Laura Ingalls Wilder, Farm Journalist
Page 7
EDUCATIONAL EXHIBITS WERE FINE
The increased interest in educational methods, and systems of child-training, which has grown so rapidly in the last few years, made the Palace of Education one of the most popular buildings at the grounds. Here were shown school work, educational methods, and handicraft of children from New York state to the Philippines, China and Japan. Madame Montessori herself came from Italy to take charge of a class of tiny children in this building. Entered thus in competition against the whole world, Missouri won the silver medal. I must admit that this was a surprise to me. We are so likely to see the defects in institutions close at hand and imagine that farther away conditions are so much better.
When I realized the place Missouri takes in education I felt greater interest in our school problems, and while there are still many improvements possible, I am sure we should all be very much pleased, and proud of this award.
Our commissioner of education, Norman Vaughan, and his assistant, W. N. Laidlaw deserve great credit for the demonstration they have given of Missouri’s school system. Our decentralized method is shown by a system of tiny electric lights, representing children, which flash on and off, showing the pupil’s progress from grade to grade and from school to school, without any unnecessary loss of time.
A mammoth map of the state, also dotted with electric lights, shows our high school growth from 1894 to the present day. At a glance, while the groups of lights flash on and off; one literally sees the high schools multiply, and multiply again. The sight shows quickly, and in a very impressive manner, the really extraordinary growth in the number of our high schools.
Views of the Missouri University, the five state normal schools, and other colleges and high schools, are shown on an illuminated screen, the pictures changing automatically every 20 seconds. The whole exhibit has attracted the interested attention of educators from all over the world, and it is a pleasure to wander about it and listen to their comments.
When Otto Ruhl of Joplin took charge of our mining exhibit at the fair he intended to show Missouri mines to the best possible advantage. Without intending it he has also shown another Missouri characteristic of which we should be as proud as we are of any product of our state. He has given an exhibition of thrift. With only $6,500 to spend, he arranged a display which is more attractive to the eye, more instructive and interesting, than Nevada was able to show with $27,000. He also has won for us a Medal of Honor, seven gold medals, 54 silver medals, and one bronze, standing second only to Nevada among all the states, and leaving California, with her great mining industries, far behind.
Beginning with the mine itself, every process in handling the ore is shown, from the raw quartz in the ground to the finished product. The idea is good, and the way it is carried out is perfect. The display occupies 3,000 feet of floor space, in a long strip down one side of the Palace of Mines and Metallurgy. It is surrounded by a low wall, built up to give the exact appearance of a mine—all the ores showing among the native rock and flint exactly as they are found in our hills. Above this wall great columns covered with zinc and lead concentrates, support cornices of zinc metal. Thus, from first sight of the place, the eye follows the progress of the metal from the mines to the finished product.
The entrances are three great arches, one of zinc, one of lead, and one of our Carthage marble. Inside, one sees first a model Joplin mine, showing in detail the tunnels, the little cars and railways used underground, the exact rock formation of the mine, and the buildings on the surface. Following this are the crushers, and a concentrating plant, which show the method of bringing our low-grade 2 per cent ore, ready for smelting. After this, one comes to the finished product, shown in wash boards and fruit jar covers.
Beside the cases, displaying the zinc as it enters our kitchens, were cases containing specimens of lead and zinc ores, which were beautiful enough to hold the attention of everyone who saw them. Several specimens of lead ore here contain 68 per cent of pure lead, an impossible proportion according to all the books, for theoretically, a 67 per cent lead ore is the highest possible. However, here are the actual specimens, with 68 per cent. What does Missouri care for theories, when she beats them in actual facts? On the outside of these blocks of almost pure lead, are iron pyrites and pure lead crystals.
Missouri’s Crystal Springs, too, are represented here by a beautiful display of mineral waters, shining through dozens of bottles, and accompanied by pictures of the springs.
Another unique exhibit to our credit are the clays, which no other state had shown. Here, too, the whole process from the raw earth dug from the St. Louis quarries, to its final appearance in roofing tiles, sewer pipe, garden ornaments and statuary. It might have taxed almost any brain to devise an attractive display of sewer pipe and roofing tile, but Mr. Ruhl has solved the difficulty. He built up the sewer pipe into a tall flagpole, and designed the American flag from the roofing tile, in red, white and blue.
Beside the clays are the coal, supplied by Macon, Randolph, and Barton counties, and the iron, which comes from Crawford county. Specimens of Missouri granite appear here also, the red granite being perfect in texture and coloring. Nor are these the only products of Missouri’s mines. Hannibal has represented her cement industry by samples showing every step of its production from shale and limestone to cement blocks, brick and tile.
AMAZING AND UNEXPECTED THINGS
Huge slabs of tripoli, that stone of so many amazing uses, have been the center of a great deal of attention. It is a fine, smooth rock, looking with its colored veinings, something like a cake of Castile soap, and I was amazed to find it the parent of dozens of familiar things. Sapolio, Gold Dust, Bon Ami, Old Dutch Cleanser, and practically all other scouring soaps, are made from it.
