Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1875 — What to Teach Our Sons. [ARTICLE]

What to Teach Our Sons.

A set of oracular maxims concerning “ What to Teach Our Daughters’” lias been going the rounds of the papers, and finally found its way into the columns of the Independent, whose selections are usually more sensible and in better taste. Is not this thing somewhat overdone ? Almost every country paper has a paragraph in the same strain. Pray tell us who..has made the bread and the shirts an«P '‘cooked the victuals” and darned the stockings, etc., all this time, if not the daughters of the land? How long since the virtues of industry, thrift ana good management have been so monopolized by the .sons and so neglected by the daughters as to justify this continual grinding out of advice and admonition, as monotonous as the rumbling of the wheels in our streets and as “ tedious as a twicetold tale”? We believe in fair play and equal rights, and see no reason why such bir Oracles should expend so much wisdoip and solicitude upon the education of the girls, and ignore the needs of the boys, who ought to have a share. For instance, when the daughters must be taught to “ w'ear calico dresses, and do it like Queens,” it may be well that the sons, to match their stateliness, should wear blouse and overalls like Kings! To make amends for the partiality hitherto shown, we have altered and amended tho aforesaid set of maxims to apply to the other sex, that anxious parents may now know what to teach their sons:

Teach them self-reliance. v Teach them to make fires. Teach them to weed the garden. Teach them to foot up store bills. Teach them not to dye their whiskers. Teach them not to wear tight boots. Teach them how to saw and split wood. Teach them how to black their boots and take proper care of their clothing. Teach them to eat what is set before them and be thankful. Teach them how to darn stockings and sew on buttons. Teach them every day dry, hard, practical common sense. Teach them how to say No, and mean it; Yes, and stick to it. Teach them to wear their working clothes like Kings. , Teach them that steady habits are better than riotous living. Teach them to regard the morals and not the mopey of the belles. Teach them all the uses and proprieties of kitchen, dining-room and parlor. Teach them not to have anything to do with intemperate and dissolute young men or with idle and frivolous young women. Teach them that the further one goes beyond his income the nearer he gets to the poor-house. Teach them that a good, Steady mechanic is better than a dozen loafers in broadcloth. Teach them the accomplishments—music, painting and drawing—if you have time and can afford it. Teach them that God mad eXhem in His own image, and by no amount of tight lacing, tight boots, waxed mustaches, or by making smokestacks of themselves can they improve the model.— A. E. Dickinton, in N. T. Independent.