“What worship,” says a great writer, “is there not in mere washing! perhaps one of the most moral things a man, in common cases, has it in his power to do.  Strip thyself, go into the bath, or were it into the limpid pool of a running brook, and there wash and be clean; thou wilt step out again a purer and a better man.  This consciousness of perfect outer pureness—­that to thy skin there now adheres no foreign speck of imperfection—­how it radiates on thee, with cunning symbolic influences to thy very soul! thou hast an increased tendency towards all good things whatsoever.  The oldest eastern sages, with joy and holy gratitude, had felt it to be so, and that it was the Maker’s gift and will.”

The common well-being of men, women, and children depends upon attention to what at first sight may appear comparatively trivial matters.  And unless these small matters be attended to, comfort in person, mind, and feeling is absolutely impossible.  The physical satisfaction of a child, for example, depends upon attention to its feeding, clothing, and washing.  These are the commonest of common things, and yet they are of the most essential importance.  If the child is not properly fed and clothed, it will grow up feeble and ill-conditioned.  And as the child is, so will the man be.

Grown people cannot be comfortable without regular attention to these common matters.  Every one needs, and ought to have, comfort at home; and comfort is the united product of cleanliness, thrift, regularity, industry,—­in short, a continuous performance of duties, each in itself apparently trivial.  The cooking of a potato, the baking of a loaf, the mending of a shirt, the darning of a pair of stockings, the making of a bed, the scrubbing of a floor, the washing and dressing of a baby, are all matters of no great moment; but a woman ought to know how to do these, before the management of a household, however poor, is entrusted to her.

“Why,” asked Lord Ashburton in a lecture to the students of the Wolvesey training-schools, “why was one mother of a family a better economist than another?  Why could one live in abundance where another starved?  Why, in similar dwellings, were the children of one parent healthy, of another puny and ailing?  Why could this labourer do with ease a task that would kill his fellow?  It was not luck nor chance that decided those differences; it was the patient observation of nature that suggested to some gifted minds rules for their guidance which had escaped the heedlessness of others.”

It is not so much, however, the patient observation of nature, as good training in the home and in the school, that enables some women to accomplish so much more than others, in the development of human beings, and the promotion of human comfort.  And to do this efficiently, women as well as men require to be instructed as to the nature of the objects upon which they work.