Читать книгу Farm Boys and Girls - William A. McKeever - Страница 13

Fig. 3.—This beautiful Kansas home, with its large orchard and many shade trees adjoining, was constructed “away out on the barren plains where no tree will grow.” In this place an excellent family of nine children grew up.

It has already been urged that sound health constitutes one of the foundation stones of good character. Play is especially conducive to sound health. Some may think that work without much if any play will bring about the same results in the child life, but such proves not to be the case. The monotony and drudgery of enforced labor have been crushing the lives of children everywhere, especially until the wise legislation of very recent years prevented such thing. Strange to say, the same amount of exertion in spontaneous play may build up and strengthen the physical and mental life of the child. What is the secret of the striking difference in the result? Spontaneity! is the answer. The child goes at his play with a joy and an eagerness which are entirely absent from work—a sufficient guarantee that his nature is being fed upon the very stuff which his soul craves. It is true that children will play in a bare room containing nothing more than a pile of trash, but such a situation is woefully lacking on the side of instruction. Very little will be learned from a year of such ill-provided play.

So, there is every necessary reason for urging that the farm home provide not only the time and the occasion for the play life of the children, but that the means and proper materials also be looked after. At a certain rural home in the state of Michigan, where two boys and one girl were growing up, were found the following nearly ideal arrangements for the play life: a small clump of trees, which afforded opportunities for climbing and ample shade during the warm weather; a swing hung between two of the trees; a pole serving as a horizontal bar between two others; and a ladder leading to a rude playhouse constructed between the forks of a branching maple tree. Thereabout were seen also a boy’s wagon, two home-made sleds and other materials of this same general class, not to mention a fairly well-kept lawn, where the children could romp.

Now the cost of all the foregoing materials would be trifling in a money sense and not very expensive in point of preparation and work, while they would pay for themselves a hundred-fold in their results for character-development. If necessary, it could even be shown how just such provision for the play of the boys and girls on the farm will in time add to the actual cash value of the place and to the money-earning power of the boys and girls whose lives are being served. It seems altogether fitting to remind rural parents of their duty in respect to their children even though the mortgage may not yet have been lifted, and even though some of the live stock may have to suffer a little, and some of the farm crops deteriorate slightly. Let there be provided, first of all, some adequate materials for the indulgence of the play instinct of the child.

2. Work.—This term implies a wide meaning, and deserves a lengthy discussion. In a chapter to follow under the title “How Much Work for the Country Boy,” we shall give due attention to it. The purpose here is to advise the parent to make a study of the situation and to make provision for the amount and kind of work and industry necessary for the proper culture of the growing child.

First of all, there must be appreciated the sharp distinction between work and play. The latter is spontaneous, allowing the child to follow his caprice of mind. He may take up one play activity and drop it at any moment that another appeals to him more strongly. But with work, the situation is different. The purpose is outside of and not within the performance, as in the case of play. The work looks toward some end necessary of achievement and carries with it the elements of sacrifice, of giving out of one’s life something that is his very own in order that some other thing may be acquired. In the case of work the normal child probably at first finds almost any assigned task irksome. He feels that he is being more or less unfairly or unnecessarily driven to it and that when he grows to be a man, he will have a lot of money and hire somebody else to do the work.

All natural, healthy-minded boys are at first somewhat stubborn and rebellious in regard to work. No matter how good their parents may be, if merely turned loose in the world without direction and the spur of authority, they will almost invariably avoid manual labor. So it might as well be put down at once as a rule that every boy who is to become a real worker and an industrious character must be set definitely at his tasks while a mere child and held strictly to their performance. After much persistent urging, the young worker begins to forget the thought of being driven to his duty and to acquire instead a habit of industry. By slow degrees he develops within a sense of obligation in relation to work, also a feeling of responsibility for tasks done or left undone. Finally, after years of this sort of experience, the young industrialist reaches a point in his life when he can throw himself enthusiastically into some sort of well chosen occupation. And then and there emerges from his inner consciousness the exceeding great joy known to so many of the industrious men and women whose worthy life-long devotion to work is constantly reconstructing this good world in which we live.

