seems to drive them off to look for a more cheerful and comfortable resort. Many and many a husband and son has thus been driven to temptations and snares, that have drawn them and their families to misery and ruin.

      Another power for doing good given to domestics is, their opportunities for comforting and relieving the sick. Sickness always makes a great deal of work, and were it not for domestics, the sick would suffer greatly for want of nursing and many comforts. No persons owe more to domestics than those who, by sickness, are deprived of all power to take care of themselves. I might point out other particulars in which domestics have it in their power to do great good, but surely enough has been presented to show, that if great power to do good is what entitles persons to be called honourable, then domestics have a pre-eminent claim.

      But it has been shown, that it is not only the power to do good, but the actual use of this power that entitles a person to honour and respect. Here, also, domestics will be found to have a claim equal to that of any other class of persons. It will be found, that there are individuals in every class of society, who do not use their power well. There are bad kings and bad governors, bad rich men and bad learned men, and sometimes there are bad ministers of the gospel. So, also, there are bad domestics. But, as a class, I believe domestics use their power for the benefit, rather than the injury of society, as much so as any other class. Most of the work, that is necessary to sustain the family state, is actually done by them, the sick are taken care of by their help, children are nursed and taken care СКАЧАТЬ