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55
[1912
for on her devolves the responsibility of rearing the children. It is she
who has to bring them up sound in mind and body, and therefore, unless she
knows how to feed them, care for them, and clothe them, she will of necessity
fail in her duty. Only the other day the Duchess of Marlborough, presiding
at a meeting of the St. Pancras School for Mothers, said:—
"The present system of education had failed to turn out better workmen,
more competent mothers, or more reliant men and women. Boys and girls
were until quite recently turned out of school at the age of fourteen absolutely
unprepared for the duties of life. It was owing to these defects in the educational
system that voluntary agencies such as the St. Pancras School for
Mothers, were instituted to help and instruct mothers in the proper care of their
children. Lessons in mothercraft were supplemented by rudimentary instruction
in cooking and housework. She did not wish them to think that schools
for mothers would be unnecessary if it was possible to extend the years of
school life and to intruct girls in domestic science and hygiene, but she believed
that until such instruction was universal, schools for mothers would be necessary
to enable girls to take their proper place and to fulfil their natural function.
They must remember that the present generation of mothers left school with
no knowledge of domestic science, nor were they able to obtain any useful
training in their own homes, as the intervening years between school and
marriage were usually spent in factory or workshop. She was speaking of
the London girl. In consequence of such want of training they were incapable
of cooking a wholesome meal. She believed that a well-cooked meal provided
a better antidote to drink than any amount of legislation."
The Duchess, who is an American woman, in whose native land so much
is being done for the care of children, rightly thinks that their welfare depends
greatly on the proper education of the mothers, and that this can only be done
by getting into actual touch with them and teaching them as you would a child.
The ignorance of the modern working man's wife is something appalling;
indeed, persons whose duty it is to inquire into the cause of child mortality,
on probing into the matter invariably find that it is some neglectful act on the
part of the mother, the result of want of knowledge, which causes the
commencement of the child's illness. How can they expect otherwise when they
find the young girl leaving school—without any conception whatsoever of the
management of a house, without the faintest idea of the care of children, or
the duties of motherhood—going straight to work in a workshop or workplace,