Healthful Cookery
629
sit in idleness, or do that which is of but little account, which requires
no exercise of the mind or muscles, and then excuse their indolent
daughters because they are weakly. What has made them weakly?
In many cases it has been the wrong course of the parents. A proper
amount of exercise about the house would improve both mind and
body. But children are deprived of this through false ideas, until they
are averse to work. It is disagreeable and does not accord with their
ideas of gentility. It is thought to be unladylike and even coarse to
wash dishes, iron, or stand over the washtub. This is the fashionable
instruction which is given children in this unfortunate age.
“God’s people should be governed by higher principles than
worldlings, who seek to gauge all their course of action according
to fashion. God-fearing parents should train their children for a life
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of usefulness.... Prepare them to bear burdens while young. If your
children have been unaccustomed to labor, they will soon become
weary. They will complain of side ache, pain in the shoulders, and
tired limbs; and you will be in danger, through sympathy, of doing the
work yourselves, rather than have them suffer a little. Let the burden
upon the children be very light at first, and then increase it a little every
day, until they can do a proper amount of labor without becoming so
weary. Inactivity is the greatest cause of side ache and shoulder ache
among children....
“Mothers should take their daughters with them into the kitchen
and patiently educate them. Their constitution will be better for such
labor, their muscles will gain tone and strength, and their meditations
will be more healthy and elevated at the close of the day. They may
be weary, but how sweet is rest after a proper amount of labor. Sleep,
nature’s sweet restorer, invigorates the weary body, and prepares it for
the next day’s duties. Do not intimate to your children that it is no
matter whether they labor or not. Teach them that their help is needed,
that their time is of value, and that you depend on their labor.”
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