In a word, while their wants have been increased, their
ability to supply their wants had not been increased in the same
degree. On the other hand, their six or eight years of book
education had weaned them away from the occupation of their
mothers. The result of this was in too many cases that the girls
went to the bad. I often thought how much wiser it would have
been to give these girls the same amount of maternal
training--and I favour any kind of training, whether in the
languages or mathematics, that gives strength and culture to the
mind --but at the same time to give them the most thorough
training in the latest and best methods of laundrying and other
kindred occupations.
Chapter VI. Black Race And Red Race
During the year that I spent in Washington, and for some little
time before this, there had been considerable agitation in the
state of West Virginia over the question of moving the capital of
the state from Wheeling to some other central point. As a result
of this, the Legislature designated three cities to be voted upon
by the citizens of the state as the permanent seat of government.
Among these cities was Charleston, only five miles from Malden,
my home. At the close of my school year in Washington I was very
pleasantly surprised to receive, from a committee of three white
people in Charleston, an invitation to canvass the state in the
interests of that city.
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