Farm Boys and GirlsMcKeever, William A. (William Arch)
Science
Farm Boys and Girls
McKeever, William A. (William Arch)
Boys; Farm life; Girls
The far-sighted parent and the one really interested in the future of
his daughter will readily observe how much enslaved adults finally
become in the use of money. There are perhaps as many well-to-do persons
who are miserly because they cannot help it as there are improvident
persons who are spendthrifts because they cannot longer prevent it. Both
classes manifest the certain results of training and habit. In his
interesting chapter on the psychology of habit Professor James explains
so aptly how the man, long practiced in enforced economy, but at length
having ample means, goes to the store with the determination of paying
liberally for an article; and how he finally comes away with something
cheap.
A "golden mean" is therefore to be sought in training the girl in the
use of money. Not how to save at all hazards, but how to spend
judiciously, with conscious thought of the right relation between income
and outlay--this is perhaps the more acceptable ideal.
6. _Teach her to give._--While inculcating business ideas into the mind
of your growing daughter, guard against her acquiring a mere passion for
money-making and the accumulation of wealth. For example, one of the
best means of achieving this end would be to see that she gives a part
of her earnings to some worthy cause or other. Explain to her again and
again that she must keep up in her life a sort of equipoise of receiving
and giving, if the highest sense of inner satisfaction is always to be
her portion.
The young must learn sooner or later that there is other than a money
profit to be derived from the investment of money. Accordingly, it will
not be found difficult for the rural parents to point out to their
daughter some place merely where she may invest a small part of her
earnings in human welfare. An orphan child living in the neighborhood
may be sorely in need of a new dress or school books, a lonely and aged
widow may be cheered by the gift of a wall picture, a crippled child may
be accumulating funds for hospital treatment, or another person may have
lost heavily from flood or fire. These and many more like them may be
made the occasion of teaching the girl a beautiful lesson of sympathy
and sacrifice. And the sacrifice should come out of what she has
accumulated through her own small business enterprise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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