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380 AJX INTERESTING BLUE BOOK.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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resources , and to obtain rest and medicine in time to prevent _tempx !> - rar tion y lias illness grown from up further without and learning fatal inroads 1 domestic on Ms management frame . A genera where
alone it can be rightly learned—at home ; and the evil once begun must continue unless some remedy intervenes , for how are mothers
to teach that which they cannot practise ? Yet the school is not the place in which it can be practically taught . The intelligence which
can adapt the arrangements of school-cooking to a poor man ' s home * could apply them from simple theoretical teaching .
A mischievous notion has of late prevailed that there is nothing * to be done except by what is called practical means ; that the
inculcation of a principle however great is valueless , in comparison with the accomplishment of a fact however small . This fallacy is
at the root of the system pursued with regard to industrial training in schools . It is never contemplated to teach how a thing may
best be done : the school-girl must be made to do it . No doubt it is important that the girl should really do household workbut it
, must be in the household under mother or mistress . This rage for the practical rose in opposition to the inculcation of mere fruitless
maxims ; but it should never be forgotten that the ideal is tlie root of the actual , and that to plant firmly in any mind any leading idea ,
especially if that idea be a moral one , will not fail of securing the product in living fact . The idea of order , the idea of economy , and ,
deeper still , the idea of duty , rooted in a mind whose intelligence has been thoroughly awakened and whose energies have been
directed to right sources of instruction , will do all that is necessary for domestic management , or any other object in view . If a girl ' s
schooltime is occupied in scrubbing the schoolroom floors and other drudgery , while she might be gaining in intelligenceit seems to us
the parents are right in their complaints that they mi _^ ght as well be scrubbing the floors at home , which very likely stand greatly in need
of the operation . Industrial practice in schools is an attempt to mix up two things which are quite distinct , to carry on two different
trades under one management , and so to lead to the mismanagement of both . The school for lessonsthe house for domestic workappears
to us the true principle . The , lessons of a girl's school oug , ht to have reference to domestic management , so as to teach on what
principle a household should be conducted . The girl ' s arithmetic should show her how far a working-man's wages will go towards
the supply of the necessities of a family . Her reading lesson , instead of dealing with the action of gravitation , or describing- the
habits of a Megatherium , might and ought to give her a knowledge of the nature and uses of common things directly applicable to the
purposes of life . The discipline of every good school enforces personal neatness and cleanliness . The " everything in its proper time
and everything in its proper place " of the school might easily be made , by a little judicious theoretical explanation and enforcement ,
the foundation of order in everything . A row of books put in their
380 Ajx Interesting Blue Book.
380 AJX INTERESTING BLUE BOOK .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1861, page 380, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081861/page/20/
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