This is so far recognized among educators that the most progressive primary schools now teach cooking to mixed classes of boys and girls, and also sewing.  These activities are recognized as highly educational, being, as they are, interwoven with the history of the race and with its daily needs.  When they are studied in their full sum of relationship, they increase the child’s knowledge of both the past and the living world.

[Sidenote:  Teaching Mother]

(2) Besides the deepening of the child’s interest in that work which in some form or other he will have with him always, is the quickening of the mother’s own interest in what may have come to seem to her mere daily drudgery.  Any woman who undertakes to perform so simple an operation as dish-washing with the help of a bright happy child, asking sixteen questions to the minute, will find that common-place operation full of possibilities; and if she will answer all the questions she will probably find her knowledge strained to the breaking point, and will discover there is more to be known about dish-washing than she ever dreamed of before; while in cooking, if she will make an effort to look up the science, history, and ethics involved in the cooking and serving of a very simple meal, she will not be likely to regard the task as one beneath her, but rather as one beyond her.  No one can so lead her away from false conventions and narrow prejudices as a little child whom she permits to help her and teach her.

[Sidenote:  The Love of Work]

(3) The child’s spontaneous joy in being active and in doing any service is being utilized, as it should be, in the performance of his daily duties.  We have already referred to the fact that all children in the beginning love to work, and that there must be something the matter with our education since this love is so early lost and so seldom reacquired.  If when young children wish to help mother they are almost invariably permitted to do so, and their efforts greeted lovingly, this delight in helpfulness will remain a blessing to them throughout life.

[Sidenote:  To Make “Helping” of Benefit]

But in order to get these benefits from the domestic activities two or three simple rules must be observed. (1) Do not go silently about your work, expecting your child to be interested and to understand without being talked to.  Play with him while you work with him, and see the realization of youthfulness that comes to yourself while you do it.  Many tasks fit for childish hands are in their nature too monotonous for childish minds.  Here your imagination must come into play to rouse and excite his activity.  For instance, you are both shelling peas.  When he begins to be tired you suggest to him, “Here is a cage full of birds, let us open the door for them;” or you may tell a story while you work, but it should be a story about that very activity, or the child will form the habit of dreaming and dawdling