CHAPTER III

THE REAL GIRL

_What Is the Ideal Home?_

Strange as it may seem, most of the plans for industrial training, the majority of school courses of study, and probably seventy-five per cent. of the books on the crafts and arts have been devised for the use of boys. Now there are hosts of girls in this world, probably as many girls as boys, and these girls are just as keen, intelligent, ambitious and curious about things and how to make them, as are boys. In very early childhood when both boys and girls have the same interests, similar books of amusement are used by both. But as girls develop the feminine point of view and need the stimulus of suggestion and aid in creative work, the literature for them seems meagre; they have somehow been passed by save for a manual now and then on cooking or sewing, left as a sop to their questioning and eagerness. This state of affairs is more than unfortunate, it is fundamentally wrong for two very good reasons. (1) The girl up to the age of twelve or thirteen has practically the same interests, pleasures and play instincts as the boy. She is perhaps not so keenly alive to the charm of mechanical things as the boy, but like all children regardless of sex, she seeks to be a producer. She is just as much absorbed in pets and growing things, in nature, in the current activities of her environment, and requires the same easy outlet for her play instincts as the boy. (2) The girl, when a woman grown, becomes the creator of the home, and too often enters upon her domestic career with a minimum of skill or taste in the great body of household arts, which in the aggregate, give us the material comforts and homely pleasures. Moreover, since she, as a girl, probably did not have the chance to satisfy her play desires and consequently never learned to _do things_ herself, she is at a loss to understand the never ceasing, tumultuous demands of her own children for the opportunity to experiment. To quote Gerald Lee in the "Lost Art of Reading," which is one of the real modern books: "The experience of being robbed of a story we are about to read, by the good friend who cannot help telling how it comes out, is an occasional experience in the lives of older people, but it sums up the main sensation of life in the career of a child. The whole existence of a boy may be said to be a daily--almost hourly--struggle to escape being told things ... it is doubtful if there has ever been a boy as yet worth mentioning, who did not wish we would stand a little more to one side--let him have it out with things. There has never been a live boy who would not throw a store-plaything away in two or three hours for a comparatively imperfect plaything he had made himself...."

When one goes deep enough--below the showy veneer of present-day living--one comes to agree with Mr. Lee. The normal child, especially the boy, is potentially a creator, a designer, discoverer, and we have committed the everlasting sin of showing him short cuts, smoothing away difficulties, saying "press here." No child can survive the treatment.

Father and mother have the very simple obligation to furnish the place, raw material (books, tools, etc.), and encouragement.

For these reasons, if for no other, the girl ought to have a permanent outlet for her native ingenuity and constructive skill in such crafts and occupations as are adapted to her strength, future responsibilities and possible interests. A home should comprise other elements than food and clothes, which are bare necessities; and though these may be expanded and multiplied, becoming in their preparation real art products, they alone are deficient in interest. Look over any well-ordered household, note the multiplicity of things it contains which are primarily woman's possessions, and collecting all one knows about them, the amount of real knowledge is surprisingly small. How much does the embryo housekeeper know about textiles, curtains, carpets, hangings, linens, brass, china, furniture? Where do all these charming things come from? Many of the hangings, table linen, embroidery, etc., are home products. They cannot be bought at all. The simple stenciled curtain which one likes so much draws attention by virtue of its personal quality. To have such things in any abundance the girl must create them, and this she is more than willing to do.

How may one explain the restful atmosphere of certain homes visited? How many housewives have intelligent insight concerning home management and administration; of simple domestic chemistry or sanitation? Yet these are vital elements in the domestic machine. One never mistakes a proper household, orderly, smooth running for the showy establishment--gay outside and sad inside. Even the most untutored child unconsciously responds to the healthy influence of selected material environment and conditions, when these are combined harmoniously. There are systematic ways of creating pleasant rooms, fine grounds, comfortable places for living, places imbued with the spirit of contentment. The people who produce such places are seldom the professional decorator, landscape architect, and hired housekeeper. It is the woman of the family, who, having practised some of the arts, or at least been their disciple, has learned to appreciate order and love beauty. Therewith comes an almost instinctive knowledge of how to use them to advantage. One can never really have beautiful baskets, pottery, sewing, gardens, until one has made them. One surely cannot appreciate the true worth of clean linen, a spotless house, and perfect routine anywhere so thoroughly as in one's own house. It naturally follows that the girl, like the boy, should be a producer, not a mere purchaser, of personal or domestic commodities. She may have unlimited means, but the place where she lives as a girl and the home she seeks to create in adult life will always be impersonal, detached, _hotel-like_, unless she personally builds it. She must know the structure, composition, and functions of inanimate things; this knowledge comes easiest and persists longer through use and experience.

