AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN HOMES. 57 



own cheeks of incomparably more worth than that of the most 

 delicate flower. 



I confess to a good deal of disgust with the standard of educa- 

 tion which is set up for our young women in this country. A 

 little French and less Latin, a good deal of drumming the keys 

 of the piano with painful results, a little fancy needle-work. 

 Well, it is dangerous ground I am treading upon. I will not 

 say how much enters into the average education of our girls. 

 The result is to make very interesting but very delicate speci- 

 mens — exquisite dolls, rather than noble, womanly women. 

 About the most disagreeable feature of our social life now, is 

 the result of the fact that domestic service has been so far dis- 

 carded by our women, our young women, till it has become 

 unfashionable. It leaves all our house-keeping, all the peace 

 and comfort of our families, in fact, at the mercy of ignorant 

 labor of foreign origin. All our women are praying that they 

 may lay hold of a Chinese man to keep their house. 



There are but two ways out of this trouble about domestic 

 service. One is a radical change in the ideas of our people as 

 to what constitutes a proper education for our young women. 

 "We must learn, as we are learning from painful experience, 

 that merely intellectual training may be, and often is, carried to 

 a fatal excess ; and that merely fashionable accomplishment is 

 an aim wholly unworthy a true-minded American woman. 



Let our young women be sent to school a great deal less, and 

 learn a great deal less about fashions and novels, and be sent 

 into the kitchen and garden a great deal more, and they would 

 be happier and healthier, and we should be able to declare our 

 independence of Ireland, which we now so humbly serve. 



The other remedy I had in mind is to secure in our homes a 

 simpler style of living, one that will not impose such burdens 

 upon the housekeepers. It could be done. Let the baking of 

 the family be done at the bakery, as it invariably is in the old 

 countries. Let the washing and ironing be done at the laundry. 

 Dispense with the unhealthy preserves and pastries that load 

 our tables and give us dyspepsia, and our household burdens 

 would be lightened. 



The New England homes, when compared with homes else- 

 where, stand the test well. I know how mucli refinement and 

 taste and intelligence and virtue is found in them. I know not 



