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Counsels on Health
rattlesnakes and almost every detestable thing, what effect will it have
upon that tender organ, the human stomach?
It is a religious duty for every Christian girl and woman to learn
at once to make good, sweet light bread from unbolted wheat flour.
Mothers should take their daughters into the kitchen with them when
very young and teach them the art of cooking. The mother cannot
expect her daughters to understand the mysteries of housekeeping
without education. She should instruct them patiently, lovingly, and
make the work as agreeable as she can by her cheerful countenance
and encouraging words of approval. If they fail once, twice, or thrice,
censure not. Already discouragement is doing its work and tempting
them to say, “It is of no use, I can’t do it.” This is not the time for
censure. The will is becoming weakened. It needs the spur of encour-
aging, cheerful, hopeful words, as, “Never mind the mistakes you have
made. You are but a learner, and must expect to make blunders. Try
again. Put your mind on what you are doing. Be very careful, and you
will certainly succeed.”
Many mothers do not realize the importance of this branch of
knowledge, and rather than have the trouble and care of instructing
their children and bearing with their failings and errors while learning,
they prefer to do all themselves. And when their daughters make a
failure in their efforts, they send them away, with, “It is no use, you
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can’t do this or that. You perplex and trouble me more than you help
me.”
Thus the first efforts of the learners are repulsed, and the first
failure so cools their interest and ardor to learn that they dread another
trial and will propose to sew, knit, clean house, anything but cook....
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.