It will be understood, of course, that the term work as here used includes the school training. The ordinary child regards the appointed duties of lesson getting in the nature of work and feels the same pressure of insistence and compulsion in relation to them. Unquestionably, the ordinary school course goes part way toward furnishing discipline in industry. The course of the newer schools about to be instituted throughout the country will reach still farther in this direction. It is very encouraging indeed to observe that the public school curriculum is destined to include, not only the study of books and the recitation of lessons learned from books, but also the many forms of manual labor and industry applicable to the character of the growing child. But until the public school authorities have provided such an ideal course of training, parents must see to it that the class-room duties be thoroughly supplemented with carefully assigned home tasks of the industrial training sort. In a later chapter specific attention will be given the question of the schooling of the country boy and the country girl.

3. Recreation.—What a vast amount of misunderstanding and misuse there is of this term! Observe, if you will, the real meaning of the term or of the kindred word, to re-create. It implies in this use that the body has been depleted, worn out, or fatigued by work and that there is to be a rebuilding of the same. But it is amusing—or would be if it were not so pathetic—to see how city parents often bestir themselves in an effort to provide recreation for their idle boys. Many of these boys who are seen loafing about the home town during practically the entire summer vacation period are given an outing in order that they may thus be furnished “recreation”—from indolence.

But farm parents are inclined to err on the other side. That is, they tend to over-work their boys and not to give them enough outings to furnish proper recreation and renewed zeal for the work required of them. Hence, the need of carefully considering the matter of the outings for the farm boy and girl. It can most probably be shown, for example, that the boy who works on the farm five and a half days of the week and who is given the other half day for rest and recreation—that he does more work in the five and one-half days and does it better than he would do in six full days without the half-holiday. The question here is that of a balanced schedule. How long should the boy be held to his task before being allowed a holiday or recreation period?

Just how can these half-holidays, outings, and the like, be worked into the farm boy’s program so as to make them contributive to the up-building of his character? What of this sort can be done to cause him to return to his assigned tasks with greater zeal and enthusiasm? How can it be provided that the boy may look forward to these outings with a thrill of joy during the long days he has to spend behind the plow or in the harvest field? Finally, how can these recreation periods, large and small, be so associated with his work-a-day tasks that he may come to regard farm life as a wholesome type of vocation—one that he may follow with pleasure and profit for himself, and one in which he may succeed so well as to make his achievements constitute a living commendation of such a calling to others? In a later discussion there will be shown many methods whereby the recreation experience of the farm boys and girls may be properly looked after.

Few persons seem to appreciate the value of solitude as a means of recreating and building up the inner life. Probably one of the greatest agencies in the development of many a powerful personality is the fact that its possessor was compelled by force of circumstances while young to spend much time in the company of his or her own thoughts. It is impossible to think intelligently while one is doing any body-straining work; for example, wood sawing or hay pitching. But there are many forms of occupation for boys and girls on the farm which permit of comparative rest of the body. So the foundations of many a worthy career have been laid in the silent reflections of the boy spending the day alone in the woods or on the prairies with his cattle and dog and pony, or sitting on the seat of the riding plow.

Likewise, the farmer’s daughter, during the performance of many simple, non-fatiguing tasks, reflects perforce upon the larger meanings of life and makes out in mind many plans for the time when she hopes to undertake the mastery of various trying and interesting problems. Lack of this enforced solitude and its attendant reflections—lack of the discovery of the joy of being at regular intervals alone with the great soul of Nature and with one’s inner consciousness—doubtless contributes in some measure to the undoing of city boys and girls. The constant turmoil of the street, the excitement of the ever changing scenes and situations, give an over-indulgence to the senses, ripen the judgments too early, and rob the character of those soberer habits which later enable one to find good in the common situations and the common people of the world.

It is, therefore, recommended that farm parents provide for a part of the sterner duties of the boys and girls such tasks as will allow for comparative rest of the body while the mind may tarry undisturbed with the reflections of the inner life.