- Historic Sites Parson Blake And The Farmer’s Wife June 1965 |
Volume 16, Issue 4 While the Reverend John Blake was busily at
work on his opus, three million American girls were growing into
womanhood in farm homes. In a majority of cases they would
become farmers’ wives. What kind of training should they have to
prepare them for their calling? Ideally, it should be a
judicious mixture of learning and labor. These lucky girls had
educational ad- vantages unknown to their mothers, who had grown
up before the time when the country was “thickly dotted over
with schools,” as it was in 1850. They should grasp every
opportunity to secure as much learning as possible—and for two
reasons. It would prepare them for their future duties to their
children and, in the meantime, it would enable them to become
“lights and counselors” to their parents, whose educational
limitations were often a severe handicap and embarrassment. But
the daughters of farmers should not be allowed to spend all
their time just mooning over the