Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife | Page 3

of being should take precedence
over doing, although not to the exclusion of the latter, for character is
best formed by action. But all her studies, occupations, even her
pastimes, should be pursued with the main purpose of making herself
the ideal woman, such an one as Wordsworth describes, one with:
"The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength and
skill; A perfect Woman, nobly planned To warn, to comfort, and
command; And yet a Spirit still, and bright With something of angelic
light."
It is an obviously true, and therefore a trite observation, that no one,
woman or man, should consider that education (using the term broadly)
stopped with graduation from school or college. But the statement that
a grown person who has not settled down to some particular life work,
such as is often the case with a young unmarried woman, should
continue at least one serious _study,_ will not be so generally accepted
or acceptable. Yet in no other way may that mental discipline be
obtained which is necessary to the mature development of character.
Neglect to cultivate the ability to go down to the root of a subject, to
observe it in its relations, and to apply it practically, will inevitably lead
to superficial consideration of every subject, and even ignorance of the
fact that this is superficial consideration. As a practical result, the
person will drift through life rudderless, the sport of circumstance. She
will act by impulse and chance, and be continually at a loss how to
correct her errors. The shallowness with which women as a class are
charged is due to the fact that, their aim in life for a considerable period
not having been fixed by marriage or choice of a profession, they do
not substitute some definite interest for such remissness, and so form
the habit of intellectual laziness.
The study which an unmarried and unemployed woman should pursue
may be anything worthy of thought, but preferably a practical subject at
which, if necessary, the woman is ready to earn her living. Many a

family has been saved from financial ruin by a daughter studying the
business or the profession of the father, and, upon his breakdown from
ill-health, becoming his right-hand assistant, or, in the case of his death,
even taking his place as the family bread-winner. In these days when
farming is becoming more and more a question of the farmer's
management, and less and less of his personal manual labor, a daughter
in a farmer's family already supplied with one or more housekeepers
may, as legitimately as a son, study the science of agriculture, or one of
its many branches, such as poultry-raising or dairying, and with as
certain a prospect of success. Ample literature of the most practical and
authoritative nature on every phase of farming may be secured from the
Department of Agriculture at Washington, and the various State
universities offer special mid-winter courses in agriculture available for
any one with a common-school education, as well as send lecturers to
the farmer's institutes throughout the State.
To give examples of women who have made notable successes at
farming and its allied industries would be invidious, since there are so
many of them.
Studies that look to the possibility of the student becoming a teacher
are preeminent in the development of mentality. The science of
psychology is the foundation of the art of pedagogy, and every woman,
particularly one who may some day be required to teach, should know
the operations of the mind, how it receives, retains, and may best apply
knowledge. An essential companion of this study is physiology, the
science of the nature and functions of the bodily organs, together with
its corollary, hygiene, the care of the health. From ancient times
psychology and physiology have been considered as equally associated
and of prime importance. "A sound mind in a sound body" is an old
Latin proverb. The need of every one to "know himself," both in mind
and body, was taught by the earliest "Wise Men" of Greece. The
Roman emperor Tiberius said that any one who had reached the age of
thirty in ignorance of his physical constitution was a fool, a thought
that has been modernized, with an unnecessary extension of the age,
into the proverb, "At forty a man is either a fool or a physician."

The study of psychology is a basis for every employment or activity
which has to deal with enlightenment or persuasion of the public. The
person who would like to become a speaker or writer needs to begin
with it rather than with the study of elocution or rhetoric. The first thing
essential for him to know is himself; the second, his hearers or
readers--what is the order of progress in their enlightenment. Even
logical