The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-09-03
WOman's Work.
TEACHING THE CHILDREN TO BIZ USEFUL

46ASA4GG 1A6 TU BE U6EE
How many, many girls enter upon
the duties of a home of their own be-
fore they have learned the first prin-
ciples of housekeeping And how
many married lives are really
wrecked just from this lack of knowl-
edge upon the part of the young
wife, Love is a very curious thing,
but neither love nor religion can
thrive upon a diet that creates dys-
pepsia.
A girl may not need to learn how
to keep house, how to do all sorts of
work from the probability of having
these things to do, but she should
learn them from the possibility of
having them to do some time. What
ever other accomplishments a girl
may have, she should certainly know
how a house ought to be kept, how
work ought to be done, and how
much work ought reasonably~to be
expected from one pair of hands.
In the days of u mothers and
grandmothers girls we're taught to
do useful work. 1 know a woman
who pieced a bedquilt in the difficult
over-and-over stitch when she was
four years old. The stitches were
fine and even, and the work we'll
done, better than most girls of
eighteen or twenty would do now.
The fact of the child's doing this
work probably did not count in the
mothers mind. She was simply
teaching the little one neatness, pre-
cision, and giving it a lesson in the
habit of industry, which is one of
the most valuable that life can hold.
There is nothing in life that makes
it better worth living than having
an aim in life, than in having work
to do. Mrs. Browning says in
"Aurora Leigh: :"
"Get work, get work; tbs better far
than what we work to get"
And she is right. While we may
appreciate the things we get by
work, the work itself and the ability
to do it is a benefit. 1t takes the
thought, it keeps the mind on whole
some things, and if the girl who
dawdles half the morning over a
novel, and strolls half the afternoon
on the street, would instead turn her
mind to useful work she would be
much better off.
A great deal of the wrong-doing in
life comes more from the fact of un-
occupied faculties than it does from
almost any other cause in the world.
J. q. Holland voices this sentiment
in this way: except to his task by
virtue, and kept to virtue by his
daily task"
But how are we to have our youth
industrious when they have become
youth? In no other way than in
beginning when they r young and
teaching them to do some little
tasks daily, certain things that they
must do and be taught never to neg
lect. 1t isn't so much the work they
do as the discipline it gives, and yet
the work is we'll worth the doing.
The girl who Sights the frying
pan and leaves bits of potato sticking
to the potato kettle will in all proba.
bility slight things of greater impor7
tanCe and think they will not matter
if no n knows or sees; but they
will matter, for these little things
spoil the character. They will leave
it open to wrongdoing in other ways,
and the neglect of little duties, a
neglect practised daily, will certainly
leave the channel clear for a neglect
of greater mes.
Children can readily be taught to
work when they are young, as at
that time their faculties are more
susceptible to the teachings of
grown.up folks. They like to do
the things that grown-up folks do,
and if they are taught to do them
we'll they will not shrink from doing
them when the time comes that work
shall be a necessity.-Rose Seelye-
Mi11ar in Farm and Firasida