Only in extreme cases, therefore, will intelligent farm parents consent to their daughter's leaving home to take up a clerkship, and that when her home life and her social surroundings can be satisfactorily foreseen and arranged for in advance. Even then, the question must be raised: Will this new position probably prove helpful as an introduction to a better form of occupation? No other possible occupations for the farmer's daughter will be listed here excepting that of trained nurse--a position in which many young women are doing a splendid service for humanity and at the same time supporting themselves adequately. But of course such a position should not be thought of unless the girl feels an inner call to take it up. Practically all other outside lines of work for women are too masculine. Parents should by no means allow their daughters to take up a life task that means nothing other than mere money-making. Many women, it is true, are succeeding to-day in business callings, but they are doing so as a rule in violation of certain laws of nature. Many of these business women are masculine in their dispositions and they become more so as the unnatural calling continues to be pursued. A COLLEGE COURSE FOR THE GIRL At first thought it would seem that ability to prepare a good meal and to do her own sewing might constitute all the education in household economy necessary for any young woman. But such proves not to be the case. There are hundreds of home-making problems, great and small, for which mere knowledge of the two important affairs just named will provide no answer. While the ability to cook and sew well are doubtless essential characteristics of the good housekeeper, they are not at all a guarantee that their possessor is a good home maker. Parents must learn to take the larger and more liberal view of the future of their children. Not merely practice in the culinary art, but also a developed and refined personality; not merely industrial efficiency, but also constructive ability of a social nature; not merely mechanical skill in managing the details of housework, but a set of well-matured, effective plans for making the home over which she presides a place of joy and contentment for the other members of the family--these are some of the evidences of character which the wise, far-seeing parent might well desire for his daughter. Now, it is the thesis of this chapter that the normal woman is at her best only when she has become mistress of her own well-managed household. But such an exalted position can scarcely be reached except through a broad, general course of preparation.