Farm life -- United States; Girls -- United States
But then again, would the state of things be bettered if this important
initiative were placed equally in the hands of women and men? Would the
young men suffer themselves to be ensnared by the unbelated suggestion,
remain in the rural environment and found their homes there? Would they
allow themselves to be tied down in a place where they do not desire to
be? And who would want to tie them down, anyway? The wings of Lord Love
are tremendously energetic, especially when bound by artificial cords.
In questions like these we must wait until we have seen what the young
folks have done before we make up our minds what is right to do; and
especially to-day when the boys and girls are suffering from the
neglects of the last generation. The people who have just passed off the
stage allowed education, science, recreation, good times, hospitality,
and spiritual life to drag behind; now the younger farm people of to-day
are feeling the results. We must look to the new life, the new methods,
the new community spirit of to-morrow to make things over so that there
shall spring up perfectly balanced homes all along the countryside with
such attraction in home and community that no one can possibly be lured
away. In this reorganization of community life, as we have seen, the
Country Girl has a great share and duty. And one of the greatest
services she can perform will be to cherish in her own heart the highest
ideals as to the right and necessary construction of a home in the
character of the parents, and to hold everybody on whom she has any
influence in the community to those ideals as strictly as she possibly
can. For it would be indeed far better for her and for her part in the
onflowing life stream of racial progress if she should dwell unmarried,
run her own farm, and fill her house with the laughter of some
unmothered and unfathered children who would no doubt repay her with
love and service and honor as devotedly as if they had been children of
her very own, as if she should unite in a family plan that by carrying
on impure or diseased influences would contribute to the degradation of
the race, and increase the misery of the world.
Though hampered with some disabilities, the Country Girl of to-day has
one great advantage. She was born after the time when it was settled
conclusively that there was nothing in her sex alone that ought to
hinder her mental growth and her opportunity for activity. In her time
woman has come to realize that when she believes in her own inferiority,
in the possibility that her sex may be a handicap, her nature will be
restricted, and she will not be able to develop the powers she does
possess. She sees that the obsession of this thought has tied down the
woman in the past and has impeded her development. She is now wakened
from this daze.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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