Training Daughters

Written by Rev. W.K. Tweedie, D.D.

Adapted from "Home: A Book for the Family Circle"

In some respects the training of our daughters ranks among the least creditable portions of our society. If wisdom consists in the adaptation of right means to a right end, we cannot always trace such wisdom in that training. Christian principles, engrafted upon prevailing customs, may do much to remedy existing evils, but that many do exist is painfully certain.

The glare of external appearance has taken precedence of the training which molds the heart and soul. Indeed, the soul is too often sacrificed to the body. The immortal and the spiritual are overlaid by the conventional, and the frivolity of girlhood has only been perpetuated by the lessons and the discipline which should have been better used for molding the minds of the future. The real business of life is often utterly omitted in the training which pretends to prepare our daughters for it. A godly parent may say to a daughter on the eve of her marriage that she must now assume the character of a wife, not a childish girlish wife, but a mature wife. But, true as that is, too rarely are wise or scriptural means employed to train such future wives.

Accomplishments are not to be undervalued, when they are worthy of the name. Let them be carried as far as is consistent with the attention which is due to other interests; but, for the sake of future happiness at home, don't let attention on other things take precedence over preparation for those real duties that life will demand. He who looks at this subject with the eye of a Christian cannot fail to notice, that the most precious interests are often overlooked in the training of daughters. Before they can be prepared for the places God may use them in the future, they must unlearn much of what once engrossed their whole soul. The frivolous, the merely showy, have largely overshadowed the useful.

Speaking on the education of girls, one has boldly said: "Have any means, direct or indirect, prepared her for her role as the wife of a home? No, but she is a linguist, a pianist, graceful, and admired! But what purpose will that serve her in the future? A common error and the source of half of the moral confusion existing in the world is the idea that such education is a substitute for the whole. Too often their education is concentrated upon the time when she enters into life. Is it not cruel to lay up for them a store of future unhappiness by an education which has no period in view but a very short one--one that is the most unimportant and irresponsible of the whole life--the period between leaving school and marriage? Who that has the power of choice would choose to buy the admiration of the world for a few short years, with the happiness of a whole life?

Yet, such is the training of many a daughter, too often for life-long uselessness, perhaps life-long discontent. Too often it is the hard school of necessity and the stern realities of life, or the all-surpassing power of affection which help to overcome future trials or supplement many shortcomings. But parents who love their daughters should wisely consider how to better prepare them for the future. A single generation of mothers, thoroughly, wisely, and resolutely alive to the right education of their daughters, would prevent such difficulties. That revolution must begin with mothers who dare to be focused to prepare their daughters for their future happiness, to prefer the solid to the showy, and the useful to the encumbering. 'Let the period for training parents themselves arrive, especially in the education of daughters to prepare them for being wives, and a family millennium would begin.'"

But now, turning to the daughters themselves, one of their primary duties at home is to serve their families. The heart of a daughter should shun all that would cause her family pain. The gentle and generous daughter's heart can never forget what she owes to her parents' love. "Always seeking the pleasure of others, always careless of her own," is one of the finest mottoes a daughter can employ. True, in a period of life when dreams are realities, this may be forgotten. Parents may find only labor and sorrow when they might have enjoyed rest and joy; but the daughter who would make her parents happy, should learn that, next to duty to God our Savior, comes duty to those who are first to rejoice in our joy and weep when we weep. Of all the proofs of heartlessness that youth can give, the strongest is indifference to a parents' happiness or sorrow.

We cannot expect these things, however, unless the truth as it is in Jesus reigns in the heart. Natural affection is lovely; but one strong natural feeling may extinguish another; and the love of folly may even overshadow the love of a parent in a daughter's soul. It is the love of Christ constraining--that love which the Spirit of God produces, that must rule all, and without that the young heart is a ship without either pilot, helm, or sail.

We should not neglect to mention the necessity of training our daughters in all the aspects of the home. A woman has a great opportunity to make a home happy, and the confusion and despair of many homes can be traced to a lack of the skills necessary to bring comfort, success, and prosperity. A frivolous girl who can heartlessly bring tears to her mother, will probably prove to be a heartless wife; and may only see the depths of her folly when her own misguided children retaliate upon her, with interest, the misery she brought to her parents. In any event, the daughter who neglects the useful and practical for the merely glaring in education, is preparing to be a burden or a plague.

Friendship is another subject which should be considered carefully in regard to daughters. It is often tender and beautiful among them. Their sweet, kindly, and genial feelings make their attachments warm, and it is one of the pleasures of life to observe the bonds of friendship between two young souls. Yet there is peril even here. Who has not seen the ill-effects of too close of a relationship with ill-sorted friends? Rebellion and selfishness have been promoted when they should have been repressed, and a flippant and admired friend has become the root of evil. There are few of us who can look upon our youthful days, with a believer's eyes, without noticing or deploring such results of early friendships.

The relationships between brothers and sisters is another important element in the happy influences of home. A boisterous or selfish boy may dominate over a weaker, more dependent sister, but the sister can exert a softening and sweetening charm over the brother. The brother animates and strengthens; the sister tames and refines. By this relationship, our "sons may become like plants grown up in their youth, and our daughters like cornerstones polished after the similitude of a temple."

Lord Byron told of his wanderings and misconduct; he plunged into the pleasures of sin until he was wretched and self-consumed. But "his sister, his sweet sister," shone like the morning star upon his memory and drew him.

"Thou has thy mission, daughter mine,
A joyous one it is--
To light that happy home of thine
With pure domestic bliss."

The love of a daughter for her father is an exceedingly beautiful affection. If all daughter's souls were swayed by this deep love, they would be a model for imitation. Were it common, this world would be happier, and our homes would be more blessed. But, however lovely and beautiful is this filial affection, it is no more than impetuous passion rather than a holy principle, if it is not based on faith in the Son of God. Home will be a wretched blank, a void, if God does not hold the first and highest place; and all training, all discipline, or human affection which does not tend to that result, will perish like the things of earth.

In a memoir of a sister, a brother tells of the early death of their father. Their sole guardian was their widowed mother, and she was unable to withstand the power of evil in the mind of her impulsive daughter. Her daughter soon chose godless friends and cast aside her faith. She deemed them "prejudices," and in the pride which is ever based upon ignorance, claimed the "right to think for herself." In doing so, however, she forgot that her God had both thought and decided for her; and when she had swerved from the right path and the "narrow way," her moral descent was rapid. A father's memory and her mother's wishes lost their power; they were like flax to flame when self-will goaded this daughter. She speedily grew strong in her contempt for the truth which her parents had taught her, as well as for all who held it, and was soundly in the path of the Destroyer. A mother's affectionate heart was consigned by that daughter to distress, and a father's memory was trampled in the dust, that she might "think for herself"--that is, take the world's path.

But an early death came to arrest her. She saw at length to what her opinions and her conduct tended, and died imploring her sisters to be "saved in God's way." The Bible, which had long been discarded, was resumed. Her case casts a lurid light upon the path of daughters. How feeble is filial affection against the impetuous love of sin!

How sure the misery of her who rejects the counsels of a Christian parent!

How vain are all the acquirements and all accomplishments and gifts, when the mind of the world is preferred to mind of the Redeemer!

In the homes where such misguided daughters dwell, to what can their conduct lead but woe and lamentation, to broken hearts, and blighted hopes, and ruined souls, to parents smitten to the dust--perhaps hurried by grief to the grave?

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