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Items of Interest Gathered Here and There
"Simplicity, System and Repose”
‘‘ Simplicity, system and repose” were the three
essentials of successful housekeeping named by one
speaker at the recent gathering of the General
Federation of Women’s Clubs in Boston. Another
speaker bade those who would achieve domestic suc
cess and abolish worry and the sense of drudgery
to “simplify, classify, jollify and glorify” their
daily work.
There are, and there have been in the past, good
housekeepers who, consciously or by natural instinct,
observed these rules. There are, and still more there
used to be, notable housewives by whom simplicity,
jollity and glory were blessings hustled fiercely out
of life. Such a “driver,” in the expressive old
country phrase, was that misguided housekeeper
whose daughter, summoned by mysterious sounds
down-stairs at midnight, caught her cleaning the
china-closet at that uncomfortable hour, because, as
she explained, she “couldn’t bear to waste such a
fine moon.”
She had, at least, the excuse that lighting in her
day was expensive and inadequate, for she lived a.
century ago. But it was a modern housekeeper of
the same unrestful type who recently worried her
family and herself, during an attack of illness, by
a constant dwelling on the spring housecleaning.
One day she was told that the work had been done.
She flung herself out of bed and tottered toward the
door.
“Housecleaning done —and without me!” she
gasped. “Help me down-stairs. I know it’s all
done wrong, and I must see at once how wrong
it is!”
Then she collapsed and was put weeping to bed.
But by the time her recovery began, the house was
really quite hopefully dirty, and she insisted upon
passing her convalescence directing the process of
cleaning.
“Your mother is such a wonderful housekeeper,”
a neighbor remarked to one of the daughters at the
close of a call.
“Yes,” assented the girl, loyally, “she is. I
doubt if she could be really happy in the loveliest
house in the world if it magically kept itself.”
Yet that is the kind of house that keeping house
too hard makes one long for. Simplicity, system and
repose give the true home a touch of gentle magic
that suffices, and banishes the wish for any other.—
The Youth’s Companion.
*
'English Eugoly of Our Technical System.
Our methods of technical training are spoken of
in terms that must be gratifying to every American
educator, in an address on “Technical Education
in America,” delivered by Sir William H. Preece
before the Royal Society of Arts, London. We
quote from an abstract in The Engineering Digest
(New York, June). The American boy, the American
instructor, and even the American capitalist who
finances the schools, all come in for a good word.
Says this eminent electrician:
“It is difficult, if not impossible, to make any just
comparison between the methods of technical educa
tion in America and those at home. The condi
tions are totally different. Climate, race, commerce,
industry, fashion, wants, and aims are different. We
are a conservative, archaic nation, well provided
with inertia, not wanting in wealth, accustomed to
grandmotherly attentions, subject to the traditions
of the past, and swayed by the precedents of our
grandfathers. America is a congeries of numerous
self-governing States, intensely ambitious, enjoying
a champagne-like climate, formed of a mixture of
all the Celtic, Teutonic, and Latin races of Europe,
inspired by a rapid and excessive flood of the wealth
of the soil and the demands of a phenomenal in
road of aliens; abounding with advancing commerce
and growing industry, and suffering from a great in
road of wealth and an immature system of finance.
“The American boy possessses the energy and
smartness of a new race. The European boy is men
tally two years behind him. His precocity is as
sisted by his keenness and his vivacity. He works
The Golden Age for August 6, 1908.
with an object and a determination to succeed. He
throws the same determination into his studies that
he applies to his games. He is irresponsible and
sometimes a terror. The absolute unfitness of these
characteristics to the British boy must be self-evi
dent, but they will account for the differences in the
curricula, and the paper set for examination pro
vided for these boys when they become students in
colleges and universities. Teachers, like poets, are
born, not made.
“The teachers differ but little from those in
Europe, but they are excited to great energy by
their natural enthusiasm, by climatic influences, and
by the reflected encouragement of their receptive
pupils. Indeed, many are imported from France,
Germany, and the United Kingdom, and I should
like to see the reverse operation, for there is much
to be gained by a process of blending in professo
rial ranks. We want new blood at home. We have
made a bold start here by appointing Dr. Henry
Bovey, of the McGill University (Montreal), the rec
tor of our new Imperial College of Technology in
South Kensington, and there is every reason to an
ticipate complete justification.
“It is in the behavior of the employers and cap
tains of industry that even a greater characteristic
is evident. They, in America, not only appreciate,
but assist in noble ways, the acquisition of scientific
attainments in their employes. The premium sys
tem, such a serious check at home, is abolished,
and they select only those who can submit diplo
mas. They fully recognize the advantage of tech
nical attainments, they encourage research. They
equip their own laboratories, and they support col
lege and university by financial help and by the
gift of machinery.
