Sesame and Lilies

For years I assumed this book, a gift from my Great-Aunt to my beloved Aunt, was just one of those books of beautiful thoughts. On closer inspection it is two lectures delivered by John Ruskin on the education of boys and girls respectively. It's easy to criticise from our 21st century perspective of course, but in his irritatingly didactic and patronising way ("her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement and decision") he was advanced for his time "You bring up your girls as if they were meant for sideboard ornaments, and then complain of their frivolity. Give them the same advantages that you give their brothers". Still, some of his thoughts seem both horrifying and amusing now "You may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it... but you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does". My favourite is his suggestion to "Let her loose in the library, I say, as you do a fawn in the field. It knows the bad weeds...". This didn't quite work in my own case, though a lot of my childhood was spent in libraries. I remember puzzling over various pornographic works among others. I guess my "steps of virgin liberty" were astray. So were those of Ruskin's wife who left him for another man. I guess she felt misunderstood.
Anyway, whatever the intended message for my Aunt in the gift of this pretty little book, I don't think she received it. The pages appear not to have been opened flat enough for reading until now.