REFERENCES
Again we find the field of literature treating the subject directly an exceedingly scant one. In forming a business partnership with his son the farmer should be guided by well-tried precedent. A letter of specific inquiry to one of the leading agricultural papers will most usually bring a helpful reply.
A First Lesson in Thrift. Horace Ellis. Psychological Clinic, March 15, 1910.
Industrial Education for Rural Communities. Annual Volume N.E.A., 1907, p. 412.
The Child’s Sense of the Value of Money. Dr. William E. Ashcroft. S.S. Times, July 24, 1909.
Psychology and Higher Life. William A. McKeever. Chapter XIV, “The Psychology of Work.” A. Flanagan Company, Chicago.
Industrial Education. Various Authors. (Pamphlet, 25 cents.) The Survey, N.Y.
Industrial Education. Kimball. No. 1, Educational Monograph Series, School of Education, Cornell University.
CHAPTER XV
BUSINESS TRAINING FOR THE COUNTRY GIRL
During a two-hour ride on a railway train the author had as a seat companion a sixty-year-old farmer and stock raiser, whose specialty was that of raising mules for the market. And what of definite information this good husbandman possessed about the long-eared beast of burden would fill a volume of considerable size. He knew just what time of year the mule should be foaled, when weaned, when broken to the halter and to work; how to feed and groom a mule in order to get the best physical growth; how to train the animal so as to develop all the latent good qualities and repress the bad ones.
After the natural life history of the faithful mule had been carefully reviewed by the rural companion the conversation was turned to the subject of girls. Had he a daughter? “Yes, twenty-two years old.” What did she know about money and the common affairs of business? “Business! Mighty little any woman knows about business,” said he. “We buy our girl what she needs and have put her through the town high school. I expect her to get married sometime. Her mother has taught her how to do housework.” Further than that the father seemed to know very little about his daughter, and he showed plainly that he did not consider this second topic of conversation half so interesting as the first one.
Is the country girl neglected?
Inquiry will prove that the foregoing case of parental ignorance and indifference about the daughter is all too common, especially the ignorance. It seems never to have occurred to many parents who have growing daughters that unless the young woman have a fair amount of knowledge of the value and use of money her future happiness and well-being and that of her family are in danger of becoming seriously jeopardized. It is a singular and yet lamentable fact that so many American parents,—parents too who are intensely desirous that their growing children have the best possible moral and religious teaching—that these same good parents fail to understand how one of the very foundation stones of efficient moral and religious life is constituted of a definite body of knowledge of common business affairs. They do not seem to realize that the young man or the young woman who knows from experience just how money is earned, and how it may be judiciously expended and profitably invested, is far on the way to a high plane of moral and religious living.