Household Administration, Its Place in the Higher Education of Women. Various

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Consequently if a healthy nation is desired, the women of a country must be educated both academically and scientifically. “If women are to be fit wives and mothers they must have all, perhaps more, of the opportunities for personal development that men have. All the activities hitherto reserved to men must be open to them, and many of these activities, certain functions of citizenship, for example, must be expected of them. Moreover, whatever the lines may be along which the fitness of woman to labour will be experimentally determined, the underlying position must be established that, for the sake of the individual and race character, she must be a producer as well as a consumer of social values.”[9]

      Now how is this most desirable end to be attained? The succeeding papers will deal with the subject in extenso; here can only be briefly indicated the scope and purpose of the majority.

An eminent authority tells us that “the objects of nature may be designated as the objective point of view. It is the standpoint of biology and affords the natural conditions for the successful 29 investigation of the laws of life, not only of the lower organisms but of the human race as well.”[10] This immediately demonstrates the vital necessity that women should know something of these fundamental laws of life, which biology alone can teach, in order that she may apply these to her ordinary daily life and recognise them as operating in all her surroundings.

      The transition from this stage to the next is an easy one. Woman having learnt the laws of life, will immediately view her economic responsibilities with a clearer eye and fuller understanding. It is true that throughout the ages woman has striven to acquit herself as best she could, but until the present day it has mostly been a groping in the dark, without the aid of any exterior agency. Now light is beginning to be thrown on many points hitherto obscure.

      Household economics has been well said “to rest on two chief cornerstones, the economy of wealth and the economy of health, and encloses the groundwork of human happiness and human aspirations ... even all departments of science must contribute to its development.”

      But a mere knowledge of biology and economics is useless without bodily efficiency, and true bodily efficiency is only possible where the environment is favourable to growth and life. It cannot be expected that full physical development can ever take place in ill-lighted, badly ventilated, 30 defectively drained or otherwise objectionable houses. And it must never for a moment be forgotten that if the body be neglected, then, as an inevitable consequence, the mind and spirit must also become warped. It is not that we desire man to develop his physical nature at the expense of his spiritual, but rather that we would see him placed in such a condition that he is able to apply those great faculties, which distinguish him from the brute creation, to their highest and best use.

      The ancients recognised in very early times the need of sanitary precautions to protect themselves from the onslaught of disease and the consequent decimation of their race.

      We find Mena, King of Egypt (5000 B.C.), mentioning in his Ordinances that offences in diet were one of the things through which “the genius of death becomes eager to destroy men.”

      The Levitical Laws contain many enactments of a sanitary character, they are one of the oldest known sanitary codes, and have many wise and necessary provisions for the health of the people.

      Rules for the conduct of rural life were formulated so far back as 100-500 B.C. in Bœotia. Tarquinus Priscus began and Tarquinus Superbus completed the great works for the drainage of Rome in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C., of which the Cloaca Maxima was the most remarkable feature; even to-day the ancient water-supply of Rome and her system of baths are still a source of admiration to the modern world. And 31 to their credit be it said that the Romans carried this knowledge with them to the countries which they conquered; we find aqueducts at Great Chester and Lanchester, an arterial sewer at Lincoln, and the well-known baths at Bath.

From the destruction of Rome until well-nigh ten centuries later was a period in which no advance in sanitation was made; on the contrary, retrogression was the keynote of the time. Warfare, religious segregation, and the spread of asceticism were the chief reasons for this; the ideals of both Christian and Pagan were opposed to personal and public hygiene. “The ascetic violated all laws of personal hygiene, the monastery’s ideal was inconsistent with public hygiene, and both glorified God by teaching submission to pestilence,”[11] which from time to time swept over the country, devastating it from end to end.

      But with the increase of trade it became necessary to adopt certain measures for the preservation of human life, and in 1348 we hear of the first street-cleaning and quarantine in those two great centres of commerce, Venice and Cologne. It was in the same year that the most terrible plague which the world has ever known attacked Britain and practically depopulated it, finding its chief prey in the filthy streets of the City. This led in 1379 to an Order in Common Council for keeping the streets clean. But despite this, all through mediæval times personal health was shamefully neglected and 32 public health practically unknown. The consequences are easy to trace; the country was again and again swept by epidemics which were naturally followed by severe famines, and thus on every side progress was checked. The Fire of London at least cleansed London of its filth, and from that time forward matters began to improve. All through the eighteenth century, smallpox, typhus, scurvy, and ague were rampant, and it is not till 1834 that we find the beginning of sanitary legislation. In 1837 the Act for the Registration of Births and Deaths was passed, which at once provided the indispensable foundation for reliable statistics; previous to that date all that there was to depend upon were the Baptismal Registers and the more or less accurate Bills of Mortality. This has been followed by a long series of Public Health enactments concerned with practically every department of life. In fact during the last fifty years the public conscience has been quickened to an extraordinary degree. Much however has yet to be done which cannot be touched by legislation, and it is to the woman, who has been trained in the right conduct of life both private and public, that the world looks for the preservation of healthy human life, much of which is now needlessly sacrificed on the altar of ignorance. In many cases the woman is the only person who can prevent this, therefore she must equip herself for her high and noble duty with all that Science can provide and Art can suggest, neither must 33 she forget that her own home must ever be the starting-point of every endeavour. For the “Mrs. Jellabies” of this world are not those who help forward its progress, rather are they the clogs on its wheels.

      Not only charity, but all other virtues begin at home. “So long as the first concern of a nation is for its homes, it matters little what it seeks second or third.”

      Footnote

       Table of Contents

       [1]

      Karl Pearson, “The Chances of Death,” p. 3.

       [2]

      Donaldson, “Woman,” p. 58. Longmans & Co.

[3]

      Greenridge, “Roman Public Life,” p. 18. Macmillan & Co.

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