The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1880-05-20
A TALK WITH GIRLS AND THEIR
MOTHERS.

In an article in the May st. Nicholas
Washington GLADDEN. specifies some of
the mistakes made by girls and their
mothers, and makes the following sem
sible comments thereon:
In the first place, girls make q great
mistake in being careless about their
health. do not know that they are
any more careless than boys, but their
habits of life, and especially their habits
Of dress, are generally more injurious
to health than those of boys. The great
majority of our girls take much less
vigorous exercise in the open air than
Is good for them: those who can walk
three or four miles without exhaustion
are exceptions.
ut seems to me mistake" says one
of my correspondents, "that boys and
girls should be trained so differently,
particularly in regard to out-of-door
sports. With strong love for every
thing in nature, remember as child
what torture it was to be kept always
indoors, in some feminine employment,
while my strong brothers (strong on
this very account, perhaps) could spend
all their leisure time in the open air.
I was much interested years ago in
reading a sketch of Harriet Hosmer's
girlhood. Her father, having lost all
his children by consumption. and find
ing her delicate, resolved to bring her
up as boy, teaching her all sorts of
athletic sports, and thus making her .
strong, healthy woman"
The lack Of exercise on the part of
girls is due, no doubt, in part, to the
foolish styles of dress, in which it is inn
possible for them to be out in rough
weather, or to make any considerable
muscular exertion. 'sThe lack of
warmth in clothing, and the foolish adj
justment of what is worm" is said in
one of these letters to be one of the
chief causes that produce "the peculiar
nervous diseases to which women are
subject"
wish l could make you all UNDER
stand how great a mistake you make
when you sacrifice health, or the physic-
al comfort on which health depends, to
appearance or to any other earthly good;
when you neglect to provide, by regu-
lar exercise and wise care, a good stock
of physical vigor for the labors and the
burdens of the coming years. Without
this foundation, all that you can learn
in school, and all that wealth can buy
for you, will be worthless. "Intellect
in an enfeebled body" says some one
whom quote from memory, sis like
gold in y spent swimmers pocket-it
only makes him sink the sooner"
Another great mistake that many of
our girls are making, and that their
mothers are either encouraging or al
lowing them to make, is that of spend
ing their time out of school in idleness,
or in frivolous amusements, doing no
work to speak of, and learning nothing
about the practical duties and the seri-
Gus cares of life. 1t is not only in the
Weather families that the girls are
growing up indolent and Impractical in
household work; indeed, 1 think that
more attention is paid to the industrial
training of girls in the wealthiest fami-
lies, than in the families of mechanics
and of people in moderate circumstance
es, where the mothers are compelled to
work hard all the while.
"Within the last week." says one of
my correspondents, II have heard two
mothers, worthy women in most re-
spects. say, the first, that her daughter
never did any sweeping. Why, if she
wants to say to her companions, 'Inev-
er swept room in my life,' and takes
any comfort in it, let her say it; and yet
that mother is sorrowing much over the
shortcomings of that very daughter.
The other said she would not let her
daughter do anything in the kitchen.
Poor deluded woman! She did it all
herself, insteadr'
The habits of Incidence and of help
lessness that are thus formed are not
the greatest evils resulting from this
bad practice: the selfishness that it fos-
tiers is the worst thing about it. How
devoid of conscience, how lacking in
all true sense of tenderness, or even Of
justice, girl must be. who will thus
consent to devote all her time out of
school to pleasuring, while her mother
is bearing all the heavy burdens Of the
household! And the foolish way In
which mothers themselves sometimes
talk about this, even in the presence OF
their children. is mischievous in the
extreme. 20, Hattie is 80 absorbed
with her books, or her crayons, or her
embroidery, that she takes no interest
in household matters, and do not like
to call upon her." As if the daughter
belonged to q superior order Of beings,
and must not soil her hands or ruifle
her temper with necessary house-worki
The mother is the drudge; the daugh-
ter is the fine lady for whom she tolls.
No mother who suffers such . state Of
things as this can preserve the respect
OF her daughter; and the respect Of her
daughter no mother can afford to lose.
The result of al this Il to form In the
minds OF many girls not only . distaste
for labor, but contempt for it, and q
purpose to avoid it as long - they live
b. soma means or othar. And I want