There is a good bit of psychology behind the suggestions offered, and the reasoning is simple. All our ideas, our plans, and conceptions are just ideas and nothing more until they have been worked up into concrete form--put to test. There is nothing tangible about an _idea_. But living is real; hence all the details which comprise living are real too and mere thinking about them without action is futile. One must execute, arrange, and experiment with the raw materials of everyday use. The result is either pleasant or otherwise; if otherwise, the effort has somehow failed, and one should do it again and learn thereby; if pleasant, one is the richer and happier for a bit of success, and is warmed by the presence of mere accomplishment.

This last phrase reveals the nub of the whole question--accomplishment. Material surroundings and comforts of course go far to make one happy, and they are the evidence of success, but the ideal home is also composed of people each of whom is or should be a contributor to the work of the world. The ideal home contains no drones, and therefore no discontent. Now the girl cannot plunge headfirst into the maelstrom of domestic management. She must learn her strength and acquire confidence, and there are simple occupations for early years, occupations which train the muscles, sharpen the wits; occupations which through suggestion gradually lead to a wider and wider intellectual horizon, and which, by a cumulation of information and experience, mature both judgment and taste. These occupations form, as it were, some chapters in the unwritten grammar of culture and efficiency whereby the girl grows in self-reliance and maturity.

There are, for instance, a number of crafts which, in their delicacy of technique and the artistic worth of the finished product, are splendid occupations for girls, and some few of which every girl should know. The girl who cannot sew is an object for sympathy; it is the typical feminine craft for the reason heretofore named--that one cannot know how things should be unless one is familiar with the process involved. Gowns are manufactured of pieces of cloth cut in proper shape and sewn together in some, to the male, occult fashion, and this complex operation only explains itself even to a woman by going through the experience. One has always been accustomed to think that the accomplished mistress is also an expert needle-woman or skilled worker in textiles of some kind. Products of the needle and loom have always been her intimate, personal possessions, and the charm of old hangings, lace, needlecraft of all kinds, rests in the main on this personal quality. Without a doubt the most precious belongings of the young girl are her own room with its contents of decorations and furnishing, and the garments which emphasize her inherent feminine charm. It is not only a girl's right, but her duty, to maintain her place as the embodiment of all that is fresh, cleanly and attractive. To this end clothes and the various other products of the needle contribute not a little; a clean-cut, thorough experience in manufacturing things for herself is the best assurance of future taste, which will spread out and envelop everything she touches. It is much the same with clothes and furnishings as with other matters, what one makes is one's own, characteristic, appropriate, adequate, with the touch of enjoyment in it; the purchased article is devoid of sentiment, it is a makeshift and substitute.

Then by all means let the girl learn to sew, learn to do for herself, to study her own needs and desires, to find as she progresses, ways to master the details of woman's own craft, and it is hoped, lay up a store of just the sort of experience which will enable her to supervise the work of others in her behalf when the time comes. But sewing, valuable as it is in connection with the young girl's problems, is not the only craft at hand. In recent years craftworkers have revived a number of old methods of using or preparing textiles for decorative purposes, and some of these have proven increasingly worth while in the household. Stenciling, block-printing, dyeing, decorative darning, and even weaving itself, since they have been remodeled and brought out in simple form, offer opportunities to the wideawake girl. The results in each case may be very beautiful, and perhaps more in harmony with the individual taste and scheme of living of the particular girl than any materials she could buy, because they may be designed and executed for a specific place. Few people, least of all a child, work just to be busy; there is always a motive. With the girl it is a scarf, a belt, collar, curtain, or sofa pillow; is it not well worth while if she can make these for herself or her room, in her chosen design motif, (as rose, bird, tree, etc.) and color? It may be an ordinary design, peculiar color, but they satisfy a personal sentiment which, by the way, can be modified and improved as time goes on. One must needs allow children to begin with the bizarre, distorted, seemingly unreasonable, archaic desires they have and cross-fertilize these with better ones in the hope of producing a fine, wholesome, sturdy attitude of mind.

Among the minor crafts which may be a source of real pleasure and good taste, two are prominent: pottery and basketry. The technique, decorative possibilities, and functions of the finished products as elements in household economy and ornament place these crafts high in the list of those especially suitable for girls, though boys and adults do find them equally interesting. Pottery is so closely associated with flowers and growing things, with the decoration of fine rooms, with choice spots of color, and with those receptacles and utensils which belong to the household, that it makes a strong appeal to the feminine mind. Here is a craft which vies with textiles in age and beauty of design, and possesses even greater charm of manipulation because it is plastic. One can imagine no finer outlet for creative effort.

