Just in time for Mothers Day, the following piece by Margaret Cavendish, courtesy of the Women Writers Project. Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle (1623-1673), was a prolific writer of drama, philosophy, poetry and scientific writing. This piece appeared in her book, "The World's Olio," a wide-ranging collection of reflections on culture, science, nature, education, and the human condition. (The word "olio" means "mixture.")
Children should be taught at first, the best, plainest, and purest of their language, and the most significant words; and not, as their nurses teach them, a strange kind of gibbridge, broken language of their own making, which is like scraps of several meats heapt together, or hash'd, mixt, or minced: so do they the purest of their language; as for example, when Nurses teach children to go, instead of saying go, they say do, do, and instead of saying come to me, they say tum to me, and when they newly come out of a sleep, and cannot well open their eyes, they do not say My Child cannot well open his, or her eyes, but my chid tant open its nies... Likewise they learn them the rudest language first, as to bid them say such a one Lies, or to call them Rogues and the like names, and then laugh as if it were a witty jest. And as they breed them in their language, so they breed them in their sports, pastimes, or exercises, as to play with children at boe-peep, blind-man-buff, and Cocks hod, as they call them, that is, to muffle their head and eyes, and then they run about to knock their heads against the doors, posts, and tables, to break their Legs over stools, thresholds, or to run into the fire, where many times they deform themselves with the mischiefs that follow; or to hide themselves behind hangings and old cubbords, or dirty holes, or the like places, where they foul their cloaths, disaffect the Brain with stincks, and are almost chokt with durt and dust Cobwebs, and Spiders, Flys and the like getting upon them; also to role upon the ground, likewise to stand upon their heads, when dancing might be learned with the feet, as easy as tumbling in several postures, and to stand upon the head; and is it not as easy to learn them to write, and read, as to build houses with Cards? they are both but making of figures, and joyning together; and is it not as easy to learn them the Globe, as to play at Cards? and is it not as easy to tell them of Arts and Sciences, as to tell them feigned and foolish tales of Tom Thum, and of Spirits, and the like, frighting them so much as makes them of timorous natures, and Effeminat Spirits? when Children would take as much delight in Arts and Sciences, nay more, if they were taught them at first. (pp. 60-61)