nl_e17

Ballard, Danger to our Girls, [1900]
life. The early awakening of the emotional nature is in every way
prejudicial to the well-being of the young. Such awakening is at the
expense of the integrity of nerve and muscle which need these early
years for their maturity, before the life forces are so prominently
directed to other channels. Dr. Kellogg in "Plain Facts," says,
"Whatever occasions premature sexual development also occasions
premature decay."
A third serious result of bringing up girls to idleness and
dependence is their failure to become good housekeepers and home
makers. One of the most blighting spectacles, and one of the greatest
perils to the home lies in the lack of preparation among girls for the
home life. When order and thrift and economy are not known in the
home, happiness and virtue will not long abide. In the words of that
noble English woman, Frances Power Cobbe[B], "Till you lift
womanhood itself, you will never arrest--nay, you will never importantly
diminish the dreadful curse, the great sin of great cities." The salvation
of man must come through woman. She must know her power to
attract and to hold in every good way and work, and must know how to
exercise it. Marrying for a home is not a motive that will inspire women
to their best efforts or grandest virtues. We do not mean that no
responsibility rests upon men for the purity of the home. Neither do we
mean that fathers and mothers have not need to be more watchful of
the boys and more helpful to them. But because the girls of to-day are
the mothers of to-morrow, the dangers that touch them touch not them
alone.
The fourth result of not training girls to be self reliant and helpful
is the saddest of all. The uncertainties and changes of life make it just
as needful that the daughter of the richest, as well as of the poorest,
should know how to care for herself, and to what she can turn her
hand to earn an honest living. A training that develops skill in labor of
any class is a tower of strength to a girl before temptation. A lack of
any industrial training is a direct leading-string to sin and crime. This
statement is amply illustrated by this fact given by Frances E. Willard
in her annual address at the National Convention at Minneapolis. She
says, "Of eight hundred and seventy girls and women who were
arrested and lodged in one police station, in one month, in Chicago,
only one hundred and thirty of them could sew or do housework, and
none of them had ever learned a trade."
Nothing, except the grace of God, has more power than industry
and self-reliance to keep us true to ourselves in the midst of
http://womhist.binghamton.edu/aoc/doc21.htm (4 of 9) [6/5/2005 8:52:01 PM]