Lastly, there is the eternal, magnificent, womanly craft--home-making. When one stops to think that the home is the one imperishable, absolute social unit, the power which creates it must take rank with other vital forces of constructive economics. Mothers' clubs and women's organizations of divers kinds, or, rather, the individuals who comprise such societies, are continually drifting into the discussion of the worries, difficulties, and trials which attend the household. The instant household routine becomes awkward or inadequate it affects adversely each individual member of the family, and naturally the mistress who is responsible shoulders a burden. There are times when the maid leaves, or the cooking goes wrong, or the house is cold, or just a time when one gets started for the day badly. There are times when the innate perversity of humans and material things runs riot. One is led to believe that such untoward occasions, since they have been in the past, will in all likelihood continue to crop up to the end of time, though one cannot find any good reason why they should. There are homes unacquainted with any household rumble or squeak, where the domestic machinery is always in order, and flexible enough to care for sudden overloading, or absorb any reasonable shock. In many such places, devoid of servants and confined to a modest income, the mistress is ever an expert; the chances are that her daughters will be equally resourceful. Really, the only sure way to bring up an adequate number of fine, competent, resourceful wives and home-makers is to train them definitely for the profession. The girls must be made acquainted with every detail of the business which they will surely inherit. The people who would live in hotels and frankly abandon home-making themselves merely emphasize the charm of the household, because hotels have nothing in common with homes.

It seems rather strange that a business so old as housekeeping does not, and never has, applied to its development the laws of commercial enterprise. When the community or corporation state sees the need for workmen, foremen or directors, it tries to educate individuals for the purpose. The supply of competent men and women is not left to chance. Whereas, womankind trusts to a very fickle fortune, that every girl will somehow learn to steer the domestic craft and be conversant with methods of preserving family ideals. Contrast the far-sighted plans of business to fill its ranks with the casual training the average girl undergoes to fit her for the future. What is her chance of success? Is it reasonable to suppose that one who has never made a home, or even helped actively to run one made for her, can on demand "make good?" It is a lasting tribute to the inherent genius and indefatigable patience of the modern woman that she has achieved so much with a minimum of experience.

Hence, in order to properly equip one's children for a practically inevitable future, let the girls into the secret of domestic planning; let them know of costs and shopping, income and expenditure; of materials and uses; the care of possessions, repairs and cleaning; try to show them that the menu is not a haphazard combination of ingredients and foods, but a conscious selection of viands which will entice the appetite, furnish proper nutrition and accord with the season. By all means emphasize the fact that housekeeping, like any business, can be systematized so that the hundred and one activities may succeed one another in orderly procession through the weeks and months. Wash day and housecleaning should be absorbed into the domestic program, and never present their grisly features to the home-coming male, with sufficient trouble of his own.

Recent issues of the magazines have contained much discussion of the household tangle, and most of them have ended with the slogans "industrial education," "back to the kitchen," and such. Granted that girls need this training, and that schools in time will give it; granted that the social position of the servant is a source of discussion and friction; that the demands of modern living are exacting; and, finally, granting the insistent prominence of all the other economic disturbances, who is, in the last analysis, to blame? Would a business man think for one moment of handing over any department of his affairs to one not trained for the particular duties involved? Industry in every branch seeks men and women _fitted_ to take charge of even minor matters. And when trained assistants are scarce the obvious policy is to prepare other promising workers for such special places. On the other hand, mothers too often prepare their daughters for marriage, not for home-making, seemingly blind to the fact that marriage is an inert, barren, static condition, save in the stimulating atmosphere of a fine home. How can the servant question ever be settled by untutored girls who get no closer to the domestic question than fudge, welsh rarebit and salted peanuts? The _school can and does_ now, in all well-ordered communities, give a very satisfactory formal, technical training in domestic art and science.[E] There students learn to cook and sew; they learn a good deal about food values, dietetics and simple food chemistry, simple sanitation, etc. But the management of a real house, system and everyday routine, that fine sense of adjustment to the conditions as they exist--these essentials can only be learned in the home itself. The efforts of the school can largely supplement but never replace home guidance, experience and _responsibility_. Keeping house ought to be a science and art rather than a game of chance.