Another display was startling to me. I have been a Missourian for nearly 30 years, but I had to travel to the Exposition to find out that there is in my state a mining industry entirely controlled by farmers. A mining industry, moreover, which brings in an income of $250,000 to $300,000 a year. This tremendous sum goes to the farmers of Washington county, in payment for their mining of barytes.
The depth of their mines is little more than the depth of a plow-furrow. Barytes, a valuable stone, the use of which has made possible our fine magazine pictures, is found on Washington county farms, on or near the surface. In the fall the farmers plow and dig out the rock, pile it up until the rains have washed it clean of clay and gravel, and then haul it to town, like so much cord wood.
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1. During this era of newly developed labor-saving devices, the promise of work and time saved seemed to outweigh the dangers posed by gas fumes and the possibility of fire.
2. Although this piece was bylined simply A. J. Wilder, what existing manuscript evidence there is of Almanzo’s writing strongly suggests to scholars that Laura did all of the for-publication writing in her household.
3. Almanzo had suffered a paralysis of his leg while in the Dakotas. None of those I interviewed forty years after his death could tell me which leg he favored.
4. The lungs of a slaughtered animal.
5. The occasion of the 1915 San Francisco Exhibition gave Laura an excuse to go west to visit her daughter and to seek Rose’s advice on how to write for better-paying markets than the Ruralist.
6. This second listing of “garlic” is likely a mistake that should read “olives.”
7. Female donkeys.
1916
All in the Day’s Work
Just a Neighborly Visit with Folks at Rocky Ridge Farm
February 5, 1916
One hundred and seventeen thousand dollars was paid for poultry, eggs and cream, in the town of Mansfield during 1915. Of this amount $58,000 was paid for eggs alone, $39,000 for poultry and $20,000 for cream.
During the time of the turkey drives $10,000 in 10 days was paid for these farm products by the produce men of Mansfield.
A big turkey drive is quite a sight to see. There were several came to Mansfield
just before the holiday. In one drive alone there were 650 turkeys. Six hundred and fifty Christmas dinners for somebody walked into town in a drove.
These figures on poultry products speak well for the industry and capability of the women in the section tributary to Mansfield for we all know who raises the poultry.
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I wonder if Missouri farm women realize the value in dollars and cents of the work they do from day to day in raising farm products for the market? How many persons when reading the astonishing amount received in a year for Missouri poultry and eggs think of the fact that it is practically all produced by the women, and as a sideline at that! For of course a woman’s real business is the keeping of the house and caring for the family. Not only the care of the poultry, but the raising of garden products and small fruits is largely women’s work; and in many instances the greater part of the labor of producing cream and butter. The fact is that while there has been a good deal of discussion for and against women in business, farm women have always been business women and I have never heard a protest.
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A friend of mine has a large tree in her back yard that she calls her turkey tree. Out of this tree every fall she gathers $100 worth of turkeys. If one could only have unlimited numbers of trees like that! But, unfortunately, there are a great many like another friend of mine who lost all the chicks she hatched last summer. The rats took them, sometimes a whole flock in a night. I raised 300 chicks myself by keeping the coops as far away from the buildings as possible. But every morning I wondered whether I should find them alive or stacked up in a pile somewhere.
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When one thinks of the difficulties under which poultry and eggs are brought to the market, the wonder is that the amount is one-tenth as great. There are all the diseases to which chicks are heir to be contended with and besides there is a hawk in every treetop and a rat in every corner waiting for them as soon as they come out of the shell. I feel sure if Governor Major had ever tried to raise chickens on a farm he would not have vetoed that bill placing a bounty on hawks. And why not a bounty on rats? They are a perfect nuisance around the buildings and frightfully expensive to feed, besides the loss of the young chicks they kill. And I’m sure no one could say a word in their favor.
Learning how to build rat-proof buildings does not help much with the old buildings. We keep up a continual war on rats with traps and poison and cats. Once in a while we get the place well cleared, but soon they swarm in again. If everyone would take care of their own rats it would simplify matters. But they do not and so the rats increase and multiply and spread to other places, carrying disease and destruction.
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I find that it adds greatly to the interest of life to keep careful accounts of the business of housekeeping with its sidelines of poultry and small fruits.
Especially do the account books add a spice when the Man Of The Place gets angry because the hens get into the barn and scratch things around, or when the grain is getting low in the bins in the spring and he comes to you and says: “Those durn hens are eating their heads off!”
Then, if you can bring your little account book and show him that the feed for the hens cost so much, and the eggs and poultry sold brought so much, leaving a good little profit besides the eggs and poultry used in the house, he will feel better about things in general and especially the hens.
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A woman I know kept for one year the accounts of the household and her own especial little extra work and surprised herself by finding that by her own efforts she had made a clear profit of $395 during the year, and this without neglecting in any way her household or home duties.
