Farm Boys and Girls Part 19

It is a well-established principle in plant propagation that certain nutrient elements must be present in the soil before growth will go on properly. It does not satisfy the needs of the plant for some of the chemical substances to be present in large amount if the others be absent. There must be a sort of balanced ration for the vegetable life.

Similarly in case of that tender plant of the household, the young girl; she can be kept alive on work and study alone, but for beautiful and symmetrical growth other elements of character-nourishment are necessary. What are they? The reader is referred to Chapter I for a general list.

The hurry of work and the isolation of the ordinary country home tend to foster an over-serious disposition in girls. There is too little to provoke a smile and not half enough practice in smiling. Laughter is also too infrequent. A boy may grow up habitually stern and sedate and yet be able to fight his way through a successful manhood. But with the girl it is different. Her habit of smiling and of being pleasant and agreeable may prove to be one of her most valuable charms. So, the early and continuous training of the girl in sociability must be considered among the parental duties to her; and that by encouraging her to be sociable at home and by providing that she have frequent companionship with others of her age.

WORK BEGINS WITH OBEDIENCE

One of the initial steps in the training of a child is that of securing a willing obedience, a habitual performance of required tasks and duties. It may prove an easy matter to drive the girl to the work. But how about the problem of teaching her to take up her daily tasks willingly and with a joyous heart? Girls are little different from boys at this stage of their education. They do not take naturally and fondly to work. They will slight and neglect it. Worse than that, if untrained in faithfulness to household duties, they will lounge about the place or run much in society and allow their mothers to work themselves slowly to death--and scarcely seem to realize what is taking place.

Similarly as in case of the boy, some forcing, some rebuke, and occasional punishment will be necessary to initiate the girl into the work habit. But shortly obedience and willingness will come, and with them a deeper consciousness than is manifested in her young brother.

After that, the danger of over-work will soon begin to be apparent to the watchful mother, and be guarded against.

Habit formation is a prominent factor in the first lessons of obedience in work. It will be highly advisable to start everything right. After a few instances of slighting one kind of work or expending too much energy upon another kind the young character begins to take on these faults permanently. Many women scrub floors and wash dishes unto their death.

Others perform these endless tasks quite as well "in a jiffy" and go on their way singing. Why is this? Is it not a matter which the mother should think about most seriously in relation to the training of her daughter?

WORKING THE GIRLS IN THE FIELD

Is there any justification for requiring a girl to work in the field with the men and boys? Many girls are doing so, whether required or not.

Careful consideration of the matter seems to bring out a few suggestions. The farm girl while a child under ten years may accompany the father or the brothers into the field and there be permitted to do some light work occasionally, provided she regard it in a semi-playful way. On very rare occasions, when older, she may be rightfully called on to drive a rake for a day or take some similar part of the work in order to help prevent the loss of a valuable crop.

But the practice followed by some farmers, of often requiring their daughters to do a man's work in the field, and excusing the fault with the thought that it is for the sake of laying up wealth for her future enjoyment--that is abominable and should be prohibited by law. Among other objections, it is probably most hurtful to the young woman's pride and self-respect to be forced to perform farm labor. And then, during such time as she works in the field her much needed opportunities for the practice of the womanly arts and refinements are slipping away.

Of course we should not take away from the country-reared woman the poetic sentiment about the days of her childhood when she helped rake the hay and drive the cattle home, "just for fun."

SOME SPECIFIC SUGGESTIONS

It is difficult, of course, to lay down specific rules here, because every case is a special one. But nearly all intelligent parents can easily determine whether or not they are fair to their girls. It would seem reasonable that in addition to the affection and interest properly bestowed upon her in the home, the daughter should have at least the same measure of value--money value--put upon her work as is the rule with the hired helper. Certainly no worthy parent would ask her to work for a smaller sum.

Too many of these good, promising girls are cramped and limited in their lives until the self-pride is crushed well-nigh out of them. Often such young women will be seen moping about in a stooped att.i.tude of body, stiff and awkward in their manners, lacking in self-confidence and in that beautiful grace and ease of movement which mark the well-developed young woman of twenty years. All of this is more or less indicative of parental disregard and mistreatment--indicative that some one has cheated her out of the time that should have been allowed for rest and recreation and social improvement and given her in exchange an over-amount of grinding toil and enforced seclusion--_all for the sake of the work and the profits_.

It is a singular fact that so many country mothers make no provision for throwing extra safeguards around their young daughter during the monthly period of physical drain and weakness. It could probably be shown that her lowered vitality and the increased susceptibility to fatigue at this time make almost complete rest and relaxation highly advisable. It is also most probable that the strain of work and the exposure to inclement weather, so often allowed during the monthly period, are the incipient causes of life-long weakness and disease.

DO YOU OWN YOUR DAUGHTER?

There are still not a few parents who are possessed of the old-fashioned idea that their children belong to them, that they have a proprietary right in their own sons and daughters. Just now there is thought of a father who is intelligent, in many ways above the average man, but who seems to regard his twenty-three-year-old daughter as a sort of chattel.

Being a widower, he needs her services, so he would employ her at the least possible wages, or none, to take charge of the home, rear the two or three smaller children, and cook and keep house for himself and three or four hired men. The best excuse that may be offered for this man's att.i.tude toward his daughter is sheer ignorance of the true meaning of the situation. But such treatment of a mature daughter is little short of cruelty. This young woman should have every possible opportunity just now to prepare herself for the future. Her conduct for the present may even have the appearance of being somewhat selfish in order that her future well-being and that of those dependent upon her may be safe-guarded.

