Unconscious Error of Parents 185 



A BALANCED LIFE FOR THE GIRL 



Should we follow it out, the biography of the 

 good young woman mentioned above would teach 

 many a valuable lesson to the parents of other girls 

 would teach them that a growing girl has her specific 

 needs and her inherent rights, which must be provided 

 for by her parents through the proper kind of direct- 

 ing and caretaking. A certain amount of restraint, 

 of work, of play, of recreation, of social experiences, 

 of practice in self-dependence, of opportunity for 

 service of others yes, a certain amount of all these 

 things must be conscientiously supplied for the life 

 of the growing girl so that she may develop into a 

 well-rounded character. 



Parents are not accused of intentional wrong to 

 their daughters. Such cases are rare. The chief 

 sins against the daughters of the rural homes are 

 the sins of neglect, of indifference, and of ignorance as 

 to what were necessary to be done. So what we 

 may accomplish in this chapter is, first to arouse 

 parents to an appreciation of the seriousness of the 

 problem before them; and second, to offer some 

 specific aids to the better achievement of the task of 

 bringing up a girl to the rural home. 



It is a well-established principle in plant propa- 

 gation that certain nutrient elements must be present 

 in the soil before growth will go on properly. It 

 does not satisfy the needs of the plant for some of 



