FOUNDING A HOME
There is one thing that may not be mentioned by any Country Girls even in their dearest confidences, but that we may for a surety know: it is that every one of them looks forward to the making of her own home. Yes; every one has her dream of a "hope chest"; and as she wanders about her home community she is looking here and there to see what hillside or what sightly place on the plain will be the destined location for her home. Like the wise woman in Proverbs, she, in imagination, buildeth her house beforehand, and thinks it all out according to the scope of her ideals.
These ideals that are cherished in the thoughts of the young woman are her most valuable possessions. They are the blossoming of the best that she has received from her education, her surroundings in the home, the advice of her elders, the influence of the books she has read, the music she has heard and has made, the plays she has seen and the poetry she has learned. They are the inherited result of long years of experience on the part of the race; and perhaps in no place is the best that past centuries have garnered to be found more assimilated and concentrated than in the country home in America.
In the history of the evolution of society we recall that woman was assigned no small place. In those early eons of the long slow growth of society, she was the creator of the home; she was the master of the mysteries of fire and of household devices; she was the carrier, the lapidary, the builder, the inventor, the harvester, the tiller of the soil; she was the weaver, the skin dresser, the maker and mender of clothing, the hewer of wood and the drawer of water; she was the linguist and instructor of girls; she was a prophetess and a founder of religion; she went into battle with the fighting men and she deliberated in the council of the tribe. She had her full share in the creation of a social order.
To dwell upon the history of domestic evolution will perhaps encourage the young woman of to-day to step forward and shoulder the responsibilities that belong to her. But the young woman in the rural field has at present a special difficulty. If the better and more adventurous among the rural young men withdraw to the city, the choice of the young women that remain is restricted. Indeed many may continue unmarried because of the lack of companionship of their own caliber. This situation should work several ways; to the young men who are tempted to run away to city life, it should be an incitement to stay where their true home is; it should also be an inspiration to the youths remaining in the home village when the less loyal or the more enterprising young men have departed, to build up efficiency in every possible way, so that they may make themselves more acceptable and successful in the social field of the community.
But as to the girls themselves—ay, there's the rub! Difficult as the problem always is for any young woman, it is doubly so for her in the country to-day. Under these circumstances, what the dignified position for her to take is hazardous to say.
There is no use in trying to minimize the great importance of the problem. The advance or the deterioration of the community depends on the mental and physical health of the race. In order that a home may be successfully founded; that it may carry on the best traditions and improve upon them, it should be made by the best possible choice of each other on the part of those that form it. Back of these best possible choices must lie the highest ideals and the courage to demand the fulfilment of these ideals. For the characteristics of the children in any home will be formed by the characteristics of both the parents. Therefore, the quality and character of both parents will determine whether the race shall ascend in the scale of being or shall decline and deteriorate. The young may not choose for their own pleasure alone; they should choose also for the sake of the whole race and its hopes and aspirations. They must develop themselves; they must make themselves and keep themselves sound and well-trained and in good trim not for their own joy in living, not even solely for the benefit of those about them, but for the strength and success of those who are to live after them.
It is for this reason that the choice is so momentous. And it is not to be wondered at that many young men and young women find the years of youthful decisions fraught with an almost tragic significance.
In the present state of social evolution, the burden of choice seems to rest chiefly upon the young man. But is it really so? Professor Scott Nearing asks the question and then makes the suggestion that though the conventionally modest young woman of to-day may shrink from the thought that she should take the lead in this matter of selection, still she may unconsciously and instinctively do so after all. The same suggestion is strongly urged by another educational authority. One of the wise men of Illinois, a man of culture, an educationalist and a close observer of life, writes as follows: "What the country girl most needs and wants is a larger opportunity for social development. Her life is isolated, her friends limited. She has little choice when she selects a husband from the home community. I almost wish custom would permit her to make the proposal, for I feel sure that she could do so more intelligently, and better results would obtain." We have indeed a mighty precedent in the earliest days of our national story for the initiative of the woman. "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" has been said once, and it can be said again.
