Part 24 (1/2)

SHOULD THERE BE AN ACTUAL INVESTMENT?

Then, what if anything should be done in the ordinary farm home by way of providing an investment for the growing daughter so that she may daily have some practice in business affairs, as well as an income for use in meeting her personal expenses? Before attempting to answer this question, let us be certain that we have the correct point of view of the growing daughter's ideal relation to the practical affairs in the rural home. It seems to the author that there is only one safe rule of procedure here and that is, whatever the investment,--if there be any at all,--it must be understood that the ideal is one of developing the girl into a beautiful womanhood and not one of making the investment pay in the mere money sense of the term. In other words, the business of the farm and the farm home must serve directly the highest interests of the members of the household, even though money acc.u.mulations cannot, as a result, go on quite so fast. Or, as we have put it several times before: The farm and the live stock and all that pertains thereto must be so managed as to contribute directly to the development of the high aspects of character in the boys and girls, and not as materials which the growing boys and girls are to help build up and multiply.

Now, if it still be insisted upon that the country girl have a definite business relation to the affairs of the home, there are two or three ways whereby this may be accomplished. One method is to give the girl a fixed and reasonable sum of money for whatever she may do by way of helping in the house. Another is that of providing a small investment in something that may be expected to increase reasonably in value and finally bring her a money return. Of the two methods of procedure mentioned, it would seem that the first is the more desirable. If the daughter be given an interest in anything like the live stock or some farm crop, the thing will not appeal to her directly, and whatever interest she may have in it will be a purely borrowed one. On the other hand, if she be given a generous allowance for her services, and during the younger years be trained in the expenditure of this allowance, good results may be expected. Similarly as with the boy, the growing girl must be taught to look toward the future. A system of restraints must be placed against her tendency to squander her small income, and gradually she may be trained to set aside a small portion of what she has with a view to its being applied upon something of her own later in life. It is perhaps too much to ask the girl to save enough money to pay her way through college, but there are many advantages in training her to save for a certain portion of that expense. Perhaps she may be able to buy her own clothes.

It is not reasonable to a.s.sume that every well-trained country girl will find it advisable to take a college course. So, instead of saving up for college expenses, she may be taught to lay by something for the day of her marriage and with the thought of helping equip a home of her own. As a matter of fact, it is not a question of the specific purpose for which the money may be set apart. The main issue is that of staying by her day after day and week after week, and guiding and advising her until she finally acquires good sense, mature judgment, and self-reliance in regard to the business affairs that may be expected to const.i.tute a part of her life as a keeper of a home of her own.

_How the southern girls earn money._--One of the most interesting and significant modern movements in behalf of juvenile industry is that of the Southern Girls' Tomato Clubs, originated in 1910 by Miss Marie Cromer, a rural school teacher of North Carolina. Thousands of young girls are now partic.i.p.ants in the new work, each one tending a small plat of tomatoes and canning the produce for the market. One girl is reported to have cleared $130 from one season's crop raised on one fourth of an acre. The General Education Board and the National Department of Agriculture have given liberal support to this tomato-growing work.

CHAPTER XVI

_WHAT SCHOOLING SHOULD THE COUNTRY BOY HAVE?_

It is a well-known fact that rural life conditions have been changing rapidly within the past decade or more. It has taken us a long while to get away from the thought that the farmer is to be anything other than merely a plain, coa.r.s.e man, comparatively uneducated and innocent of the ways of the world. But we are at last seeing the light in respect to this and many another such traditional belief of a menacing nature. We are now looking forward expectantly to the time when the rural community shall contain its proportionate share of people educated or cultured in the full sense of either of these words.

CHANGES IN RURAL SCHOOL CONDITIONS

Many of those now in middle life can easily remember when the farmer boy was sent to school only during the time when his services were not required for the performance of the work about the field and the home.