_Definite Suggestions_

In the "Library of Work and Play," to which the present book is the introductory volume, one will find a collection of books replete with suggestion. But these are not manuals, or courses to be followed from end to end, because children do not _profit most_ by such a plan. The child is like a pebble dropped into still water. It communicates its energy of momentum to the surrounding fluid and makes a circular ripple, which in turn makes another and wider ripple, until the energy is exhausted. In much the same way the child, landed in the midst of a more or less inert material world, acts upon it with energy, _which, however, is never exhausted_, producing the results which become more and more extended. He begins in the middle of a given subject and works in all possible directions, which gives one the clue to how to make the most of books like these.[F]

If the girl has not already indicated a decided preference for some recreation or play, place at hand the books which show the possibilities open to her. It would be well for one to go over them rather carefully first in order to know what they contain. Let the girl take her leisure in searching the chapters and illustrations for the suggestion which strikes a responsive chord. Ofttimes it will be quite in order to point to chapters which have a bearing on some personal need or desire. At any rate, the book or chapters which seem to be most significant at the time should be followed up. Read over with her such a volume as "Home Decoration" or "Housekeeping." Let her discuss the plans offered and try them out in her own home. Every girl wants and should have a dainty, inspiring, beautiful room of her own, and as she grows older she also wants the rest of the house to match, so that she can entertain her friends with pride and confidence. If one will take "Housekeeping," "Home Decoration," and "Needlecraft" as texts, and select from them first those suggestions which are _immediately apt_ in a particular home, the girl will shortly find herself looking at home problems from several different and very important angles. But it is desirable also that the study be taken up first in a very simple way, in order to tie it to real living and needs. New curtains, pillows for the porch or den, stenciled scarf, the decorations and menu for a small party, additional linen: these are some of the problems always coming up, which may be used as a beginning. And once the start is made the girl should have the chance to try other experiments along the same line. Read with her the chapter on menus and marketing, or housecleaning, and turn the house over to the daughter for a time to manage--absolutely. There is nothing in the world which children love more or which develops them more quickly than responsibility, and the mutual consideration of household affairs gives the girl real partnership in the domestic business. She may use the "Housekeeping" book as a kind of reference, to be sought when new problems in management fall to her share.

The question of home decoration is so vital that it deserves special statement. The text[G] deals with all those details of interior furnishing and embellishment which indicate taste. All of these are not equally important, nor do they interest all girls to the same extent, and in using the book one can profit most by the study of those topics which touch the individual or particular family. But everywhere there is the problem of furniture arrangement, wall decorations, color schemes, and the skilful use of flowers, pottery and textiles. Give the young people, and especially the girls, an insight into how the interior should be treated. Have them look up pertinent questions in the text and then try their 'prentice hands at creating a pleasant, restful, homelike house with the furnishings at hand plus whatever they can make or secure. Really, the book is as much a volume of suggestion for the mother, to which she can refer her daughter, as a text for the child. There is very keen interest in taste in recent years, among young people as well as parents, and the elements hitherto lacking have been (1) accessible information and (2) opportunity to "try it out." Offer that opportunity; a flat is just as fruitful a field for experiment as a house, perhaps more.

The active participation in outdoor life, nature-study propaganda and the multiplication of popular scientific (nature) literature has greatly opened another field to children--that of raising pets, gardening, etc. Here the boy or girl will readily make some choice at an early day, if there has been any contact with such things. If not, a volume of this kind[H] will be a real stimulant and inspiration, as it should be, not a lesson manual. Place the book in a child's hands, help him look over the conditions, available ground, cost, care, etc.; let him send for circulars and catalogues, or if possible visit some one interested in the same hobby and the experiment is under way with irresistible momentum. It is a godsend to any child to give him a simple, direct statement of what can be done; he furnishes the steam and imagination for future development, and father and mother comprise the balance wheel of the business. This volume and the one on "Outdoor Sports" contain a mass of information which touch the interests of practically all boys and girls at some time in their first sixteen years. When the child is old enough to launch out in any personal undertaking, old enough for even minor responsibilities, when he or she expresses the desire for possession and money, then give them books like these. Let them soak in and digest. Encourage only those requests which are convincing, but give them all the scope possible. Every child will eventually select the pastimes which are best for her though she may stumble in doing so; she will make fewer mistakes, and waste less time if she have access to books which will crystallize and guide her ambitions.

FOOTNOTES:

[E] As the High Schools of Springfield, Newton, and Brookline, Mass.; Cleveland, Ohio; Los Angeles, Cal., among others. And the elementary schools of practically every well-organized community.

[F] "Library of Work and Play."

[G] "Home Decoration."

[H] "Outdoor Life."