SETTING THE FASHION 



engaged in manual work. Of course in these 

 latter days, when women in all stations of life 

 are cheerfully rendering invaluable assistance in 

 many departments of farm life, it is difficult to 

 understand such objections as we met with. 

 But, even in those slow-moving times, the diffi- 

 culty was met, and in this way. We went to the 

 squire and the parson of the parish, when they 

 had a wife and daughters, and begged them to 

 set the fashion by inducing their women folk to 

 join the classes and take part in the competi- 

 tions. Those appealed to willingly responded, 

 and then all objections dissolved into thin air, 

 for Mrs. Brown, of the Manor Farm, could rot 

 possibly object to her daughters doing what 

 those from the Court or the Parsonage saw no 

 harm in doing themselves. 



The rector or vicar oft-times found a text for 

 an address to the students in the assertion that 

 all honest work, whether of head or hand, was 

 ennobling, and when he pointed the moral by 

 sending his own daughters to the school no one 

 could question his sincerity ; it was Mr. S queers' 

 system without its drawbacks. On several occa- 

 sions we had pupils with handles to their 

 names, whilst a Girton girl has been among the 

 prize-winners. It has sometimes happened that 

 a student had doubts as to whether it was not 

 a little infra dig. to fetch, carry and clean in 

 public, but the example of the squire's daughters, 

 with their sleeves tucked up, shirking none of 

 the hard work, has done something to overcome 

 any such scruples. In other respects, too, this 

 intermingling has been an advantage, affording 



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