colored strips of paper for weaving. Not that there is any harm in
these bits of apparatus, provided that the sewing cards are large and
so perforated as not to task the eyes and young fingers of the sewer.
But unless for some special purpose, such as the making of a Christmas
or birthday gift, these devices are unnecessary and better left to the
school, which has less richness of material at hand than has the home.

[Sidenote: Helping Mother]

In allowing the children to enter a workers into the full life of the
home several good things are accomplished. (1) The eager interest of
the developing mind is utilized to brighten those duties which are
likely to remain permanent duties. Not does this observation apply
only to girls. Domestic obligations are supposed to rest chiefly upon
them, but the truth is that boys need to feel these obligations as
keenly as the girls, if they are to grow into considerate and helpful
husbands and fathers. The usual division of labor into forms falsely
called masculine and feminine is, therefore, much to be deplored.
Moreover, at an early age children are seldom sex-conscious, and any
precocity in this direction is especially evil in its results; yet
many mothers from the beginning make such a division between what
they require of their boys and of their girls as to force this
consciousness upon them. All kinds of work, then, should be allowed in
the beginning, however it may differentiate later on, and little
boys as well as little girls should be taught to take an interest in
sewing, dish-washing, sweeping, dusting, and cooking--in all the forms
of domestic activity.

This is so far recognized among educators that the most progressive
primary schools now teach cooking to mixed classes of boys and