Farm Boys and Girls Part 28

There is a perplexing aspect of the whole question implied here, and every parent who has a daughter should become aware of it and also prepared to confront it. That is to say, almost any ordinary man may go out into the open market and push his quest for a life companion and be able to return in the course of a very short period with one at his side. But with the girl it is radically different. Practically her only stock-in-trade consists of her personal charm and her pecuniary advantages. And many a young woman with both of these qualities very strongly in her favor fails, by some chance or other, to receive an acceptable offer of marriage. Statistics widely gathered will show that age is also a very positive factor in this matter, and that the ratio of probability of marriage of a single woman begins to fall very rapidly before she reaches thirty.

DESIRABLE OCCUPATIONS FOR WOMEN

While there is abundant evidence to prove that the great majority of normal young women desire instinctively and above all things else a happy marriage, including a contented home life and children to care for, some alternatives must be now pointed out in case of failure to realize the highest ambition.

1. _May teach the young._--School teaching is perhaps the most common, as well as the most commendable, occupation for unmarried women. In many a case, the farmer's daughter will find it greatly to her advantage to engage in this occupation for one or more terms. Thousands of the most worthy young women in our land are devoting their lives to this highest of secondary vocations for women. The work of teaching gives exercise to the altruistic feminine nature and approaches in a fair degree the satisfaction which comes to the mother who is sacrificing for children of her own.

But school teaching wears heavily on the vitality of nearly all young women who follow it long. Diseases peculiar to the s.e.x are said to be very prevalent among such teachers, probably resulting from an excessive amount of standing. Tens of thousands of girls are going from the farm home to the school room, some of them to remain permanently in the business, but the majority to earn money of their own and to place themselves in better position for successful marriage. So, perhaps the first duty of the country parents to the daughter who takes up school teaching is to see that the latter's health be not seriously impaired thereby. After that, the young woman's proper advancement in the profession may be thought of. The ungraded district school is an excellent trying-out and testing position for the young teacher. But if she continues many terms in the school room, graded work will prove more advantageous, especially in the important matter of bringing the young woman into the company of marriageable young men.

2. _May take up stenography._--A vast army of young women now support themselves with the use of the typewriter. This work pays slightly more the year round than school teaching. It is somewhat more confining; but, for various other reasons, it is less deleterious to the general health.

Such office business, however, subjects the young woman to many temptations. It is the opinion of the author that stenography is not at all a desirable occupation for the farmer's daughter to enter. The continued absence from home, the constant a.s.sociation with people differing radically in tastes and manners from the rural population, not to mention again the many temptations to accept lower moral standards--these and other matters will tend to estrange the farm daughter from her parents and to make them feel that something of the former charm of sweet simplicity and home affection has pa.s.sed permanently out of her life.

One thing at least is to be considered before the daughter be permitted to leave the country home for an office position. That is, the work is not to be considered as permanent, but rather as a possible means of preparing for marriage and the contented home life that should follow.

3. _May do social work._--Next to the work of teaching, perhaps the social-service work now being developed and carried on in the cities would make its appeal to the true-hearted young woman. Here again we have a sort of task that dips into the affections and sympathies of the worker and furnishes an opportunity for her to give freely out of the best she has in her make-up. Among the fortunate considerations of teaching and social work are the opportunities they offer for the sympathetic care and guidance of children--the indulgence of altruism and the mother instinct in the young woman. Parents will observe as a rule that their daughter returns from such occupations as these with increased affections for the home family and the home life and a broader and more general interest in people.

In recent years there has developed a new and remarkably promising field of social work for both young men and young women. Charitable, philanthropic, and other social-welfare inst.i.tutions have been greatly multiplied, while their work has been put on a scientific basis. The modern method of securing employees in such places is that of calling persons especially trained and fitted to do the work required, and to pay reasonably for the service. Several new, first-cla.s.s schools and inst.i.tutions for training workers in this human field have been recently organized.

Now, if country parents become anxious to have their daughter go away to the city and find desirable employment and that at living wages, the author recommends this new line of social work most highly. For reasons given above, and for others, it will prove an excellent stepping-stone to the home life--the work is in the general field of human betterment so inviting to the natural instincts of the well-reared young woman; the a.s.sociates are persons likewise interested in human welfare and ranking high in moral and religious character; the required work is usually of a nature to awaken the deepest sympathies and affections and to make the countenance of the worker shine with a new spiritual light.

