46 The Bulletin 



Farm Life and Its Possibilities for Girls. 



Beulah Aeey. 



Sometimes we hear it said "There is no chance on the farm for the girl." 

 The girl has just as good a chance on the farm as she has a mind to make. 

 The thing is to have a purpose in life, something to live for. A person with- 

 out an object in life, without ambition and destitute of a settled purpose to 

 achieve some definite end, is to be pitied. The girl who lives a listless, lazy- 

 life, satisfied with her conditions and with no ambition to do or achieve 

 something higher, knows nothing of pleasure. One of the greatest pleasures 

 of life is to endeavor and to overcome. Work is a blessing; idleness a curse. 

 It is a poetical expression "that life without a plan serves merely as a soil 

 for discontent to thrive on." Some point in view, some fixed object of pur- 

 suit, is a spur to the energies. A purpose overcomes difficulties; not with 

 a rush and a shout, but one by one. So set your mark high; no person was 

 ever Injured or delayed in life by setting his mark high. 



The very first and best thing you can do is to equip yourselves for lives of 

 the greatest possible usefulness. This you owe first to your Creator, who 

 in giving life to anyone gives it with a purpose. You have a life-work to 

 perform which no other can do for you. Next you owe it to those around 

 you. First, and this is the point I am trying to make, is the home, then 

 your countrymen. 



The Home! Think of what that word carries with it; and do we all realize 

 what embraces a home, the magnitude of the responsibilities which rests 

 upon the shoulders of one who undertakes to make one: No, positively I 

 am sure we do not; and sometimes I am inclined to think we do not want 

 to, and today this, as I see it, is why so many of us live in houses instead of 

 homes. 



Now, girls, this is your chance; your real life-work is to make a home. 

 Be a home-maker, not a home-breaker. Well, you will say, how are we 

 going to do this? I want to tell you that it is not done by chance; it is no 

 "happenstance." The person that thinks if a girl can do nothing else she 

 can make a home, or, as others might put it, "cook and keep house," had 

 better think again. Everybody fully realizes that to be a successful farmer 

 you must be able to do more than drive a mule to the end of a cotton row, 

 pull him around and go back, and I am thankful that our women and girls 

 are waking up to the fact that to be a successful home-maker you must be 

 able to do more than fry meat and sweep the floor. 



Why is it when a young girl wishes to become a trained nurse, a stenog- 

 rapher, a music teacher, or any other profession as far as that goes, except 

 home-making, she prepares herself for the work? She spends years and 

 hundreds of dollars in preparation, graduates, gets a "job," teaches until 

 she marries, then the bar drops. She feels that her life-work has been com- 

 pleted instead of just beginning it, and well she might, too, for she made 

 preparation for the former work, the latter followed as a matter of fact, and 

 as a matter of fact this is the seat of the trouble in our homes today. Home- 

 making is not considered a profession and therefore not studied. I hope the 

 time will soon come when every young woman who expects to go into a 

 home of her own will have to prepare herself for making a home, just the 

 same as does the young man to support that home. This is nothing more 

 than fair. It makes no difference whether or not you do your own work; 

 if you cannot do it yourself you cannot direct anyone else. You cannot give 

 out what you do not have yourself. If you cannot make wholesome, nourish- 

 ing bread, do you suppose for a minute you can tell an ignorant person how? 

 Why is it that labor in the home is such a problem today? Because it has 

 not been handled intelligently and systematically. For my part I do not 

 want any. I much prefer a well planned house equipped with the modern 

 conveniences as my servants. These if handled intelligently will respond 

 intelligently, and you can always depend on them. 



Now here is the real problem, and we will have to solve it together. Prob- 

 ably you haven't a well planned house and the modern conveniences to 

 lighten and make pleasant your work, but by keeping still is a pretty poor 



