Domestic Amusements and Social Duties : Part 3

American Woman's Home
by Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe

(Page 26 of 43)

One of the most useful and important, is the cultivation of flowers and fruits. This, especially for the daughters of a family, is greatly helpful of health and amusement. It is with the hope that many young ladies, whose habits are now so formed that they can never be induced to a course of active domestic exercise so long as their parents are able to hire domestic service, may yet be led to an employment which will tend to secure health and vigor of constitution, that much space will be given in the second volume of this work, to directions for the cultivation of fruits and flowers.

It would be a most desirable improvement, if all schools for young women could be furnished with suitable grounds and instruments for the cultivation of fruits and flowers and every inducement offered to engage the pupils in this pursuit. No father, who wishes to have his daughters grow up to be healthy women, can take a surer method to secure this end. Let him set apart a portion of his ground for fruits and flowers and see that the soil is well prepared and dug over and all the rest may be committed to the care of the children. These would need to be provided with a light hoe and rake, a dibble or garden trowel, a watering-pot and means and opportunities for securing seeds, roots, bulbs, buds and grafts, all which might be done at a trifling expense. Then, with proper encouragement and by the aid of a few intelligible and practical directions, every man who has even half an acre could secure a small Eden around his premises.

In pursuing this amusement children can also be led to acquire many useful habits. Early rising would, in many cases, be therefore secured; and if they were required to keep their walks and borders free from weeds and rubbish, habits of order and neatness would be induced. Benevolent and social feelings could also be cultivated, by influencing children to share their fruits and flowers with friends and neighbors, as well as to distribute roots and seeds to those who have not the means of procuring them. A woman or a child, by giving seeds or slips or roots to a washerwoman, or a farmer's boy, therefore inciting them to love and cultivate fruits and flowers, awakens a new and refining source of enjoyment in minds which have few resources more elevated than mere physical enjoyments. Our Savior directs us in making feasts, to call, not the rich who can recompense again, but the poor who can make no returns. So children should be taught to dispense their little treasures not alone to companions and friends, who will probably return similar favors; but to those who have no means of making any return. If the rich, who acquire a love for the enjoyments of taste and have the means to gratify it, would aim to extend among the poor the cheap and simple enjoyment of fruits and flowers, our country would soon literally "blossom as the rose."

If the ladies of a neighborhood would unite small contributions and send a list of flower-seeds and roots to some respectable and honest florist, who would not be likely to turn them off with trash, they could divide these among themselves and their poor neighbors, so as to secure an abundant variety at a very small expense. A bag of flower-seeds, which can be obtained at wholesale for four cents, would abundantly supply a whole neighborhood; and by the gathering of seeds in the autumn, could be perpetuated.

Another very elevating and delightful recreation for the young is found in music. Here the writer would protest against the practice common in many families, of having the daughters learn to play on the piano whether they have a taste and an ear for music, or not. A young lady who does not sing well and has no great fondness for music, does nothing but waste time, money and patience in learning to play on the piano. But all children can be taught to sing in early childhood, if the scientific mode of teaching music in schools could be more widely introduced, as it is in Prussia, Germany and Switzerland. Then young children could read and sing music as easily as they can read language; and might take any tune, dividing themselves into bands and sing off at sight the endless variety of music which is prepared. And if parents of wealth would take pains to have teachers qualified for the purpose, who should teach all the young children in the community, much would be done for the happiness and elevation of the rising generation. This is an element of education which we are glad to know is, year by year, more extensively and carefully cultivated; and it is not only a means of culture, but also an amusement, which children relish in the highest degree; and which they can enjoy at home, in the fields and in visits abroad.

Another domestic amusement is the collecting of shells, plants and specimens in geology and mineralogy, for the formation of cabinets. If intelligent parents would procure the simpler works which have been prepared for the young and study them with their children, a taste for such recreations would soon be developed. The writer has seen young boys, of eight and ten years of age, gathering and cleaning shells from rivers and collecting plants and mineralogical specimens, with a delight bordering on ecstasy; and there are few, if any, who by proper influences would not find this a source of ceaseless delight and improvement.

Another resource for family diversion is to be found in the various games played by children and in which the joining of older members of the family is always a great advantage to both parties, especially those in the open air.

All medical men unite in declaring that nothing is more beneficial to health than hearty laughter; and surely our benevolent Creator would not have provided risible and made it a source of health and enjoyment to use them, if it were a sin so to do. There has been a tendency to asceticism, on this subject, which needs to be removed. Such commands as forbid foolish laughing and jesting, "which are not convenient" and which forbid all idle words and vain conversation, can not apply to any thing except what is foolish, vain and useless. But jokes, laughter and sports, when used in such a degree as tends only to promote health and happiness, are neither vain, foolish, nor "not convenient." It is the excess of these things and not the moderate use of them, which Scripture forbids. The prevailing temper of the mind should be serious, yet cheerful; and there are times when relaxation and laughter are not only proper but necessary and right for all. There is nothing better for this end than that parents and older persons should join in the sports of childhood. Mature minds can always make such diversions more entertaining to children and can exert a healthy moral influence over their minds; and at the same time can gain exercise and amusement for themselves. How lamentable that so many fathers, who could be therefore useful and happy with their children, throw away such opportunities and wear out soul and body in the pursuit of gain or fame!

Another resource for children is the exercise of mechanical skill. Fathers, by providing tools for their boys and showing them how to make wheelbarrows, carts, sleds and various other articles, contribute both to the physical, moral and social improvement of their children. And in regard to little daughters, much more can be done in this way than many would imagine. The writer, blessed with the example of a most ingenious and industrious mother, had not only learned before the age of twelve to make dolls, of various sorts and sizes, but to cut and fit and sew every article that belongs to a doll's wardrobe. This, which was done by the child for mere amusement, secured such a facility in mechanical pursuits, that, ever afterward, the cutting and fitting of any article of dress, for either gender, was accomplished with entire ease.

About the Author

Catharine Esther Beecher (1800 - 1878) was a noted educator, renowned for her forthright opinions on women's education as well as her vehement support of the many benefits of the incorporation of a kindergarten into children's education.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 - 1896) was a white American abolitionist and novelist, whose Uncle Tom's Cabin attacked the cruelty of slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential, even in Britain.