|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 26
But why the _girls_? Because the girls are immortal as well as the boys.
Because the girls in their education have been neglected far more than
the boys. Because the _girls_ are to be the _mothers_ of the next
generation.
That they are immortal, and capable of becoming and doing much in this
life would seem to be doubted even by their parents. The neglect of the
girls in their physical, mental, moral, and religious education, is
enough to draw pity even from the most stupid Christian.
Hundreds are put into field work from spring till autumn. They follow
the mule and "bull tongue." They wield the heavy hoe, sprouting newly
cleared land. They look after cattle on the ranges and the mountain
swine, and if these are needed for meat, kill and dress them as a man
would do. Said a woman the other day, "I wish I had as many dollars as I
have alone killed and dressed hogs." With parents the _boy_ means a
"heap" more than the _girl_. A boy can shoot deer and coon, fox and
rabbit, can build cabins, can keep school, and "seems" be a doctor or go
to Congress. With this impression, if anybody is clothed and sent to
school, it is the _boy_, while as a rule, the girl is poorly clad and
stays at home to do the boy's work, to make "craps," and grow up in
ignorance. If in berry time they can get a few dimes to buy a calico
dress and a pair of shoes, contentment settles over their faces.
Aspirations for anything better they have not, for an avenue leading to
a more hopeful life they have never dreamed of. To look into the future
there is nothing sunny or bright. Illiterate, they marry young some poor
fellow, and with no money they begin life, build their cabin home in the
timber land, girdle a few acres of the stately trees of oak and
chestnut, and there raise a family to take the same dark and gloomy view
of life the parents have had.
Must this condition of things continue, among a people, too, who are all
native born Americans, who have fair native abilities to become a power
for good if trained in Christian schools?
_Is it not time a special_ effort be made for these _girls_? They are
growing older. They will soon be the mothers of a new generation. With
illiterate mothers what will that generation be? Just what the present
generation now is. What will it be if these girls now growing up are
brought into a school like ours at Pleasant Hill? Here, if there can be
sufficient room and ample teaching force, they will be taught and
trained in a practical knowledge of all the duties of life, especially
in those of the household. If we educate and save the _girls_ we are
using the very lever needed to lift these hopeless and neglected
thousands living at our very doors, out of their degraded life and bring
them into the light of the 19th century, and qualify them to take
positions among the best women of the land.
The work for which I plead is full of encouragement and hope. It is not
in Africa. It is within one or two days' ride of the largest and most
wealthy churches of our country, those who love the Kingdom of Christ
and have sent, and are still sending, their thousands of dollars to the
ends of the earth, while these bright American girls are, by some
strange oversight, neglected at our very doors.
The American Missionary Association has undertaken a noble work among
them, and something has been accomplished, yet this good work has but
just begun. The grey dawn has only cast a few signs of daylight over the
mountains. To carry this work forward successfully in behalf of the
neglected girls, there should be, in a great natural center of
operations like Pleasant Hill, a spacious boarding hall with an
industrial department and home, for those girls. It should not be
stinted in size, but large, well-arranged, and well-equipped in all its
departments from the primary upwards, where they can be taught
everything a girl ought to learn, not only in books and in a Christian
life, but taught to sew, knit, darn stockings, to make good bread, and
keep house with order and neatness, and do everything needed to be done
in a Christian home. If the _native girls_ can come from their cabin
homes into such an institution and be thus thoroughly trained, the axe
is then laid at the very root of the tree of a squalid life of
illiteracy, and a life of Christian culture and hope comes in its place,
where Christian mothers throw angelic brightness over their households,
and families of children are trained to act well their part in this
great and growing nation. The institution I suggest, and for which I
must plead, should not only be large enough to accommodate girls near at
hand, but from other neighboring States who stand in need of such a home
and training. It should be a Bethel for these immortal waifs, a house of
bread, so well provided for as to take the poorest who cannot pay a cent
of their own expenses. On this base it will be doing the greatest and
grandest work possible for the two millions and a half who are scattered
as lost sheep over the mountains of our own land.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|