No. 5. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 165 



of the disagreeable duty; yet give this same girl a plot of ground 

 she can call her own, and all the flower seeds she wants to plant, and 

 she becomes an industrious and interested person, her body growing 

 strong and vigorous from the use of the hoe. Or give her the choice 

 of some fancy material for a blouse, some bits of lace and pretty 

 ribbons. In this work her inmate sense of beauty is being gratified, 

 while her fingers are becoming deft in the use of the needle. What 

 the girl needs is a special instruction along the line of some con- 

 genial employment that will occupy her mind, satisfy her tastes, and 

 keep here fingers busily employed; something supplemental to the 

 general education acquired during the winter term of school; some 

 definite thing that she, of her own volition, chooses. Should she 

 join the country club organization, she can have the full liberty of 

 following the bent of her inclinations in choosing her work, and she 

 cannot go amiss, as all the club studies are made interesting and 

 alive by the efficient helpers in the State force of instructors whose 

 duty and pleasure is to assist her in all that tends to her best develop- 

 ment. 



The club work teaches a girl to reply upon herself and her own 

 resources, and as the American girl is working toward independ- 

 ence, and the ability to be self-sustaining, it opens up a way; given 

 ideas, she will work out her own ideals. It is a well-known fact 

 that everv idea seeks to realize itself in action, to get itself carried 

 out by the physical organism. Club work is prolific in ideas; the 

 girl will grasp them and carry on her work first for the pleasure and 

 profit of it, and then because she realizes that through it she is 

 serving her fellow-beings; it is not now the old monotonous round of 

 eating, working, sleeping, saving for no particular .purpose that 

 could be discovered by the girl, but it is eating wholesome things 

 raised by her own hand, working to a definite purpose, saving to 

 spend and enjoying each day more fully the results of well-ordered 

 living. 



Life seems to give superior advantages to the city girl. The Tvider 

 social experience does give her more of a knowledge of people and 

 things. The isolated life of the country girl tends to an individualism 

 which retards the growth of her social nature. Country Club work 

 is the remedy for this; it gives something for a whole neighborhood 

 of girls to have in common ; sociability is created and fostered by 

 club meetings where plans of work and methods are discussed; the 

 good-natured rivalry inspires and stimulates in the girl a desire to 

 excel; the telephone, parcel post, and good roads are all conspiring 

 with the Country Club to give the farm girl equal advantages socially 

 and intellectually, with hr city sister. The only complaint of those 

 wlio have been promoting this Country Club work is that it is hard 

 to get the country girl to take the initiative, and push the work 

 along. Those who go to the higher schools of learning and are 

 especially fitted to take the leadership, seldom settle in the coun- 

 try. There is plenty of natural ability left, but because of lack of 

 trainins: in that direction, there is a hesitancy to assume the re- 

 sponsibility of organization and management of a club. Once started, 

 the clubs themselves will develop a working leadership among our 

 girls and women, so this must not prove discouraging to us. One 

 way to help develop the quality of leadership is to make the farm 

 girl feel her importance, not only her importance on the farm to 