But then again, would the state of things be bettered if this important initiative were placed equally in the hands of women and men? Would the young men suffer themselves to be ensnared by the unbelated suggestion, remain in the rural environment and found their homes there? Would they allow themselves to be tied down in a place where they do not desire to be? And who would want to tie them down, anyway? The wings of Lord Love are tremendously energetic, especially when bound by artificial cords. In questions like these we must wait until we have seen what the young folks have done before we make up our minds what is right to do; and especially to-day when the boys and girls are suffering from the neglects of the last generation. The people who have just passed off the stage allowed education, science, recreation, good times, hospitality, and spiritual life to drag behind; now the younger farm people of to-day are feeling the results. We must look to the new life, the new methods, the new community spirit of to-morrow to make things over so that there shall spring up perfectly balanced homes all along the countryside with such attraction in home and community that no one can possibly be lured away. In this reorganization of community life, as we have seen, the Country Girl has a great share and duty. And one of the greatest services she can perform will be to cherish in her own heart the highest ideals as to the right and necessary construction of a home in the character of the parents, and to hold everybody on whom she has any influence in the community to those ideals as strictly as she possibly can. For it would be indeed far better for her and for her part in the onflowing life stream of racial progress if she should dwell unmarried, run her own farm, and fill her house with the laughter of some unmothered and unfathered children who would no doubt repay her with love and service and honor as devotedly as if they had been children of her very own, as if she should unite in a family plan that by carrying on impure or diseased influences would contribute to the degradation of the race, and increase the misery of the world.
Though hampered with some disabilities, the Country Girl of to-day has one great advantage. She was born after the time when it was settled conclusively that there was nothing in her sex alone that ought to hinder her mental growth and her opportunity for activity. In her time woman has come to realize that when she believes in her own inferiority, in the possibility that her sex may be a handicap, her nature will be restricted, and she will not be able to develop the powers she does possess. She sees that the obsession of this thought has tied down the woman in the past and has impeded her development. She is now wakened from this daze.
What barrier can there be to a woman's progress? Truly life presents many. For instance, her idea of what would for her be progress, may not be the right idea. There are many stern duties that sometimes seem to impede progress; duties to parents, to family, or to the social order; duties to religious forms that have become woven into society and could not be drawn out without too much sacrifice of what is good and necessary; duties to common legal form that has dominance and is the result of centuries of experience, and that could not be taken exception to without too great risk—these and many other things may form barriers to the desire of the mere individual. But, these being granted, the woman can have a free chance for growth and development only when she believes that nothing coming out of the mere fact of sex has a right to hamper her growth or restrict her activity, and that no one shall have the right to say what is best for her or what she ought to wish for herself, in matters where she alone can have the means for understanding the situation.
These principles intimately concern the question of marriage. George Meredith said that to a woman marriage should be a platform from which her soul may take a new flight. How wonderful! A platform from which the soul may take flight!—not a black cage in which the soul of woman must crouch, to which her soul must fit itself, moving cramped, and slowly, and at war with itself; not a cage in which a caught and imprisoned canary bird must sing for the amusement of its owner. No! a platform from which to take flight, with sunlighted realms to investigate and new skies to discover, with wings growing ever stronger for more daring ascensions into still clearer light.
Let every girl make sure that that is the kind of platform that is being built for her in the character and in the attitude of mind of the destined lover. And let her make certain that she also is building and developing in herself a character that shall be worthy of her high mission, that shall be sufficient for all its needs, and that shall merit the deep reverence that all hearts give to the mother and homemaker.
In order that the founding of a successful home may be the Country Girl's happy lot, is it too much to ask that she should cherish for herself the ideal of a nature clean and pure, with so high a reverence for purity that she shall demand it in her lover as in herself? And that she shall recognize no difference in her standard for the morality of both the young man and the young woman? Should not her ideal include the fact of established health, both physical and mental, with a physician's certificate for both young man and young woman as to this, and include also a good inheritance of health in both families together with absolute freedom from alcoholism or other death-dealing diseases? Moreover, no marriage can be quite happy and successful that is not based upon the principle that each shall respect the personal rights of the other; and this should include, not only matters of income and property, but of tastes and opinions, and of all personal relationships. Both should have a good common school education and as much more as circumstances will permit. If he is a college graduate, she should be one also; and she should never be asked to leave her college course in order to marry. A wise girl will frown upon the young man who makes plans for marriage before he has gained a thorough training in some good bread-winning occupation and also developed a fair money-earning capacity. The Country Girl may be reminded again that she herself should have the thorough training in the science, art, and business of the household that will make her a perfect house administrator and homemaker and leave it possible to adapt some part of this varied work to money earning should occasion require. The ideal for two who are to found a home together should certainly include a genuine love of home life, together with love of children and a capacity to become a wise, efficient father and mother. A home will be more interesting and therefore more successful, as years move along, if the founders are people of growing nature, if they have a disposition to keep in touch with affairs, if they indulge themselves with an avocation, something they especially like to do, something that will carry on their education to farther heights. There must be courage,—home-founding calls for heroism—there must be fortitude, reserve force, patience. Ordeals will come, and trials: a buoyant faith in the spiritual realities alone will bear us through these. Then it must be remembered that we live in the community. It is well to select a socialized nature, one having ability to live among people and to meet them successfully, one that knows the give-and-take of social life. Both the young man and the young woman must be good citizens in the community.
