Farm Boys and Girls

by William A. McKeever

Thus the country girl may receive a better business training than her city cousin whose nearness to the attractive stores and shops proves a constant incentive for over-indulgence and wastefulness in the use of money.

4. Make her the family accountant.—As soon as she becomes old enough, take the daughter into your confidence as regards the family expense account. Make her acquainted with the items of income and expenditure in detail. And also make it appear to her that the business of the home is not being conducted satisfactorily unless some portion of the income be set aside for the emergencies of the future.

At this point there is offered an opportunity to give the daughter some much-needed business training. There is much being said of late by way of urging the farmer to keep an accurate book account of all his transactions. Out of the experiment stations have come published letters and bulletins urging that such things be done and showing methods. But the evidence goes to show that the majority of farmers do not find time for it. So it will in many cases be found practicable to turn this important task of bookkeeping over to the growing daughter. Among the many benefits to be derived will be the excellent business training it will furnish her. As a diversion from the common household duties the accounting will prove most refreshing. And, then, the farmer will soon find this service to the farm business so important as to justify him in paying his daughter reasonably for the work.

5. Miserliness to be avoided.—While the habits of a spendthrift are perhaps above all things else to be avoided, a close second to this as an evil practice is the habit of expending in a miserly and begrudging manner. So, teach the girl to give her money willingly for all the ordinary necessities and comforts of life and for such luxuries as the conditions will reasonably warrant.

The far-sighted parent and the one really interested in the future of his daughter will readily observe how much enslaved adults finally become in the use of money. There are perhaps as many well-to-do persons who are miserly because they cannot help it as there are improvident persons who are spendthrifts because they cannot longer prevent it. Both classes manifest the certain results of training and habit. In his interesting chapter on the psychology of habit Professor James explains so aptly how the man, long practiced in enforced economy, but at length having ample means, goes to the store with the determination of paying liberally for an article; and how he finally comes away with something cheap.

A “golden mean” is therefore to be sought in training the girl in the use of money. Not how to save at all hazards, but how to spend judiciously, with conscious thought of the right relation between income and outlay—this is perhaps the more acceptable ideal.

6. Teach her to give.—While inculcating business ideas into the mind of your growing daughter, guard against her acquiring a mere passion for money-making and the accumulation of wealth. For example, one of the best means of achieving this end would be to see that she gives a part of her earnings to some worthy cause or other. Explain to her again and again that she must keep up in her life a sort of equipoise of receiving and giving, if the highest sense of inner satisfaction is always to be her portion.

The young must learn sooner or later that there is other than a money profit to be derived from the investment of money. Accordingly, it will not be found difficult for the rural parents to point out to their daughter some place merely where she may invest a small part of her earnings in human welfare. An orphan child living in the neighborhood may be sorely in need of a new dress or school books, a lonely and aged widow may be cheered by the gift of a wall picture, a crippled child may be accumulating funds for hospital treatment, or another person may have lost heavily from flood or fire. These and many more like them may be made the occasion of teaching the girl a beautiful lesson of sympathy and sacrifice. And the sacrifice should come out of what she has accumulated through her own small business enterprise.

7. Teach the meaning of a contract.—It is often declared that women fail to appreciate the obligations of a contract, that they will enter into a strict agreement to buy an article or to pay for another and then refuse to carry out such agreement. Merchants have been so often called on to deal with this feminine change of mind that they have seen fit to establish a custom of taking back at cost any article not found satisfactory upon trial. This failure of women to adhere strictly to the terms of an agreement has given currency to the opinion that they are naturally dishonest. Weininger in his volume “Sex and Character” even offers a line of questionable proof to confirm the correctness of the opinion.

But Dr. G. Stanley Hall in many of his researches shows that falsehood and deception are common and natural practices among ordinary children. All forms of honest and fair moral and business practice are less natural than acquired. They must have actual experience, and much of it, as a basis for their becoming a permanent part of character. Hence, the so-called dishonesty of women in relation to the obligations of a business agreement—that is probably nothing more than a matter of sheer ignorance. Farm girls are proverbially lacking in business practice and in knowledge of the rights and obligations of a contract. It is obligatory upon their parents to remove such ignorance through business training.