Boys May Do Housework 49 



and should, be met by means of requiring the daugh- 

 ters to assist with the home duties. But in case there 

 be no daughters it is seriously recommended that 

 either the father or the boys do certain parts of the 

 heavier housework. 



It is not necessarily beneath the dignity of the best 

 and most brilliant man of this country for him to 

 get down on his knees in his own home and help per- 

 form the menial work there which threatens to break 

 the health of his life companion. If there be growing 

 sons in the family, there is every justification for train- 

 ing them to assist in the housework in a case where 

 such assistance is needed to shield the health and 

 strength of the mother. It prepares for better man- 

 hood and for more sympathetic protection of his own 

 wife to be, if the boy be required to do such things 

 and thus to become intimately acquainted with what 

 it means to perform the many burdensome tasks that 

 tend to wear away the lives of so many good women. 



6. The children shield the mother. - - There will 

 perhaps be no better occasion than this to remind 

 parents of the necessity of carefully training the grow- 

 ing 'children to perform such deeds as will shield the 

 mother in the home, and show a sympathetic interest 

 in her welfare. These matters will not naturally 

 be acquired by children. The country to-day is 

 full of grown men whose mothers and wives have 

 worked themselves to death ; and yet these men did 

 not detect the seriousness of the situation until it 



