Page:The English housekeeper, 6th.djvu/20

xii adopted with regard to the poor will be still more unpopular; but it does appear to me that there, there exists a mistake also, which, perhaps, in its consequences, will prove still more fatal. It appears to me that something better might be done, more advantageous to both rich and poor, by educating the latter to be useful members of society; and I think that ladies who live in the country may have ample opportunities of training up good servants, by attending to the education of poor neighbours of their own sex. By education, I do not mean that kind of teaching which merely qualifies them for reading letters and words. Small literary accomplishments, accompanied by idle habits, are already but too common, though the fact is more generally known than acknowledged. Nor do I mean that sort of education which creates expectations of gaining a livelihood by any other means than those of honest industry; or which tends to raise the ideas of persons who are born to work above the duties which fortune has assigned to them. I mean such an education as shall better their condition, by making them better servants. In large establishments, where there are old and experienced persons in service, it is very much the custom to have younger ones as helpers, and thus the latter have the benefit of learning all the duties of the household; but these establishments are comparatively few in number. The fashion of the day is opposed to my opinion, and the same ladies who now condescend to teach poor children to read and write, because it is the fashion to do so, would, in many cases, think it beneath them to teach a little girl to make a pudding. It would, in a work of this nature, be a hopeless and presumptuous attempt, to argue against the all-powerful influence of fashion, against which the keenest shafts of invective and ridicule, and in short every weapon of satire, have been so often aimed in vain; but, all are not under the dominion of so senseless and so capricious a tyranny, and I have to regret my inability to set before my readers the benefits which mistresses of families would confer and receive, from bringing up young country girls to be good servants. There might always, in a country-house, be one or more young girls, according to the size of the establishment; to be placed under older servants, or be instructed by the mistress herself, in all household occupations, from