Let the vacation be well planned. This is the opportunity "de luxe" for the child to earn a few pennies to enlarge his bank account. Allow him a truck garden, guinea pigs, chickens, anything remunerative, which will enable him to become one of the world's workers and one of the world's savers. Let him start a bank account when he is six, and watch him as he puts the dime in the bank, instead of taking it to the ice-cream-soda cashier.
Some time during the vacation, if possible, mother and father should accompany the little folks to the camp, to the beach—somewhere, anywhere—to get back to nature and live like Indians for a short time. Each member of the family will come back rested, happier, and more ready for the next year's work.
In the summer time learn to eat on the porch—it is great sport for the children. Many meals can be served on porches that are so often served in hot, stuffy rooms.
The "home" does not consist in the furniture, the rooms, the bric-a-brac, or the curtains. The home is the mother and the father and the children and the spirit of good fellowship which should possess them. Make the companions of the little folks very welcome, letting them learn the early use and abuse of the different articles of furniture in the house. It is all right to play tent with the beautiful couch cover; it is all right at certain times to dress up in father's best clothes and mother's beautiful gown, but while they are thus having a good time let them learn that all these things are to be used and not abused.
ADOLESCENT DAYS
The homely boy or the homely girl usually grows up free from the flattery and undue attention which are sure to be heaped upon the good-looking boy and the popular girl. Way back in the early days of five or six, and all the way up to the ages of twelve to twenty, children should be taught that it is altogether natural and correct to do things well and to look well; parents should stop, and cause their acquaintances to stop, "making over" the boy or the girl just because they have done something well, or have beautiful curls, or because their eyes are a magnificent brown, etc. If a girl should be especially endowed with a charming complexion, a wonderful chin, and if she does possess a beautiful nose or neck, let her early realize that she has been made the custodian of goodly features and that she must give an account for this particular blessing, and under no circumstances must she become self-conscious about it. Ofttimes a good frown to an unwise friend is all that is necessary to stop this "lip service" flattery.
The "chewing-gum girl" is just a thoughtless girl, that is all; sit her in front of a mirror and compel her to chew gum for one-half hour and watch herself do it, and it will often suffice to cure her. Young ladies should be taught that chewing gum should be done in the bedroom, but never in the living-room or on the streets. It is not only a disgusting habit, but it often creates an occasion for criticism as to the quality of one's home training.
ICE-CREAM PARLORS
The mother who cares will not allow her lovely daughters nightly, or even semi-weekly, to frequent the ice-cream parlors and secluded soda fountains. She had far better arrange group dinners and group receptions in her own parlor; with ice cream served in her own dishes and eaten with spoons that she has supervised the washing of.
Young women and young men in their late teens crave companionship, and they should have it; but let it be under wise chaperonage at home or in public rooms, and not in the solitude of a lonely bench in the public park, or the seclusion of an out-of-the-way, ice-cream parlor. This "running the streets" which is so freely indulged in by the adolescent youth in the early teens need not occur, if wise provision is made for the assembly of small groups in the home.