William Elliot Griffis

“ Many a Dutch proverb tells how safe, how healthful, and how blessed is normal humanity that shirks no pain or care, and how good is the “love that lightens all distress” for womankind. As artificial foods were next, to unknown, mothers fed their offspring front nature’s pure fountains, and the babies thrived on the real nourishment, which no machinery or substitute for mother’s milk can give. The solemn ritual of the Church transfigured even common life, and spread a halo over the cradle. ”

“ A young woman was led to find her enjoyment in preparing herself to be not only a good wife and mother, but a wise conserver of her husband’s property and fortune. The popular art, proverbs, and literature illustrate this, but matter-of-fact local records illuminate it.
All Dutch history shows how nobly the women were helpmates of the men in managing those hospitals, orphanages, and retreats for aged couples, and homes for old men and women, which made the glory of Holland. Women as well as men won the independence of the Fatherland. ”

“ Marriage, which begins the family, was the greatest event in a Dutch home. The New Netherlanders believed in a big company and well-loaded tables, to which all within the circle of their acquaintance, albeit well graded, were invited though on this one occasion, rich and poor, if blood relatives, met on a common basis. ”

“ The tell-tale etymology of most of our homely words, descriptive of textiles, costumes, house furnishings and equipment, betray their Dutch origin. Our underclothing, beds, furniture, kitchen belongings, and parlor necessities, from the “stovey,” to warm our feet, to the easel, or little donkey, to hold our pictures, recall in their names the country of their origin.
Man makes a camp, but woman the home. ”

“ Compelled during their eighty years of struggle for freedom to provide for thousands of widows, orphans, cripples, wounded soldiers, and victims of the Inquisition, the Dutch people in their little country developed a vast and minute system of charity, the like of which was not to be found in Europe, and which is as yet unexcelled. ”

“ It was around the Church and the Bible that the best life in New Netherland centred, and from these sources it was nourished.
Social morality in New Netherland was of a high standard. Divorces were unknown. The opinion is practically unanimous among those who have studied the local records and Church discipline in American colonial days, that no colonies, Puritan or Cavalier, North or South, excelled, even if they equaled, in morality the Continental settlers, Walloon, Dutch, and Huguenot, who began the Middle States of the American Union. ”

“ In many old Dutch houses in the Mohawk and Hudson valleys this feature served admirably against hostile Indians. In the later frame dwelling, ancient history and survival are suggested by a conventional moulding which reveals the projection of a few inches only. The bricks, near the gables, wrought in the form of crow-steps, or top-pieces serving as chimneys, were laid in curious triangular or chequered patterns, just as one sees in Friesland today. Indeed, the keen-eyed visitor to Holland can recognize the original model and features of many old house in Kingston and Schenectady. ”

“ IN no country of Europe was human existence more intensely social than the Netherlands, where the climate and soil compelled people to live much indoors. A thousand contrivances, designed to make sedentary life enjoyable, were in use, while art bloomed as in a garden. ”

“ The Almighty Father himself gave Eve to Adam to be his wife, “witnessing thereby that He doth yet, as with his hand, bring unto every man his wife.” In biblical phrase, the groom was told to lead, instruct, comfort, protect, and love his wife and maintain his “household honestly and likewise have something to give to the poor.” ”

“ Often the iron jamb or back was a easting containing dates, emblems, mottoes, scriptural or other quotations, proverbs, or poems. Only in late days, when the Dutchmen learned from the Japanese to make Delft ware, and applied their knowledge to tiles, were those miniature Bible panoramas set up to adorn the front and sides, creating a fashion which was borrowed by the New Englanders. Delft tiles served as the picture galleries at which our American painters, Trumbull, Allston, Vanderlyn, and others, received their first impressions and stimulus to art. ”

“ In Holland the whole system of school training, from Finsterwolde to Flushing and from Scheveningen to Winterswijk, was built on the idea of the equal but not identical education for both sexes. Mutual helpfulness between man and woman was expected on the farm and in the shop. ”

“ After that, the burghers and well-to-do people made their daughters study to be thoroughly practical in home and business. Economy, administration, the kneeping of accounts, and the management of farm, garden, dairy, shop, and household were according to rigid training. ”

“ There were no wedding journeys in colonial days, and sometimes the practical jokes played on bride and groom by the lower classes were rough and uncanny. there being even less opportunity to escape tormentors than young folks have in our day. ”