EDUCATION OF GIRLS by Varina Davis

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Sep 6, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 36.

EDUCATION OF GIRLS.

By Varina Davis

THE following is a part of what Mrs. Varina Davis, widow of the late Jefferson Davis, has to say in the World on the training of children:—

The most favorable moral education a girl can have is the example of her mother. If she daily practises truth, justice, sincerity, patience, fortitude, gentleness, a large charity for others—that is, if she leads a Christian life—it will impress her child more than any dogma which can be inculcated in her in lengthy lectures. If, added to this, the mother has the self-control to notice the child's little fads and fancies, and treat them respectfully, and if the child be allowed the largest liberty consistent with the proper care of her, there will be little to fear for her future.

THE MOTHER AS FRIEND AND GUIDE.

Tell her frankly and tenderly when she is alone where she has erred, and repeat it as often as is needful, but let her feel she is reforming herself, not being dragooned into obedience. Most girls will sedulously avoid errors which their mothers do not daily commit. That child is fortunate indeed who looks up to her mother as an example of all she inculcates and not as a sinful woman who is her harshest judge. A good example is the practical demonstration of a moral theory, and is worth more than all the sermonizing one can utter. Once I knew a witty reprobate whose uncle asked him: "Why do you not behave like George? I have brought you up alike?" "Because," said the wit, "I suppose he followed your precepts, and I followed your example."

Too many mothers forget good manners in intercourse with their children. They do not use the little elegancies which, if forgotten toward a stranger, they would consider unpardonable. In correcting a child's fault they use that policy described by the most disagreeable of all cant phrases to me—they "call a spade a spade." The mother who devises some occupation for a noisy child which will absorb her attention, does better than one who says, "If you do not behave I shall punish you; you are a noisy, bad girl." And yet the latter course is the common one.

DO NOT TRUST CHILDREN TO SERVANTS.

The habit of trusting children to the care of servants in the nursery in the formative period of their lives is a very vicious one, no matter how trustworthy the servants may appear to be. Let the parent ask herself if such close attention as her little girl requires can be paid by a servant or even a governess, be she never so conscientious, as a mother's love would prompt. The fretful little cabined creature is mutely conscious of a lack of sympathy which she craves and of which she does not know that her own annoying peculiarities have deprived her. She does not admit the right of any one to restrain, who does not love her, and whom she is fiercely bent on never loving. So a constant warfare is kept up by assurances repeated on the slightest provocation that there was never so naughty a child, and responsive declaration of the unhappy little creature, "I do not love you, and I will never be good."

I should not deprecate giving as good an education as a girl would take, but her moral training is of infinitely more importance, and no mother can escape the dreadful responsibility of this task. I confess to being unable to give any formula for its performance except self-abnegation and eternal vigilance.