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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