Farm Boys and Girls

by William A. McKeever

Fig. 3.—This beautiful Kansas home, with its large orchard and many shade trees adjoining, was constructed “away out on the barren plains where no tree will grow.” In this place an excellent family of nine children grew up.

It has already been urged that sound health constitutes one of the foundation stones of good character. Play is especially conducive to sound health. Some may think that work without much if any play will bring about the same results in the child life, but such proves not to be the case. The monotony and drudgery of enforced labor have been crushing the lives of children everywhere, especially until the wise legislation of very recent years prevented such thing. Strange to say, the same amount of exertion in spontaneous play may build up and strengthen the physical and mental life of the child. What is the secret of the striking difference in the result? Spontaneity! is the answer. The child goes at his play with a joy and an eagerness which are entirely absent from work—a sufficient guarantee that his nature is being fed upon the very stuff which his soul craves. It is true that children will play in a bare room containing nothing more than a pile of trash, but such a situation is woefully lacking on the side of instruction. Very little will be learned from a year of such ill-provided play.

So, there is every necessary reason for urging that the farm home provide not only the time and the occasion for the play life of the children, but that the means and proper materials also be looked after. At a certain rural home in the state of Michigan, where two boys and one girl were growing up, were found the following nearly ideal arrangements for the play life: a small clump of trees, which afforded opportunities for climbing and ample shade during the warm weather; a swing hung between two of the trees; a pole serving as a horizontal bar between two others; and a ladder leading to a rude playhouse constructed between the forks of a branching maple tree. Thereabout were seen also a boy’s wagon, two home-made sleds and other materials of this same general class, not to mention a fairly well-kept lawn, where the children could romp.

Now the cost of all the foregoing materials would be trifling in a money sense and not very expensive in point of preparation and work, while they would pay for themselves a hundred-fold in their results for character-development. If necessary, it could even be shown how just such provision for the play of the boys and girls on the farm will in time add to the actual cash value of the place and to the money-earning power of the boys and girls whose lives are being served. It seems altogether fitting to remind rural parents of their duty in respect to their children even though the mortgage may not yet have been lifted, and even though some of the live stock may have to suffer a little, and some of the farm crops deteriorate slightly. Let there be provided, first of all, some adequate materials for the indulgence of the play instinct of the child.

2. Work.—This term implies a wide meaning, and deserves a lengthy discussion. In a chapter to follow under the title “How Much Work for the Country Boy,” we shall give due attention to it. The purpose here is to advise the parent to make a study of the situation and to make provision for the amount and kind of work and industry necessary for the proper culture of the growing child.

First of all, there must be appreciated the sharp distinction between work and play. The latter is spontaneous, allowing the child to follow his caprice of mind. He may take up one play activity and drop it at any moment that another appeals to him more strongly. But with work, the situation is different. The purpose is outside of and not within the performance, as in the case of play. The work looks toward some end necessary of achievement and carries with it the elements of sacrifice, of giving out of one’s life something that is his very own in order that some other thing may be acquired. In the case of work the normal child probably at first finds almost any assigned task irksome. He feels that he is being more or less unfairly or unnecessarily driven to it and that when he grows to be a man, he will have a lot of money and hire somebody else to do the work.

All natural, healthy-minded boys are at first somewhat stubborn and rebellious in regard to work. No matter how good their parents may be, if merely turned loose in the world without direction and the spur of authority, they will almost invariably avoid manual labor. So it might as well be put down at once as a rule that every boy who is to become a real worker and an industrious character must be set definitely at his tasks while a mere child and held strictly to their performance. After much persistent urging, the young worker begins to forget the thought of being driven to his duty and to acquire instead a habit of industry. By slow degrees he develops within a sense of obligation in relation to work, also a feeling of responsibility for tasks done or left undone. Finally, after years of this sort of experience, the young industrialist reaches a point in his life when he can throw himself enthusiastically into some sort of well chosen occupation. And then and there emerges from his inner consciousness the exceeding great joy known to so many of the industrious men and women whose worthy life-long devotion to work is constantly reconstructing this good world in which we live.

It will be understood, of course, that the term work as here used includes the school training. The ordinary child regards the appointed duties of lesson getting in the nature of work and feels the same pressure of insistence and compulsion in relation to them. Unquestionably, the ordinary school course goes part way toward furnishing discipline in industry. The course of the newer schools about to be instituted throughout the country will reach still farther in this direction. It is very encouraging indeed to observe that the public school curriculum is destined to include, not only the study of books and the recitation of lessons learned from books, but also the many forms of manual labor and industry applicable to the character of the growing child. But until the public school authorities have provided such an ideal course of training, parents must see to it that the class-room duties be thoroughly supplemented with carefully assigned home tasks of the industrial training sort. In a later chapter specific attention will be given the question of the schooling of the country boy and the country girl.

3. Recreation.—What a vast amount of misunderstanding and misuse there is of this term! Observe, if you will, the real meaning of the term or of the kindred word, to re-create. It implies in this use that the body has been depleted, worn out, or fatigued by work and that there is to be a rebuilding of the same. But it is amusing—or would be if it were not so pathetic—to see how city parents often bestir themselves in an effort to provide recreation for their idle boys. Many of these boys who are seen loafing about the home town during practically the entire summer vacation period are given an outing in order that they may thus be furnished “recreation”—from indolence.

But farm parents are inclined to err on the other side. That is, they tend to over-work their boys and not to give them enough outings to furnish proper recreation and renewed zeal for the work required of them. Hence, the need of carefully considering the matter of the outings for the farm boy and girl. It can most probably be shown, for example, that the boy who works on the farm five and a half days of the week and who is given the other half day for rest and recreation—that he does more work in the five and one-half days and does it better than he would do in six full days without the half-holiday. The question here is that of a balanced schedule. How long should the boy be held to his task before being allowed a holiday or recreation period?