This period was narrowed down to about three months in the year. After the corn was husked in the fall, he entered school, usually about December first. And at the first sign of spring, about March first, he was called away to begin preparations for the new season's crop. During these sixty days, more or less, the growing lad was supposed to pick up the rudiments of learning and by the time maturity was reached to have worked himself out of the ranks of the illiterate. So he did, for he learned to read falteringly, to write a scrawling hand, and to solve a few arithmetical problems.

We observe the new order of things. In practically all the states there have been recently enacted laws requiring every normal child to attend school during the entire term and to continue for a period of seven or eight years. The splendid results of this provision have only begun to be apparent, but another decade will reveal them in large proportions.

Back of this new legislation in behalf of the boys and girls is the new ideal of the possibilities and the worth of the ordinary human being. We are just beginning to understand this splendid truth; namely, that with very few exceptions all of our new-born young have latent within them all the apt.i.tudes necessary for the development of beautiful and symmetrical character. The modern ideal of public education recognizes two things: first, the right of the child to the fullest possible development; and second, the duty of society to see that the child receive such training whether the parent may wish to accord it to him or not.

The author is especially desirous that the reader appreciate the situation sketched in the foregoing paragraph. What does it mean? It means that our children are at last to have more nearly equal opportunities of development, that their worthy apt.i.tudes or traits are to be brought out through instruction and made to do service in the construction of a sterling character. It means that we shall have cultured artisans as well as cultured artists; that the plain man behind the plow or in the workshop shall be capable of thinking the big, inspiring thoughts as well as the little, puny ones. It means that there will spring up everywhere among the ranks of those once regarded as low and coa.r.s.e, a magnificent society of men and women who, as individuals, will feel and realize a secret sense of power and worth, and who will s.h.i.+ne in the light of a new inspiration.

THE BOY A BUNDLE OF POSSIBILITIES

It has been proved beyond question that the ordinary child contains at birth potentialities of development far greater in amount and variety than any amount of schooling can ever bring into full realization. If you will make a list of one hundred different and highly specialized vocations, and pause for a moment to contemplate the matter, you will doubtless agree that any common boy might be so trained as to some degree in any one of the hundred that he might be made to do fairly well in several of them; and that he might become an expert in at least one of them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XXVII.

FIG. 34.--Only whittling. But in the case of these country boys it is thought of as not mere idling, but as a pastime that leads toward the world of industry.]

So, there is little need of being worried over the thought that the boy is a natural-born dullard, without native ability to learn and finally to make his way in the world. It is true that there is occasionally a real ”blockhead” among children, but such cases are quite as rare as imbecility and physical deformity. Indeed, such cases are nearly always connected with one or both of the defects just named. Then, while in the usual instance the child is to be a.s.sumed to possess an ample amount of native talent, one of the specific problems of his parents and teachers is that of learning in time what his best latent talent is, so that it may give proper incentive and direction for his vocational life.

CLa.s.sES OF NATIVE ABILITY

Roughly speaking there are three cla.s.ses of native ability in the human offspring: the super-normal, the normal, and the sub-normal. The first is const.i.tuted of the geniuses--few and far between, perhaps one in a hundred to five hundred. The second is composed of the great ma.s.s of humanity upon which the stability of the race is built and out of which the geniuses--and the majority of the sub-normals--spring through fortuitous variation. The third cla.s.s is const.i.tuted of the feeble-minded, the imbeciles, and the exceedingly rare natural-born criminals--altogether, perhaps one in every two hundred or more of the population.

Now, what we are trying to get at here is a fair estimate of what the parent may reasonably look for by way of a stock of native ability in his child. The natural-born genius will be known by one special mark; namely, he will be so strongly inclined toward one special line of work or calling as to need no outside stimulus or incentive to make him take it up. Indeed, in the usual case of a p.r.o.nounced genius it is a very difficult matter to prevent the individual from following out his one over-mastering predisposition.

The marks of feeble-mindedness or idiocy are too well known to need description. Such cases are also so rare and so special in their manner of treatment as to call for no extended discussion.