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6
Worth Woman's While
By FLORENCE TUCKER
The Obstacle of Masculine Criticism.
As a woman proceeds along her march of ad
vancement with ever increasing rights, man is be
coming pretty well subjugated. We are not sure
but are visible along the rim of the horizon faint
signs of a return to a time when, according to his
tory or tradition, woman"s was the first position.
For there was a time—they say—when away back
in the early, misty, hazy days, she was not only
man’s superior mentally, but physically; on her
devolved the duty of providing for the family, and
hers, not man’s, was the name that descended with
posterity. The ‘‘rights” which are now being so
rapidly and surely acquired are. only resumed after
a long dispossession. At least this is what we are
told; the assurance having reached us somewhat
as travelled the news that the sky was falling in
the old barn-yard tale—passed on from one to an
other. So that we will not take the responsibility
of assuming it could be proven; we only say that
the signs of the times point, ever so dimly, to such
condition now.
Man who, through so many years, has held su
premacy, how acquired we do not pretend to know,
does at last show signs of yielding to the pressure
brought to bear—recent statistics prove that he is
even receding bodily into a second place, the height
of woman being shown to have increased while that
of the average man is less; yet while philosophi
cally accepting the situation, he still evinces the
disposition now and then, to assert himself, and
when he does speak out it is in no uncertain tones.
At a woman’s suffrage convention a short time ago,
one of the prominent members in a fervent and con
vincing discourse expressed herself thus. ‘‘Home is
not the same as it used to be. Family affection is
perennially the same, but country clubs, automo
biles, the comforts of modern travel have transform
ed society and home life, and although we are none
the less domestic, they are carried on under dif
ferent circumstances. The city and state have now
control of so much that hitherto were under the
direct control of the housewife, and they so often
administer these functions so badly, that if we wo
men are to preserve a charming home we must fa
miliarize ourselves with the work of health boards,
school boards, park boards, smoke commissions,
pure milk and pure food commissions. These points
of contact, if intelligently understood, lead us di
rectly from the home to exert an influence on the
municipality. Do you not see that in asking the bal
lot as a means to an end the women are simply en
deavoring to get back under partial control the
things that were once theirs to govern, the educa
tion and health of their children?”
A man replied—delivered himself of a speech
in which we fancy we discover traces of long-pent
feeling, and even emphasized it in cold, clear type,
the danger of which is too well known, it spreads
as does contagion. This is what he said:
“That is logic in an absolute circle. Home is
certainly not the same as it used to be for thou
sands American families, when the head of the
family was so full and happily occupied in t-lie right
rearing of her children and in making home com
fortable and attractive for them and for her hus
band that country clubs, automobiles and modern
travel could not possibly have tempted her from
her roof-tree. Family affection may be the same,
but it has most amazing means of manifesting it
self, with the husband at his club, the wife at her
club, and the children in the care, from the kinder
garten stage to the college, of persons not inter
ested in them beyond the salary paid them for that
interest. The city and state now have improper con
trol, to be surej of much that hitherto was in the
domain of the housewife, and they have it princi
under the swaying of faddists, and has attempt
main, under the swaying faddists, and has attempt-
The Golden Age for April 5, 1906.
ed to break into domains that were never intended
for her. She has made as big a muss of it as the city
and state have in their attempts to administer func
tions proper to women. Yet, just like the woman
who would pass on herself and her sisters to the
domain of the ballot, there are thousands of mis
guided American women victims of sociologizers
of one kind and another who are unable to perceive
that the simplest means of regaining, to the welfare
of the race, control of the things that were once
theirs, is to take control of them, to take charge
of the education and health of their children. That
is a reform in which American women would have
the solid, substantial and enthusiastic support of
every decent man in the country. There would be
no way of preventing the reform. The ballot of
women would not be needed to further it, but
might tend to increase the embarrassment of the
present situation. It would be better for the women
to be occupied with the education and health of
their children instead of gadding around to this
club or that, packing legislative galleries or com
mittee rooms in the furtherance of cocialistic
schemes, or having their emotions misdirected by
hired agitators passing on an ever-accumulating
mass of misinformation and half-digested theories.
Because so many women have deliberately deserted
the home on account of false notions of life and
the part they are to play in it, is the reason why
home is not the same as it used to be, and why
so many men capable of making women happy,
hesitate to attempt to found a home. Because so
many of these female home-deserters, by the auto
mobile route, or the club route, or the sociologizing
route, have frantically insisted upon the state as
suming women’s functions, is why human society
to-day is so awry. Women’s assertions of her home
rights is the surest cure for the emasculated social
ism which now curses the United States.”