Further details of the foregoing case need not be given. The issue to be made out of it is this: The parent who is doing the fair and square thing by his daughter not only trains her to work and then safeguards her life against an over-amount of work, but he also sees to it that the labor she performs is contributive to her enjoyment, to the strengthening of her character, and to the perfection of her life for the future. Parents are justified in using every possible means as contributory to the future well-being of their growing daughters, and all this for the sake of the generations yet unborn. Thus, perhaps without realizing the fact at all, the former may return to the race life that measure of a.s.sistance which they themselves received.

DIFFICULT TO MAKE A SCHEDULE

It is difficult to make out a schedule of hours for the growing girl as we did for the boy, but the former chapter may be taken as a general guide. As with the boy, so with the girl, the first step in discipline is that of securing a willing obedience. Then the tasks may be a.s.signed in accordance with the girl's age and strength. There is no good reason for attempting to get work out of the child through a make-believe policy of play. Children had better be made to understand from the first that the world we live in is constructed largely through work; and that labor is honorable and may even be made pleasurable.

"I should rather do the work myself than be bothered with trying to get the children to do it," is a very common expression, and one which indicates an erroneous idea of the problem we are considering. So long as parents put their children at the tasks merely for the sake of getting the tasks done, the children will suffer as a consequence. But if the thought of the child's need of the discipline coming from work be uppermost, then, the results are likely to be wholesome.

TEACH THE GIRL SELF-SUPREMACY

One of the greatest problems of the future of the race is involved in the fact that many thousands of the best young women in the land--young women who are well fitted to be the mothers of a better race of human beings than we now have--are choosing an independent calling for themselves. It is the author's belief that one of the most tragic experiences known to any considerable portion of the American people is this gradual starvation of the maternal instinct usually necessary in the case of the well-s.e.xed young woman of the cla.s.s just mentioned.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XXII.

FIG. 29.--An industrial exhibit in a country school. If the boys and girls could enjoy frequently the refining experience of having their work observed by approving eyes, their appointed tasks would seem lighter.]

And yet much of this fatal choice of an independent vocation on the part of many young women doubtless results from bad management of the growing girl. In too many country homes especially, the work is complete master of the housekeeper and not the converse, as the case should be. As a result, thousands of good women who ought to be in the pink and prime of life are going pathetically to the only rest which the conditions seem to allow--the grave. It is an awful thing, this wreck of so many good lives through over-work. Under such conditions, may we reasonably censure the many young women who foresee such a fate as a possibility for themselves and avoid it through choice of an unmarried life and independent support?

Girls are more readily enslaved to work than boys. It is comparatively easy to teach a young woman to work, but it is an extremely difficult matter to teach her when and how to quit work. Here, then, is the point whereat we would center the attention of the parents of the country girl. Make her mistress of her work. Develop in her by actual concrete lessons the ability to stop and rest or take recreation at the necessary time, even though the work be not half done.

SUMMARY

1. Give the girl a trifling daily task at four or five years of age, merely for the sake of discipline. See to it, however, that her young life be occupied chiefly in play and enjoyment and outdoor recreation.

2. Gradually increase the amount of work required, but always with an eye single to the girl's physical growth and character-development. Some definite thing to do as a regular daily requirement will prove most helpful.

3. Continue throughout the daughter's growing years to provide for her pleasure. Her schooling, her personal belongings, her social advantages, and the like, must all be made to serve the purpose of making her life in the home a happy one. As she grows in strength and years, she will a.s.sume the increased amount of work with willingness and even with pleasure, provided the a.s.signed duties be vitally related to her present purposes and her life interests.

4. Moreover, country parents must learn to think of themselves as first of all engaged in bringing up their children for a better human society; and secondly, as engaged in farming and housekeeping. If this point of view be held to persistently, the crops may often suffer and the housework frequently remain unfinished, but the vital interests of the boys and girls will continue ever to be served.

5. Finally, let us continue to appreciate the value of outings and vacations as potent factors in relieving the drudgery of work about the country household. Women's work in the country home naturally calls for much isolation and seclusion. The pre-adolescent girl should be taken out of the farm home once or twice per week during the summer vacation.

It is good for her to go with her mother to the town market and to the women's club meetings. As soon as she enters young womanhood, a square deal for the girl who helps in the home will call for a weekly outing of some kind and a careful provision for her social needs. All of this outside intercourse will serve to quicken the body and the intellect of the girl as she goes daily about the household duties, and to give her

"Thoughts that on easy pinions rise And hopes that soar aloft to the skies."

REFERENCES

The author has been able to find little printed matter of worth on the important problems outlined in this chapter. The industrial training of the country girl is a neglected subject. It seems to have been taken for granted that she needed none.

s.e.x and Society. W. I. Thomas, pp. 149-175, "s.e.x and Primitive Industry." University of Chicago Press. Shows in outline the emanc.i.p.ation of women from the bondage of work.

Growth and Education. John M. Tyler. Chapter XII, "Manual Training Needed for Girls." Houghton Mifflin Company.

Mind and Work. Dr. L. H. Gulick. Chapter II, "The Habit of Success"; also Chapter XIII, "The Need of Adequate Work."

Doubleday, Page Company.

Motive for Work. Margaret E. Schallenbeyer. Annual Report N.E.A. 1907.

_Wallaces' Farmer._ Des Moines, Iowa. Weekly. This periodical prints many articles, editorial and contributed, which discuss the subjects treated in the foregoing chapter.

The Mother of the Living. Mrs. Catherine Barton. Published by the Author. Kansas City, Mo.

The Girl Wanted. Nixon Waterman. Chapter VIII, "The Purpose of Life." Forbes & Co., Chicago.

Life's Day. William L. Bainbridge, M.D. Chapter VIII, "The Irresponsible Age." Frederic A. Stokes Company. N.Y.