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Mind, Character, and Personality Volume 1
Idleness Is a Sin—The idea that ignorance of useful employment
is an essential characteristic of the true gentleman or lady is contrary
to the design of God in the creation of man. Idleness is a sin, and
ignorance of common duties is the result of folly, which afterlife will
give ample occasion to bitterly regret.—
The Signs of the Times, June
29, 1882
. (
Fundamentals of Christian Education, 75
.)
Training in Domestic Duties Not to Be Neglected—In child-
hood and youth practical and literary training should be combined.
Children should be taught to have a part in domestic duties. They
should be instructed how to help father and mother in the little things
that they can do. Their minds should be trained to think, their mem-
[288]
ories taxed to remember their appointed work; and in the training to
habits of usefulness in the home they are being educated in doing
practical duties appropriate to their age. If children have proper home
training, they will not be found upon the streets, receiving the haphaz-
ard education that so many receive. Parents who love their children in
a sensible way will not permit them to grow up with lazy habits and
ignorant of how to do home duties.—
Counsels to Parents, Teachers,
and Students, 149
(1913).
What Every Woman Should Know—Many ladies, accounted
well-educated, having graduated with honors at some institution of
learning, are shamefully ignorant of the practical duties of life. They
are destitute of the qualifications necessary for the proper regulation
of the family, and hence essential to its happiness. They may talk of
woman’s elevated sphere and of her rights, yet they themselves fall far
below the true sphere of woman.
It is the right of every daughter of Eve to have a thorough knowl-
edge of household duties, to receive training in every department of
domestic labor. Every young lady should be so educated that if called
to fill the position of wife and mother, she may preside as a queen in
her own domain. She should be fully competent to guide and instruct
her children....
It is her right to understand the mechanism of the human body
and the principles of hygiene, the matters of diet and dress, labor and
recreation, and countless others that intimately concern the well-being
of her household. It is her right to obtain such a knowledge of the
best methods of treating disease that she can care for her children
in sickness, instead of leaving her precious treasures in the hands of