Missouri Country Life Conference. 171 



Friends, I was born and raised on a farm and until three months 

 ago never ordered groceries over a telephone in my life. I lived 

 on a farm, as Mr. Emberson said, and I know how it feels to 

 look different from the girls in town. I did not hate it when a 

 child, but when I grew older I felt and saw the difference felt 

 by every country girl in the universe. That line of demarca- 

 tion is stronger than the Mason and Dixon line I have described, 

 and it is up to you and me to rub it out. No difference in your 

 girl and in the girl in the city or town. The difference is just 

 in the little outside fixings. It is the paint on the house that 

 distinguishes your house from your neighbor's, perhaps, or the 

 way it is done. It does not change the home on the inside. 

 The same thing is true with that girl's dress. The country girl 

 asks her father for money to buy a lot of new trinkets. She 

 gets a long line of ribbon tied round her for a sash, and it cost 

 more than the city girl's dress, but the girl in the town had an 

 opportunity to see things and work them out. Maybe she did 

 not have so much money or could not afford it. She got a little 

 plain street dress, but the girl in the town looked different from 

 the girl in the country. 



Those are some of the things we must consider; those are 

 the problems we are putting before our women down in Okla- 

 homa. About four months ago ended six "week schools" held 

 in different parts of the state, where I had classes in dressmak- 

 ing. The Singer Sewing Machine Company was willing to let 

 me have machines for advertising, so I put a good plain dress- 

 maker in charge, one that would talk good common sense to 

 those women. We put twenty-five machines along in rows and 

 two country women to every machine. We gave them lessons 

 in plain dressmaking, including making of house dresses, chil- 

 dren's clothes and men's shirts. We gave lessons in cutting and 

 fitting, and every woman would watch as each dress was fitted. 

 The classes ranged as high as two hundred and fifty trying to 

 learn more of the things they had to do. They had been work- 

 ing at a disadvantage all their lives because they had had no 

 chance to learn the best way of doing the work. 



The state schools are closed to men and women, excepting 

 on occasions like this, but the country is open and the homes are 

 open, and I believe today the educational institutions should 

 go to the men and women on the farm and give them a part of 

 the education they are giving the boys and girls, and instead of 

 educating the boys and girls away from the father and mother. 