Did anybody ever? Ah,what an uphill undertaking
it is after all! Not only to be called home-deserters;
neglectors of the children; the very head and front
of all offending, the actual cause of “human so
ciety being to-day so awry;” but to be threatened,
warned that because of the women themselves, men
hesitate to attempt to found a home! Could any
thing be more discouraging? And when everybody
knows the primal, the engaging and absorbing aim
is the universal good! “To exert an influence on
the municipality!”—doesn’t that mean the univer
sal good?
If any men there are like this, who are going to
rush into print, a very set of incendiaries spread
ing conflagration everywhere, the long, hard road
will only be the longer and the harder. But, then,
to think of the goal, the final height, the return to
supremacy that once the sex knew!
Plant patience in the garden of thy soul,
The roots are bitter but the fruits are sweet,
And when at last it stands—a tree complete—
Beneath its tender shade the burning heat
And burden of the day shall lose control:—
Plant patience in the garden of thy soul.
—H. Austin.
The Froebel Society of Berlin, which has made a
psychological science of the system of teaching
very small children has introduced an entirely new
department in infantile pedagogies. It is to have
the mothers attend the kindergarten in company
with the children, and the results are eminently
gratifying. It is claimed that mothers after a course
at the school, not only are provided with means for
entertaining and instructing the little ones—alack
which most have experienced—but they have a wider
understanding of child-life. Among the things for
the child’s amusement which the parent is set to
learn, is the cutting of silhouettes, and drawing
with pencil or crayon, the fantistic creatures the
budding imagination delights in.
Summer Song.
The mill goes toiling slowly around,
With steady and solemn creak,
And my little one hears in the kindly sound
The voice of the old mill speak;
While round and round those big white wings
Grimly and ghost-like creep.
My little one hears that the old mill sings
“Sleep, little tulip, sleep!”
The sails are reefed and the nets are drawn
And, over his pot of beer,
The fisher against the morrow’s dawn,
Lustily maketh cheer;
He mocks at the winds that caper along
From the far-off clamorous deep.
But we, we love their lullaby song
Os “Sleep, little tulip, sleep!”
Shaggy old Fritz, in slumber sound,
Moans of the stony mart;
To-morrow how proudly he’ll trot you around
Hitched to our new milk cart!
And you shall help me blanket the kine,
And fold the gentle sheep,
And set the herring a-soak in brine;
But now, little tulip, sleep!
A Dream-One comes to button the eyes
That wearily droop and blink,
While the old mill buffets the frowning skies
And scolds at the stars that wink;
Over your face the misty wings
Os that beautiful Dream-One sweep,
And, rocking your cradle, she softly sings: .
“Sleep, little tulip, sleep!”
—Eugene Field.
-I
A firm in Boston offered as an advertisement, a
sum of money for the best answer to the question,
“What constitutes success?” A Western woman
submitted the following, and received the prize of
$250: “He has achieved success who has lived well,
laughed often and loved much; who has gained the
respect of intelligent men and the love of the lit
tle children; who has filled his niche and accom
plished his task; who has left the world better
than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a
perfect poem or a rescued soul; who has never lack
ed appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to ex
press it; who has always looked for the best in
others and given the best he had; whose life was
an inspiration; whose memory a benediction.”
Some of the most prominent financiers of our
country, conspicuous the world over since the re
cent disclosures in certain circles, were hit when
Dr. Lyman Abbott said, “The portraits of the big
gest pick-pockets of the country do not hang in
the rogues’ gallery. The man who takes money
which he has not honestly earned from the pockets
of the people at the gaming table, or in the specu
lative shop, or in the industry in which young chil
dren are ground up in the sweat shops in order to
supply cheap goods, is far worse a robber than the
petty thief on the streets.”
One thing very noticeable in this age of advance
ment is the number of people we know and the few
friends we really possess. We squander our time on
a hundred different acquaintances, instead of having
two or three real friends. Young women invite us
to weddings and expect a showy present to place
among the trophies of their marriage day. We are
invited to receptions and teas, where we meet many
people and know but few, and we lunch and dance
with people we meet probably once a year. This is
the result of the circumstances.—Selected.