[To TEM EDIT011 OP THE " SPECTATOR."
SIR,—I have read with much interest the letter of March 17th on "The Ideal of Motherhood." I should like to tell you of the successful effort that was made in a village school in Devonshire to teach the girls "the art of motherhood." The elder girls went for a fortnight at the time as servants to the school- master's wife; they were taught to wash, dress, and feed the baby, and simple methods of treating ailments ; they also learnt the ordinary domestic duties. I have known many excellent mothers and good servants from this village, the result, I believe, of this early teaching. This system had, I believe, been adopted for some seventy years. Curiously enough, the intellectual standard of the school was very high.
[Surely there is nothing " curious" in the fact which "A Mother" chronicles. To do what is useful and worthy acts as a stimulant to brain and character. An isolated but triumphant intellect is a figment of the imagination.—ED. Spectator.]
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