18 Reasons Why I Couldn’t Be A Beehive in the 20’s
Way back when I was a wee lass of 12, I flipped incredulously through the Personal Progress Manual and — both eyebrows raised — wondered aloud how I’d ever complete the neatly printed tasks that lay before me. But of course, I buckled down and began working through each of the values: Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works, Integrity, and Virtue.
Had I been born 100 years ago, this may have been a different story. Over the years the Personal Progress manual has grown, developed, lost its baby teeth as well as hundreds of requirements found in the original manual. In 1915, then called the Bee-Hive Girls, Young Women of the past were able to choose from 373 requirements listed in the official Bee-Hive Girls Handbook.
So while I journaled and tied blankets, the Bee-Hive Girls of the past were required to be well versed in all walks of life.
I don’t know my way around a kitchen well enough to…
Pluck, dress, and cook a fowl (p. 27)
Write a menu for two weeks for a girl in her teens, inclined to be too stout (p. 26)
Write a menu for two weeks for a girl in her teens, inclined to be too thin (p. 26)
Know and describe the three cries of a baby (p. 29)
For one month masticate your food so thoroughly that it slips down without any visible effort of swallowing. (p. 30)
Take care of milk and make two pounds of butter a week for two months (p. 27)
Sleep out of doors or with wide open windows for two months. (p. 8)
Know the vertical line test for correct posture of body. (See “Young Woman’s Journal”, May, 1915). (p. 8)
Know about the proper use of hot and cold baths, care of the hands, teeth, cleanliness of the hair and its appropriate dressing.
During two weeks keep the house free from flies, or destroy twenty-five flies daily. (p. 27)
Know the dangerous and common adulterations, also prices, of flour, sugar, rice, cereals, crackers, and bread.
Learn the chief causes of infant mortality in summer; give methods for reducing the same.
Be entirely free from a cold for two consecutive months.
Care successfully for a hive of bees for one season; know their habits.
Hatch and raise to six weeks at least ten chickens.
If you are unprovided with a sleeping porch, contrive a shelter that will take its place (See Boy Scout’s Handbook).
Play any of the following games (either out of doors or with open windows) for not less than fifteen hours in any one month: Circle Race, Circle Relay, Corner Spry, Curtain Ball, Round Ball, Square Ball, Circle Zigzag, Hide and Seek, Pussy Wants a Corner, Three Deep, Blind Man’s Buff, Drop the Handkerchief, Red Rover, Fox and Hounds, Run Sheep Run, Quoits, Duck on the Rock, Tennis, Golf, Volley Ball, Base Ball. Emperor or Captain Ball., c.
Make two articles of underwear by hand or on a machine or using both (p. 31)
Note.—Any article on which an award is made must show skill and taste.
During three months honor the rights of other members of the family, by not using their personal belongings without their per- mission.
