In allowing the children to enter a workers into the full life of the home several good things are accomplished. (1) The eager interest of the developing mind is utilized to brighten those duties which are likely to remain permanent duties. Not does this observation apply only to girls. Domestic obligations are supposed to rest chiefly upon them, but the truth is that boys need to feel these obligations as keenly as the girls, if they are to grow into considerate and helpful husbands and fathers. The usual division of labor into forms falsely called masculine and feminine is, therefore, much to be deplored. Moreover, at an early age children are seldom sex-conscious, and any precocity in this direction is especially evil in its results; yet many mothers from the beginning make such a division between what they require of their boys and of their girls as to force this consciousness upon them. All kinds of work, then, should be allowed in the beginning, however it may differentiate later on, and little boys as well as little girls should be taught to take an interest in sewing, dish-washing, sweeping, dusting, and cooking--in all the forms of domestic activity. This is so far recognized among educators that the most progressive primary schools now teach cooking to mixed classes of boys and girls, and also sewing. These activities are recognized as highly educational, being, as they are, interwoven with the history of the race and with its daily needs. When they are studied in their full sum of relationship, they increase the child's knowledge of both the past and the living world. [Sidenote: Teaching Mother] (2) Besides the deepening of the child's interest in that work which in some form or other he will have with him always, is the quickening of the mother's own interest in what may have come to seem to her mere daily drudgery. Any woman who undertakes to perform so simple an operation as dish-washing with the help of a bright happy child, asking sixteen questions to the minute, will find that common-place operation full of possibilities; and if she will answer all the questions she will probably find her knowledge strained to the breaking point, and will discover there is more to be known about dish-washing than she ever dreamed of before; while in cooking, if she will make an effort to look up the science, history, and ethics involved in the cooking and serving of a very simple meal, she will not be likely to regard the task as one beneath her, but rather as one beyond her. No one can so lead her away from false conventions and narrow prejudices as a little child whom she permits to help her and teach her. [Sidenote: The Love of Work]