4. _May secure clerkships._--Clerking and general store work is much followed by young women to-day, but such work may be put down in the list of hazardous occupations for women of any age. Close economic conditions in the cities force many thousands of girls to leave home and seek clerkships at a wage so low as indirectly to undermine the health and more directly to impair the morals. Great armies of these girls are compelled to live in dingy, cramped quarters, to subsist on much less than the quant.i.ty of wholesome food necessary for good health, to practice the strictest economy in matters of dress--to say nothing of the constant temptation to sell their virtue as a means of increasing the small income to the living margin.

Only in extreme cases, therefore, will intelligent farm parents consent to their daughter's leaving home to take up a clerkship, and that when her home life and her social surroundings can be satisfactorily foreseen and arranged for in advance. Even then, the question must be raised: Will this new position probably prove helpful as an introduction to a better form of occupation?

No other possible occupations for the farmer's daughter will be listed here excepting that of trained nurse--a position in which many young women are doing a splendid service for humanity and at the same time supporting themselves adequately. But of course such a position should not be thought of unless the girl feels an inner call to take it up.

Practically all other outside lines of work for women are too masculine.

Parents should by no means allow their daughters to take up a life task that means nothing other than mere money-making. Many women, it is true, are succeeding to-day in business callings, but they are doing so as a rule in violation of certain laws of nature. Many of these business women are masculine in their dispositions and they become more so as the unnatural calling continues to be pursued.

A COLLEGE COURSE FOR THE GIRL

At first thought it would seem that ability to prepare a good meal and to do her own sewing might const.i.tute all the education in household economy necessary for any young woman. But such proves not to be the case. There are hundreds of home-making problems, great and small, for which mere knowledge of the two important affairs just named will provide no answer. While the ability to cook and sew well are doubtless essential characteristics of the good housekeeper, they are not at all a guarantee that their possessor is a good home maker.

Parents must learn to take the larger and more liberal view of the future of their children. Not merely practice in the culinary art, but also a developed and refined personality; not merely industrial efficiency, but also constructive ability of a social nature; not merely mechanical skill in managing the details of housework, but a set of well-matured, effective plans for making the home over which she presides a place of joy and contentment for the other members of the family--these are some of the evidences of character which the wise, far-seeing parent might well desire for his daughter. Now, it is the thesis of this chapter that the normal woman is at her best only when she has become mistress of her own well-managed household. But such an exalted position can scarcely be reached except through a broad, general course of preparation.

The one-sided, cla.s.sical college training has spoiled for life many otherwise good and happy women. Such a course tends strongly to draw the mind and the affections of the young woman away from the home and from motherhood and other such matters so fundamental to the well-being of the race. But in seeking for an ideal school for the daughter the farmer will find unsurpa.s.sed that inst.i.tution which offers extensive courses in household art and management, supplemented fully with work in the so-called culture subjects--language, literature, history, sociology, psychology, and economics. This work const.i.tutes what might be called a balanced schedule of instruction for the young woman. If pursued to its conclusion, such a course of training enriches her personality and multiplies her opportunities for future usefulness many fold.

a.s.sOCIATIONS WITH REFINED YOUNG MEN

If the young woman's preparation for her life work be satisfactory to all, she must have extensive experience in the society of young men such as only the co-educational college can give. As her position in the rural home has been already too much isolated, an exclusive women's college is least to be desired as a place to educate the country girl.

But the domestic science course in a state university or a state agricultural college will be found almost ideal. Here the girl may be held to a reasonable performance of her a.s.signed duties, while at the same time she may mingle freely in the society of both s.e.xes.

Indeed, if the thesis of this chapter be a sound and tenable one,--namely, that normally woman's highest satisfaction is to be sought through helping her attain efficient home life,--then, there is every reason for agreeing with the late Professor James in his contention that every young woman ought to be taught how to know a good man. It is distinctively the business of the young college woman, not only to prepare well all her lessons in household economy and the literary subjects, but also to keep her eye out for a suitable life companion.

And her father should be made to realize that her opportunities for marrying a man of high worth and ability are increased many fold through the completion of a course in the ideal form of co-educational college.

Marriages among college mates are usually most successful, both in the final establishment of substantial home life and in point of resulting in a reasonable number of well-reared children. Statistics gathered widely show that the young woman college graduate marries somewhat later than her non-attending sister, that she has slightly better health, that her children are somewhat fewer, but better reared.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xI.

FIG. 38.--a girls' cla.s.s in sewing. No girl of this age needs to wear any better garment than she can make with her own needle if she be rightly trained. Such training is a part of real preparation for life.]

