210
Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
is constantly depraving the blood, by weakening the blood-making
organs. It is highly essential that the art of cookery be considered one
of the most important branches of education. There are but few good
cooks. Young ladies consider that it is stooping to a menial office to
become a cook. This is not the case. They do not view the subject
from a right standpoint. Knowledge of how to prepare food healthfully,
especially bread, is no mean science.
In many families we find dyspeptics, and frequently the reason of
this is the poor bread. The mistress of the house decided that it must
not be thrown away, and they eat it. Is this the way to dispose of poor
bread? Will you put it into the stomach to be converted into blood?
Has the stomach power to make sour bread sweet? heavy bread light?
moldy bread fresh?
Mothers neglect this branch in the education of their daughters.
They take the burden of care and labor, and are fast wearing out, while
the daughter is excused, to visit, to crochet, or study her own pleasure.
This is mistaken love, mistaken kindness. The mother is doing an
injury to her child, which frequently lasts her lifetime. At the age
when she should be capable of bearing some of life’s burdens, she
is unqualified to do so. Such will not take care and burdens. They
go light-loaded, excusing themselves from responsibilities, while the
mother is pressed down under her burden of care, as a cart beneath
sheaves. The daughter does not mean to be unkind, but she is care-
less and heedless, or she would notice the tired look, and mark the
expression of pain upon the countenance of the mother, and would
seek to do her part, to bear the heavier part of the burden, and relieve
the mother, who must have freedom from care, or be brought upon a
bed of suffering, and it may be, of death.
[93]
Why will mothers be so blind and negligent in the education of their
daughters? I have been distressed, as I have visited different families,
to see the mother bearing the heavy burden, while the daughter, who
manifested buoyancy of spirit, and had a good degree of health and
vigor, felt no care, no burden. When there are large gatherings, and
families are burdened with company, I have seen the mother bearing
the burden, with the care of everything upon her, while the daughters
are sitting down chatting with young friends, having a social visit.
These things seem so wrong to me that I can hardly forbear speaking
to the thoughtless youth, and telling them to go to work. Release your