Now what has been forgotten? The great thing that perhaps with most young people is thought of first, namely, the question as to whether these two young people like each other or not. But the phase being presented here concerns not so much the choice of a particular one who shall be companion in the founding of a certain home, as the qualities of the group of people from among which that choice shall be made. Certainly it is of the greatest importance to decide whether the two young people do really like each other or not. It would be blasphemy to enter into the relationship without that satisfaction in each other's society that alone gives promise of happiness. There should be a strong, deep affection and love for each other; they should have a mutuality of interest, tastes and ideals; they should enjoy each other's society; and these points should be put to the test of time and absence—but not too much of either!
Homes founded by members of groups who hold ideals like these and live up to them, will be certain to carry on into the future the best the race has attained and to add to the stores of happiness and well-being of all people. Into such homes it will be the best possible fortune to be born; and if these homes are set against an unspoiled country background, they will be the places where children will have the best chance to develop to perfect human height. It should indeed be a part of the ideal cherished in the depths of every country girl's heart, that she will, if possible, make to the world a contribution of children, the most perfect that she can compass, the most complete in all their powers, the most invincible in their strength, mental, physical and moral; and that these shall go forth into the world trained for the most distinguished service among the world's great needs. This should be her ambition; and I believe that it is the desire and the ideal of the great majority of the girls of the present generation.
To present a completed, full-grown, thoroughly efficient man or woman to the world, is a contribution to the world's storehouse of power. But how much more that means than simply to bear the child! The right direction of the babyhood and youth, the full apprehension of the value of education, and the entire dynamic encouragement to both the sons and the daughters, the example of industry, the inspiration to work, the enthusiasm and self-sacrifice to help in reaching high ideals, the wisdom to guide these endeavors—these are the things that belong to the contribution of the woman. Whether or not a woman has made her due contribution is bound up in the matter of what her sons and daughters actually do for the community and the world, how wide their influence is, how serviceable they are to the general good. The mother of Edison, for instance, made a great contribution.
Let every young woman take this point of view and consider what she is now doing, even while yet only a girl, to make it possible for her children that are to be, to have large lives, useful to the whole community.
In olden time the family numbered fifteen to twenty children. Then, indeed, there were things happening in the farm home! Then was there companionship under the roof tree! The evenings were merry about the fireside—and, by the way, there was a literal as well as a spiritual fireside for the children to be merry about! Then, too, there was hospitality, the Thanksgiving dinner, the Christmas home-coming for all the cousins! In those days life was worth living and there was no country life problem.
We must look forward to larger families. The next row of fathers and mothers must live for this, plan for it, trust for it, and educate themselves for it; for only thus will the farmstead be at once a place where rafters shall ring with jollity, and the complex life offer dramas enough to be interesting. In this way we shall save the country.
The story of the home life of the Beecher family, a typical large family of old New England days, touches a high-water mark of vivid home life. There was a perfect furor of intellectual excitement going through the house all the time. Every topic of public interest was brought to the home circle. Books were read aloud continually. Excitement of all kinds was going on in the evenings, discussions of all sorts at the table. The children were not invited, they were required, to argue. If they did not do it cleverly the father would confound them with ridicule, or he would say: "Now present this argument and you will be able to down me." And then he would tell them just how to manage the point in order to show up the fallacy and gain the right conclusion. So the wise father trained their minds in a sort of play.
People have talked a great deal about the value to a child of a noble mother; let a word or two be said for the value of the father in the training of the home. It should be thought of both after the home is established and before. Young women should think of this in making the choice of a partner and the young men should know that they are doing so. In fact, this may be actually happening already. Two little boys were talking in the playground not long ago, and one said to the other: "You mustn't do that, for if you do, you are not training for parentage." The new era has certainly begun!
But there is a still larger view. The Country Girl should also consider what she is now doing for the community to make it one in which her sons and daughters shall, twenty years hence, have a chance for clean, wholesome and inspiring lives. If she now forms a society for the girls in her village so that the strength of each individual girl will be multiplied by the braiding together of their efforts, to the end that better social enjoyments and more intellectual and more ethical ideals may become habitual, it may be that the years filled with these high activities will result in a state of things in that community that will make higher things the rule and lower things impossible. Then her village will be a safer place for her children when they come than it could have been without her own girlish endeavors.
The country child starts out with a better physical development than the city child. Our countryside from the Atlantic to the Pacific is full of children who are especially endowed for the highest attainments. May not the Country Girl of the next generation be expected to do something adequate and wonderful with these good gifts of heaven?