Domestic Training
63
your employment, and you will not find time to indulge in dreamy
fancies.
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Knowledge of useful labor will impart to your restless and dissat-
isfied mind energy, efficiency, and a becoming, modest dignity, which
will command respect
Value of Practical Education for Girls—Many who consider it
necessary for a son to be trained with reference to his own future
maintenance seem to consider it entirely optional with herself whether
or not their daughter is educated to be independent and self-supporting.
She usually learns little at school which can be put to practical use
in earning her daily bread; and receiving no instruction at home in
the mysteries of the kitchen and domestic life, she grows up utterly
useless, a burden upon her parents....
A woman who has been taught to take care of herself is also fitted
to take care of others. She will never be a drug in the family or in
society. When fortune frowns, there will be a place for her somewhere,
a place where she can earn an honest living and assist those who
are dependent upon her. Woman should be trained to some business
whereby she can gain a livelihood if necessary. Passing over other
honorable employments, every girl should learn to take charge of the
domestic affairs of home, should be a cook, a housekeeper, a seam-
stress. She should understand all those things which it is necessary
that the mistress of a house should know, whether her family are rich
or poor. Then, if reverses come, she is prepared for any emergency;
she is, in a manner, independent of circumstances
A knowledge of domestic duties is beyond price to every woman.
There are families without number whose happiness is wrecked by
the inefficiency of the wife and mother. It is not so important that our
daughters learn painting, fancywork, music, or even “cube root”, or
the figures of rhetoric, as that they learn how to cut, make, and mend
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their own clothing, or to prepare food in a wholesome and palatable
manner. When a little girl is nine or ten years old, she should be
required to take her regular share in household duties, as she is able,
and should be held responsible for the manner in which she does her
work. That was a wise father who, when asked what he intended to
9
Testimonies For The Church 3, 336
.
10
The Health Reformer, December, 1877
.