If there is one idea for which more than any other the public school
system should stand, it is the idea of self-help. Self-help is the best
kind of help in the world, and one cannot learn this lesson too early in
life. Even little children--three, four, five, six and eight years
old--should be taught to work. Any little child is just as capable of
doing the little things in work as he is in play. Why should not the
little girl be taught to trim and wash the dress of her doll? Why should
not the little children be taught to sweep up the dirt that they have
scattered in play? Why should they not be taught to remove the dishes
from the table, brush up the crumbs, set back the chairs, pick up chips,
put the kindling wood in its place, bring the potatoes in from the
garden, help to pick over the berries, and so forth? We might argue this
question from now until doom’s day, and nobody, I think, would be able
to give any good reason why children should not be taught to do the
little things. Little children who are accustomed to having everything
done for them by others are very soon beset with the rust of laziness
and the canker of pride. Whereas, on the other hand, if children are
taught to help themselves as soon as and as much as they are able, it
will tend to improve their faculties, and will, at the same time, have a
good influence upon their dispositions.
Childhood and youth are periods of life which materially influence all
of its following periods, and whether the earlier years of one’s life be
passed in idleness and indolence, or in well-directed industry, is a
point on which greatly depends the worth or the worthlessness of human
character. Where is the man who guides his affairs with discretion, or
the woman that looketh well to the ways of her household, and yet was
not in some measure imbued with industrious and provident habits in
early life? On the other hand, who that has been treated until the age
of fifteen or twenty like a helpless infant, and had every want supplied
without being put to the necessity of either mental or bodily exertion,
was ever good for anything afterwards?
[Illustration: WASHING DOLLIES’ CLOTHES.]
The tendency of the age is by far too much in the direction of keeping
our young boys solely for the purpose of loafing about the streets, or
standing around the soda fountains on Sunday--and our young girls for
parties, social entertainments, picnics, excursions and the like. So
that by the time our boys and girls reach manhood and womanhood, they
despise honest labor and are afraid to engage in real hard work. A young
woman may know how to read and write--may understand grammar, history,
and geography--may sing sweetly and play the piano well; but, whatever
else she may know or may not know, if she does not know how to bake a
hoe-cake of bread, make her little brother or sister a pair of pants or
a plain dress, she is only half educated. In fact, every young woman
should not only know how to perform every duty connected with a
household, but every young woman should take some part in household
work. No girl need tell me that she really loves her mother if she is
willing to leave to her mother the work of washing the dishes, sweeping
and scouring the floors, caring for the little children, doing the
Monday washings, the house cleaning, and the like, while she devotes
herself to pleasure, novel reading, social calling, butterfly parties,
or playing rag-time music or singing rag-time songs.
The home and the public school are the two great agencies which are
jointly engaged, or which should be jointly engaged, in teaching
children to help themselves. If children are taught, as boys and girls,
to think for themselves, speak for themselves and act for themselves,
when they are old they will not forget the precious lesson, and will be
less likely to become burdens on the community. The highest ambition of
every American man and woman should be to be of some useful service to
the world; and the first step will be taken toward this noble end when
we have thoroughly learned the value and importance of the lesson of
self-help. First, learn to help yourself, and then you will be able to
see more clearly how to help others.