Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-02-09
TRAINING GIRLS.

| tooth.
TRAINING GIRLS.
1t must have been man who originated
that highly popular and over-wise remark
that NO girl should marry until she can
cut and make her own dresses and make
good bread" Every woman knows that
bread and dress-making are trades, only to
be mastered by long practice, and that
thousands of girls are growing up who
may be able to pay a cook and dress
maker, who may yet suffer in home and
purse for lack of both of training in house
keeping and of practice with needle and
scissors.
With the girls whose mothers hire no
help the question settles itself. AS we
live nowadays one pair of hands simply
cannot do the cooking, housework and
sewing for family of children. The
daughters must learn to help in every de-
partment. But when work is not compul-
sorry the girls will usually learn something
for the love of it.
Perhaps Mary will discover knack for
millinery and trim hats for all her friends
without instructions, but display corre-
spending inability in understanding that
there is another way to mend stocking,
except to snatch a threaded needle from
mothers cushion and draw the hole to-
/ gether. Or Jennie will become an expert
| at chocolate cake and caramels, in spite OF
disaereeable servant in the kitchen, and
yet if called upon in some emergency for a
cup of tea and slice of toast would start
the tea with cold water, and wonder why
the bread doesn't brown with the back
damper shut.
Now, leaving out of the account the
| semi-invalid girls, only not forgetting to
insist that novel-reading is as trying to
weak eyes as mending and that dancing,
roller-skating or long walks strain weak
backs as much as chamber work, the ques-
| ton still remains, When shall our girls be
taught these things which they don't want
, to learn and yet need to know?
l boldly say, only little in school
time. The girl who goes regularly to
school, especially if she must walk some
distance, who must study out of school, get
in an exercise or experiment, write
composition or look up reference in the
library, and perhaps find an hour every
| day for piano practice, has very little time
and no possible interest in either house
work or sewing. She Will probably hate
them both heartily, and feel herself abused
If obliged to do either.
And yet it is as absolutely necessary for
her to learn that daily duties must be
done, nor can the lesson begin too early.
Even child of can learn that she can't
have the picture-book until she has put
the dollies away, nor the button-box until
the book is in its place, nor go to walk un-
til the buttons are picked up. A girl un.
der 10 can at least amuse the baby regu-
larly, little while every day, or sweep
the steps or run daily errand; the larger
ones can fill the pitchers or
MAKE THEIR OWN BEDS,
Or get the potatoes ready for dinner;
small duties changing with age and cir
cumstance, and needing but few minutes
in the morning and few more at night.
The thing for the mother to remember is
that it will often take more care to get
these things done than to do then herself,
but it is just here that the training comes
in. The mother who insists on the small
daily duties done regularly and done well,
insists that the sheets be tucked and the
pillows straight, the corners swept and the
broom hung up, has taught her daughter
lesson in thoroughness and faithfulness
that will tell in her character as well as
her housekeeping herself lesson in
patience besides.
Saturdays are too often claimed by the
school girl as their rightful holiday for
visitors or visiting, or making extra work
| in the family and for omitting the duties
| of other days. 1t can safely be taken for
| granted, however, that the average school
girl is not killing herself with study. She
| probably doesn't know how to, in the first
| place, and doesn't care to, in the second
| place. And is there any reason why she
should not help in the kitchen an hour or
| two on Saturday; or, if that means too
much war in Dublin, why cannot she sew
| on her shoe buttons, mend her gloves, re-
| wise dropping pocket, replace a hat elas-
tic, exchange safely pins for stout stitches
| in the draperies of her overskirt and
| strengthen the buttons that remain on her
Jersey? Such things done are as truly a
rest from study as visiting, and are train
| ing in habits of care and thrift.
| THE ONLY TIMES
For systematic and continued drill of
| girl in either cooking or sewing are the
summer vacation or the term, when for
one reason or another she stays out of
school, before she settles to either work or
pleasure. Now is the time when some
| thing more than dusting the parlor, an
occasional dessert or bit of fancy work may
be expected. Mother may give over the
whole care of some one department of the
house 10 the daughter, and let her work
out the problem. If she goes into the
| kitchen she must learn to handle the stove
and manage the dishes; to stew without
catching on and bake without burning !;
to cut meat and not fingers, and put up
fruit and make drippings; do the work of
butter, and do these things and thousand
others quickly, neatly and without making
note of every step.
Now is the time when some coveted gar
ment, some pretty dressing-sacque or fancy
wrap may be allowed, if the girl will take
time and have patience to do it all herself
from pinning on her pattern. She can
learn in this way to use her cloth with
prudence, discover where straight edges
must come, where to cut and where to tear.
She can learn to baste straight and bias
| edge together WITHOUT pun OF pucker, anu
to make hem lie flat without winding.
She can master the machine and its tan
trunns, and learn to handle large and
awkward work without defacing. These
are the tests of seamstress in these days
when machines take so many of the stitehe;
that fine hand-sewing is fast becoming COZ
| fined to experts, and can, without incon
venience be left unlearned. if these othel
arts be mastered. And these are the steps
too, in both cooking and sewing that a gir
needs to know,
WHETHER SHE MARR1Es OR NOT.
The bread-making and dress-making vii