Education for a Vocation. President's address before the N.E.A. Annual Volume, 1908, p. 56. Vocational Direction. E. W. Lord. _Annals Academy of Political and Social Science_ (Philadelphia), March, 1910. Social Phase of Education. Samuel T. Dutten. Page 143, "The Relation of Education to Vocation." Macmillan. The entire book is sound and sane. Income of College Graduates Ten Years after Graduation. H. A. Miller. _Science_, Feb. 4, 1910. Occupations of College Graduates as Influenced by the Undergraduate Course. F. P. Keppel. _Educational Review_, December, 1910. Assisting the Boy in the Choice of a Vocation. Pamphlet. Wm. A. McKeever. Manhattan, Kan. CHAPTER XIX _THE FARM GIRL'S PREPARATION FOR A VOCATION_ What, may we ask, are rural parents doing in regard to the careful preparation of their growing daughters for the vocational life? The author has frequently asserted that many a farmer is to-day giving vastly more thought to the question of preparing his live stock for the money market than to preparing his girls for their life work. The seriousness, the well-nigh cruelty, of this situation becomes apparent only when we inquire into the facts. How long must this carelessness continue? How long will farmers remain indifferent to the tremendous responsibility of giving their children every possible aid in the direction of a high and worthy occupation? Their chief concern continues to be centered too exclusively upon the cattle and the hogs and the corn. Are the boys and girls to be left to shift for themselves? And are they to continue to have their careers determined by mere chance and incident? [Illustration: PLATE XXX. FIG. 37.--Country school girls learning the rudiments of cooking. In no distant future such work will be required along with the traditional subjects.] WHAT IS THE OUTLOOK So, if the country father having a young family were here before us, we should ask him: What is the outlook in regard to a happy future for your growing daughter? Do you want her to take her place among the men and be forced to do some sort of man's work in order to obtain her bread? or, do you earnestly desire that she find some sort of worthy woman's work? And if the latter be your choice, what helpful agencies are you bringing to bear upon the situation? In the midst of all your consideration of these matters touching your daughter, we should have you most earnestly and prayerfully consider at least one thing; namely, with few possible exceptions, the healthy, growing girl looks forward instinctively to the time when she is to become mistress of a household of her own. And in every case, if the girl fails to become such a mistress, there is only one reasonable alternative to be thought of and that is to provide that she engage in some sort of work which will give expression in the largest possible measure to that which is best and truest in her feminine nature.