Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 169 



would urge her to leave home and earn money when we have 

 enough to keep her?" 



Is she happy just to stay at home to be company? Would you 

 be happy so? I have heard many girls tell of their difficulties in 

 being content with this kind of life. Every one needs work in life 

 to be happy, young women as well as young men, and no one is 

 good company who is unhappy. However, the leaving home is not 

 always necessary by any means. By just a little work supplementary 

 to her home economics course a girl can learn the principles of 

 scientific poultry raising, scientific butter making, or of home can- 

 ning for the market. There are fancy prices for first-class products 

 of these kinds, enough to tempt any ambitious girl, and if your 

 daughter learns to do some such work as this, in addition to her 

 home economics training, you can keep her happily at home, keep- 

 ing up her practice in home making by giving her mother such 

 help as she needs, and in addition to her own special work and earn- 

 ing her own special income — while she waits for the opportunity to 

 have charge of a home of her own. And if that opportunity keeps 

 her in the country, she will find times when she can continue her 

 supplementary work sufficiently to keep up this practice, so in case 

 of need she may again do it professionally. 



Of course, I do not mean that women should do no other kinds 

 of work than these I have mentioned. They may legitimately pre- 

 pare to do anything the world needs doing that they can learn to do 

 well. I was only suggesting easy ways of solving the problem. 



Neither have I meant to say that all education should be voca- 

 tional, though the needs of motherhood are so very broad that it is 

 perhaps impossible to mention any cultural education that can not 

 be counted as a preparation for home making. However, because 

 music, art and literature are helps in home making they should not 

 be regarded as all-sufficient. The home maker must needs be con- 

 cerned for the body as well as for the soul. In fact, if the body 

 is neglected the family often fails to realize that it has any soul. 

 How many a young woman has spent hours and hours on her music, 

 only to find when married that she hardly has time to dust the 

 piano, let alone play it. If a woman loves music let her study it 

 by all means, but at the same time let her study home economics 

 as well, so that if she marries she may be able to do the house- 

 keeping expeditiously and still have left time and strength for her 

 music and the spiritual side of home making. 



I have frequently noticed that a father's chief desire in the 

 education of his daughter is that she should be trained musicallj^ 



