Farm Boys and GirlsMcKeever, William A. (William Arch)
Science
Farm Boys and Girls
McKeever, William A. (William Arch)
Boys; Farm life; Girls
Girls are more readily enslaved to work than boys. It is comparatively
easy to teach a young woman to work, but it is an extremely difficult
matter to teach her when and how to quit work. Here, then, is the point
whereat we would center the attention of the parents of the country
girl. Make her mistress of her work. Develop in her by actual concrete
lessons the ability to stop and rest or take recreation at the necessary
time, even though the work be not half done.
SUMMARY
1. Give the girl a trifling daily task at four or five years of age,
merely for the sake of discipline. See to it, however, that her young
life be occupied chiefly in play and enjoyment and outdoor recreation.
2. Gradually increase the amount of work required, but always with an
eye single to the girl's physical growth and character-development. Some
definite thing to do as a regular daily requirement will prove most
helpful.
3. Continue throughout the daughter's growing years to provide for her
pleasure. Her schooling, her personal belongings, her social advantages,
and the like, must all be made to serve the purpose of making her life
in the home a happy one. As she grows in strength and years, she will
assume the increased amount of work with willingness and even with
pleasure, provided the assigned duties be vitally related to her present
purposes and her life interests.
4. Moreover, country parents must learn to think of themselves as first
of all engaged in bringing up their children for a better human society;
and secondly, as engaged in farming and housekeeping. If this point of
view be held to persistently, the crops may often suffer and the
housework frequently remain unfinished, but the vital interests of the
boys and girls will continue ever to be served.
5. Finally, let us continue to appreciate the value of outings and
vacations as potent factors in relieving the drudgery of work about the
country household. Women's work in the country home naturally calls for
much isolation and seclusion. The pre-adolescent girl should be taken
out of the farm home once or twice per week during the summer vacation.
It is good for her to go with her mother to the town market and to the
women's club meetings. As soon as she enters young womanhood, a square
deal for the girl who helps in the home will call for a weekly outing of
some kind and a careful provision for her social needs. All of this
outside intercourse will serve to quicken the body and the intellect of
the girl as she goes daily about the household duties, and to give her
"Thoughts that on easy pinions rise
And hopes that soar aloft to the skies."
REFERENCES
The author has been able to find little printed matter of
worth on the important problems outlined in this chapter. The
industrial training of the country girl is a neglected
subject. It seems to have been taken for granted that she
needed none.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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