Missouri Country Life Conference. 239 



life on the farm in his struggle for an existence between his 

 fellows there and his fellows in other lines of activity? 



Enough said for the boy. What are your girls learning at 

 home and at school today about home economics, sewing and 

 cooking, for example? Perhaps you think that girls should not 

 study sewing and cooking at school. Did you ever see a girl 

 who could make her own calico dress and wear it like a queen 

 and look like a queen? I have. Did you ever see another girl 

 who could put on the finest clothes money could buy and yet 

 would not look well because she did not know how to wear her 

 clothes after she got them? I have. Did you ever see another 

 girl who when she came out to go to church came out bedecked 

 in all the colors of the rainbow? I have. She looked just like a 

 barber pole. Did you ever go into a home where you found the 

 books and pictures, the furniture and everything arranged in 

 such a way as pleased your eye and went away and said that 

 woman is a splendid housekeeper? I have. Did you ever go 

 into another home where you found the same kind of books, 

 pictures, furniture, window shades, curtains, rugs, carpets and 

 all arranged in no way, and you went away and said that woman 

 is a mighty poor housekeeper? I have. Why the difference? 

 A few people are born with a little better taste in this respect 

 than others, but the chief difference lies not in the difference of 

 their taste but in the difference in their training. Some of our 

 boys grow up in homes where their fathers can teach them the 

 methods as practiced by the best and most successful men of the 

 farm. Some of our girls grow up in homes where their mothers 

 teach them how to buy the goods from which their clothes are 

 made, how to make them and how to wear them after they are 

 made. But there are thousands of homes in this State where 

 the boys and girls grow up and their mothers and fathers cannot 

 teach them these things, even if they knew how, for their time 

 must be taken in keeping the wolf from the door. Can you not 

 see, my friends, that unless we teach these things in the country 

 school we shall continue to turn out of our schools boys who will 

 go out on to these farms to become poor farmers, girls who will 

 be poor housekeepers, boys and girls who will be poor home 

 makers? 



What are you teaching your girls at home and at school 

 today about home economics, the canning of fruits and vege- 

 tables, home sanitation, the care of the health of those in their 

 homes today and those who may be tomorrow. Not a bad 

 thing, do you think, that the future mothers of this State learn 