The total for household expenses and her own personal expenses for the same time was $122.29. There is after all, you see, some excuse for the man who told a friend he was going to be married. “Be married!” the friend exclaimed, in surprise. “Why, you can’t make a living for yourself!” To which the first man replied, sulkily: “Well, it’s a pity if she can’t help a little.”
My friend proved that she could “help a little.” Her books made such a good showing that her husband asked her to keep books for the farm, and so she was promoted to the position of farm accountant (without salary).
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Considering the amount of time, labor and capital invested, the farm books did not balance out so well as her own and she became interested in hunting the reason why. So now she has become a sort of farm adviser with whom her husband consults on all matters of farm business.
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We are told that the life of a woman on a farm is narrow and that the monotony of it drives many farm women insane. That life on a farm as elsewhere is just what we make it, that much and no more, is being proved every day by women who, like this one, pick up a thread connecting farm life with the whole, great outside world.
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In the study of soils, of crops, their origin and proper cultivation and rotation; in the study of the livestock on the place, their proper selection and care; with the care of her house and poultry, always looking for a short cut in the work to gain time for some other interesting thing, there does not seem to be much chance for monotony to drive her insane.
That “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” is very true, I think. It is just as dull for Jill as it is for Jack and so they formed a “Neighborhood Crochet club” down in “Happy Hollow.” The women met and learned the new crochet patterns and visited—?—Well, gossiped, then—as the men do when they go to town on Saturday and have so much business (?) to attend to that they cannot get home until late chore time.
By the way, did you ever think that as much good can be done by the right kind of gossip as harm by the unkind sort? The Crochet club made a little play time mixed with the work all summer, until bad weather and the grippe interfered in the fall. Jill was not so dull and the plans are made for the club to meet again soon.
We do enjoy sitting around the fireplace in the evening and on stormy days in the winter.
When we planned our new house we determined that we would build the fireplace first and the rest of the house if we could afford it—not a grate, but a good old-fashioned fireplace that will burn a stick of wood as large as a man can carry. We have seen to it besides that there is a wood lot left on the farm to provide those sticks. So far we have escaped having the grippe while all the neighborhood has been suffering with it. We attribute our good fortune to this same big fireplace and the two open stairs in the house. The fresh air they furnish has been much cheaper as well as pleasanter to take than the doctor’s medicine.
Some old-fashioned things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat. In our mad rush for progress and modern improvements let’s be sure we take along with us all the old-fashioned things worth while.
The magazines say that the spring fashions will return to the styles of our grandmothers, ruffles, pantalettes, ribbon armlets and all. It will surely be delightful to have women’s clothes soft and fluffy again and we need not follow the freak styles, you know. There is a distinct advantage in choosing the rather moderate, quiet styles for the up-to-the-minute freaks soon go out and then they call attention to their out-of-date-ness by their striking appearance, while others equally as good style but not so pronounced will be a pleasure for more than one season.
Sometimes Misdirected Energy May Cease to Be a Virtue
February 20, 1916
A stranger once went to a small inland town, in the Ozarks, to look over the country. As he left the little hotel, in the morning, for his day’s wandering among the hills, he noticed several men sitting comfortably in the shade of the “gallery,” gazing out into the street.
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When the stranger returned late in the afternoon, the “gallery” was still occupied by the same men, looking as though they had not stirred from their places since he left them there in the early morning.
This happened
for three days, and then as the stranger was coming in from his day’s jaunt, in the evening he stopped and spoke to one of the men. “Say,” he asked, “how do you fellows pass the time here all day? What do you do to amuse yourselves?”
The man emptied his mouth of its accumulation of tobacco juice and replied in a lazy drawl, “Oh, we jest set and—think—and—sometimes— we—jest—set.”
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I have laughed many times over this story, which I know to be true, with never a thought, except for the humor of the tale, beyond the hackneyed ones on the value of wasted time; the vice of idleness.
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We are told continually by every one interested in our welfare or in “making the wheels go round” how to employ our spare moments to the best advantage, until, if we followed their advice, there would be no spare moments.
It is rank heresy, I know, to detract from these precepts, but lately I have been wondering whether perhaps it is not as great a fault to be too energetic as it is to be too idle.
Perhaps it would be better all around if we were to “jest set and think” a little more, or even sometimes “jest set.”
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Vices are simply overworked virtues, anyway. Economy and frugality are to be commended but follow them on in an increasing ratio and what do we find at the other end? A miser! If we overdo the using of spare moments we may find an invalid at the end, while perhaps if we allowed ourselves more idle time we would conserve our nervous strength and health to more than the value of the work we could accomplish by emulating at all times the little busy bee.
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I once knew a woman, not very strong, who to the wonder of her friends, went through a time of extraordinary hard work without any ill effects.
I asked her for her secret and she told me that she was able to keep her health, under the strain, because she took 20 minutes, of each day, in which to absolutely relax both mind and body. She did not even “set and think.” She lay at full length, every muscle and nerve relaxed and her mind as quiet as her body. This always relieved the strain and renewed her strength.