Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1882 — Daughters. [ARTICLE]

Daughters.

There are tew greater mistakes than the prevailing disposition among people in middle-class life to bring up their daughters as fine ladies, neglecting useful knowledge for showy accomplishments. The notions, it has been justly observed, which girls thus educated acquire of their importance, is in an inverse ratio to their true value. With just enough fashionable refinement to disqualify them for the duties of their proper station, and render them ridiculous in a higher sphere, what are such ladies good for? Nothing, but to be kept like wax figures in a glass case. Woe to the man who is linked to one of them! If half the time and money wasted on music, dancing and embroidery were employed in teaching daughters the useful' arts of making shirts and meud>ng stockings and managing household affairs, their real qualifications as coming wives and mothers would be increased fourfold.