302 The Farm Girl's Preparation for a Vocation 



allowed to expose herself unnecessarily to the inclem- 

 encies of the weather so common in the ordinary 

 rural districts. There are many women moping 

 about to-day, ill and despondent much of the time 

 because of the negligence of parents who permitted 

 them when growing girls to wade about through mud 

 and slush and thus impair permanently their physical 

 well-being. Many of the minor ailments of mature 

 life recur habitually, and that because they were 

 permitted to be acquired when the organism was 

 young and sensitive. 



2. The daughter must be taught how to carry on 

 practically all the necessary details of the housework. 

 The plain cooking and sewing and the general care 

 of the home must be required as duties on the part 

 of every promising girl. It is especially obligatory 

 on the part of rural parents that they train the daugh- 

 ter in such a way as to make her a true mistress of 

 the household over which she may sometime pre- 

 side. She must learn through specific guidance how 

 to subordinate the heavy home tasks to her spiritual 

 well-being. 



3. It is also essential that the girl learn how to 

 manage the business affairs of the home; espe- 

 cially, how to purchase the supplies of the kitchen and 

 the larder in the most economic fashion. She must 

 also learn both how to secure her own personal be- 

 longings at a reasonable cost and how to make them 

 serve her real needs without unnecessary expenditure 



