"When, at any time, has society presented, on the one hand, so large an
array of respectably educated individuals, embarrassed for want of a
proper calling, and, on the other, so ponderous a multitude of
untrained, neglected poor, who cannot, without help, rise out of their
misery and degradation? What an obstruction to usefulness and all
eminence of character is that of being too rich, or too genteelly
connected, to work at anything!"[1]
[Footnote 1: _Memoir of John Grey, of Dalston_. p. 290.]
Many intelligent, high-minded ladies, who have felt disgusted at the
idleness to which "society" condemns them, have of late years undertaken
the work of visiting the poor and of nursing--a noble work. But there is
another school of usefulness which stands open to them. Let them study
the art of common cookery, and diffuse the knowledge of it amongst the
people. They will thus do an immense amount of good; and bring down the
blessings of many a half-hungered husband upon their benevolent heads.
Women of the poorer classes require much help from those who are better
educated, or who have been placed in better circumstances than
themselves. The greater number of them marry young, and suddenly enter
upon a life for which they have not received the slightest preparation.
They know nothing of cookery, of sewing or clothes mending, or of
economical ways of spending their husbands' money.
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