MAKE THE DAUGHTER ATTRACTIVE

It may therefore be urged upon all rural parents, as a cold business proposition, as well as a duty, that they take every reasonable precaution to develop in their growing daughters both an attractive personality and a beauty of the inner character, whether she be so fortunate as to attend a good college or not. All this must be done with a thought of rendering the daughter as attractive as possible in respect to any worthy young man who may in time seek her heart and hand in marriage. It is time for parents to cease pa.s.sing this thing by as a mere piece of sentimentalism and to begin to do the fair thing by their girls. Why should it longer come to pa.s.s in this enlightened age that some parents break down the physical health of their girls with the burden of over-work and thus consign them to a life of moping and bitter disappointment for the future; that other parents indulge their girls in the giddy, b.u.t.terfly type of life and thus blight their prospects of a substantial and satisfactory place in human society?

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

In summarizing and concluding this chapter we wish to remind the reader of what has been said in the preceding ones. There are a number of distinctive elements that must be carefully wrought into the character of the farmer's daughter with a view to laying a substantial foundation for her future career.

1. First of all, the girl's health must be kept in mind. She must not have an over-burden of work heaped upon her delicate shoulders, nor must she be allowed to expose herself unnecessarily to the inclemencies of the weather so common in the ordinary rural districts. There are many women moping about to-day, ill and despondent much of the time because of the negligence of parents who permitted them when growing girls to wade about through mud and slush and thus impair permanently their physical well-being. Many of the minor ailments of mature life recur habitually, and that because they were permitted to be acquired when the organism was young and sensitive.

2. The daughter must be taught how to carry on practically all the necessary details of the housework. The plain cooking and sewing and the general care of the home must be required as duties on the part of every promising girl. It is especially obligatory on the part of rural parents that they train the daughter in such a way as to make her a true mistress of the household over which she may sometime preside. She must learn through specific guidance how to subordinate the heavy home tasks to her spiritual well-being.

3. It is also essential that the girl learn how to manage the business affairs of the home; especially, how to purchase the supplies of the kitchen and the larder in the most economic fashion. She must also learn both how to secure her own personal belongings at a reasonable cost and how to make them serve her real needs without unnecessary expenditure of money. It will be a great achievement in her behalf if the girl approach her marriage day thoroughly imbued with the thought of cooperating with her husband in the general business of maintaining a home.

4. We would remind the reader again of the necessity of giving attention to the development of an attractive personality in the growing girl.

Pleasing manners, refined expressions, neat and attractive apparel, kindliness and sympathy, frankness and straightforwardness--all these should enter into her make-up and be thought of as parts of her permanent character. They will also go far toward winning to her side a suitable life companion.

5. The young girl on the farm should have much advice in respect to the nature and character of men. This will be achieved partly through her well-ordered social life and partly through specific talks from thoughtful parents. Country girls are probably less informed in respect to the natures of men than are city girls. Many beautiful and innocent young women are led astray either before or after marriage by evil and designing men; many of them consummate marriages with men who have an outer appearance of trustworthiness, but who harbor within some most serious and insurmountable evil and disease. Although she may not for a time be conscious of what her parents are doing, the latter should be for years purposely engaged in preparing their daughter to know at sight a good man.

Finally, it may be said that there is no greater charm or thing of more superior beauty in this good world of ours than the character of a woman who has been well-born and well-reared, and who has been safely guided into the home of her own wherein she reigns as mistress supreme. In this ideal home the love and sympathy and the kindly deeds of the true home-maker will reveal themselves permanently in the lives of her children and her husband and the many others who come into contact with her constructive personality.

REFERENCES

Women's Ways of Earning Money. Cynthia Westover Alden. A. S.

Barnes & Co.

The Home Builder. Dr. Lyman Abbott. Houghton, Mifflin Company. Sympathetic and cheering.

Almost a Woman. Mary Wood Allen, M.D. Crist, Scott & Parshall, Coopertown, N.Y. A plain talk to the young woman about her s.e.x nature.

The Problem of Vocational Education. David Snedden, Ph.D.

Chapter XII, "The Problem of Women in Industry." Houghton, Mifflin Company.

The Vocational Guidance of Youth. Meyer Bloomfield. Chapter I, "The Choice of Life Work and its Difficulties." Houghton, Mifflin Company.

Parenthood and Race Culture. Charles W. Saleeby M.D. Chapter X, "Marriage and Maternalism." Moffat, Yard & Co., New York.

Should Women work for their Living? M. Yates. _Westminster Review_, October, 1910.

Social Diseases and Marriage. Educational Pamphlet, No. 3.

American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, New York.

10 cents. Every parent should read this booklet.