Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1883-07-07
Farmers Girls.

Otis Tinkham, in City and Country
says: We have long said that the
best wives in the world are farmers
girls. We believe it is true. Not but
that many mechanics and merchants
and bankers girls make good wives
and excellent women. But the rule is
that farmers girls are healthier, tresher,
fairer, more useful and sensible than
any other class of women. What is
girl good for that has no health, no
vigor of body. whose waist is like
wasp's, whose lungs are cramped into
half their proper size, whose spine is
crooked and diseased, whose nerves are
weak as a spleeny old woman's, whose
physical organization is so weak and un-
strung that every wind gives her a
cold, every change in the weather
neuralgia attack, every accident hys-
teric fit, and every spider that sets foot
in her way frantic terror
What is girl good for if she has no
useful information, whose hands can
serve no useful turn, can neither make
bread nor butter, nor clothes, nor wash,
nor nurse, nor mend? Wives live to
some purpose, or ought to. Theirs is
a great mission. They have a field to
occupy. They have noble service to
humanity to do. They have to preside
over the interests of the thousands of
homes that dot our country. The dress,
the taste, the comfort, the health, the
happiness, the intelligence, the virtue
of our homes are not a little in their
keeping. All theinterests that cluster
around the freside are confded to
them. Not the politicians at Washing
ton, not the professors in our colleges,
not our men of commerce in our sea-
ports, not the bankers in our cities, not
the merchants in our shops, not the
men of our professions, not even the
ministers of our gospel have committed
to them a grander or holier charge, or
have in bookkeeping interests of greater
Importance than the wives of our coun-
try. Our civilization, our intelligence,
our virtue, our grogress in all that is
great and good, depend as much upon
our wives as upon any class of the COM
munity.
They should, then, be healthy,
strong, and useful. They should know
how to do something that will be of
service to their families. To cook, to
wash, to make, to mend, to pickle, to
preserve, to cure, to nurse, to instruct,
to please, to bless, to entertain, to en-
courage, to cut, to knit and sew-are
some OF the Offices devolving upon a
wife. If she knows not all these
things, she must fail in some of her du-
ties. If she cannot put her hand to
some of these services, she cannot full
fiji her mission. To do these things
she must be well stocked with common
sense and useful information. To en-
broider, to finger a musical instrument,
to paint, to read French, and nurse
flower pots and lap dogs, is small part
of wife's mission. To 60 into hyster.
les over the last novel, to weep over a
newspaper doggerel, to study the fash
ion-plate, to feast on the Lady's Book,
as though it were solid food, to shuttle
over love stories and be delighted with
coxcomb literature-are accomplish
ments of very questionable character
in a wife. Half a grain of common
sense sprinkled into few hours of oc
cupation is worth more than all o.
them. Because farmers daughters are
freer from these fooleries, are soundel
in health, are trained to more usefu
employments, is the reason why, as {
general rule, they make better wives
All true accomplishments are to b,
priced but the first and best and ever
to-be-esteemed accomplishment is to b.
useful. This always makes one agree
able, always makes one honored. WheI
usefulness is joined with intelligence
virtue and graceful manners, it con
summaries the character of a good wife.
40 The Effects of Dampness on Fowls.