“The marked distinction in American practise
is the adoption of the four-years’ course —which we
certainly ought to adopt at home. Though not spec
ified, or even regulated, it is quite evident that in
America all are working on fixed methodical lines,
and that gradually a national co-ordinated system
will be evolved which will make the United States
the best secularly educated country in the world,
and its educational policy thoroughly organized.”—
Exchange.
English in England.
It is as surprising as it is gratifying to note that
at last England has admitted that the English no
longer speak a true and pure English. Long have
they assumed superiority over Americans, and have
called those variances from their own pronunciation
which have been used on this side of the Atlantic
“Americanisms,” despite the fact that almost with
out exception those differences we made were toward
a purer speech and a truer pronunciation.
The Cockney with his pitifully small vocabulary
and his apparent inability to give the correct sound
to a vowel, has by quick strides forced his pictur
esque though impossible speech into the fabric of
spoken English until the English people, even those
of acknowledged education and culture, have assum
ed many of the peculiar Cockney accents. By no
means the least factoi' in this corruption of the pure
speech has been the influence of the music halls,
and many a less lovable and delightful entertainer
following in the wake of Albert Chevalier has
contributed a part to making English in England
anything but the speech it should be.
The letter “a,” has always given our English cou
sins no end of bother, and the difficulty has grown
worse rather than better. In “James ’’ and 11 name ’’
and “baby” and any number of other words which
might be cited, it becomes a long “i,” and one hears
“Jimes” and “nime” and “biby” and “lidy.”
But not only is it changed to “i,” but at times it
becomes “e,” as in “Pell Mell,” plainly spelled
Pall Mall. And as if byway of evening things up
John Bull spells “clerk” quite correctly, and then
calls it “dark,” as he also changes “Derby” day
into “Darby” day. Other vowel sounds are mixed
up in the most unaccountable manner, but nothing
is quite so difficult for the London tongue as the
letter “h,” which will get where it wasn’t and fall
from where it was, as in the case of the poor father
who had two daughters, one named Helen and the
other Ellen, but of whom he spoke as “Ellen” and
“Hellen,” so that no one ever knew which one he
referred to. The Englishman’s breakfast order of
“ ’am and heggs” is long since famous and along
with it ranks the speech of the cabby who would
“tike a gloss of bile, sir,” when he merely wanted
a glass of ale.
Suddenly the English have come to realize how
badly is the mother tongue being used by them who
should be its most jealous guardians, but they have
not arrived at the knowledge of the truth unaided.
A German professor has had the frankness to say
that the only pure English spoken is spoken by the
educated people of the United States, and what may
have further startled the British is the fact that
English being taught in the German schools is
spoken of as the American language. And with
that the English woke up. A society with George
Bernard Shaw at the head has been formed with
the purpose of bringing about a purer spoken lan
guage. The task is herculean, for the Englishman’s
sins of speech, both of omission and commission,
are multitudinous, and a habit of speech may be
broken by the same method prescribed for the break
ing of a bad habit in a cow —break her neck.—Fort
Worth Record.
Electoral College Grolvth.
It has been 100 years since James Madison was
elected to his first term as President. Madison
received 122 votes in the electoral college and
Charles C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, received
47. George Clinton, of New York, received 6. In a
century the vote of the electoral college has increas
ed from 175 to 483. Notwithstanding Madison’s
“overwhelming” majority of the electoral vote in
1812, it still lacked 18 of as many votes in the elec
toral college as Parker received in 1904, and Parker
was overwhelmingly defeated.
The increase in the electoral vote of the States
marks the growth and development of the entire
country. The admission of new States has been a
prominent factor in increasing the vote, but the
growth in population is chiefly accountable for the
difference between the electoral vote of 1808 and
that of 1908.
The greatest increase in the electoral vote, how
ever, was in the first quarter of the century. From
1808 to 1832 the gain was 111. From 1832 to 1856
the vote in the electoral college increased but 10 —
from 286 to 296. From 1856 to 1880 the increase
was 73, and from 1880 to 1904 the gain was 107.
In these four periods the same number of States
have been admitted to the Union. From 1808 to
1832 Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, .Illinois, Ala
bama, Maine, and Missouri were authorized to vote
for President. From 1832 to 1856 the electoral votes
of Arkansas, Michican, Florida, Texas, lowa, Wis
consin, and California were added. From 1856 to
1880 the admissions were Minnesota, Oregon, Kan
sas, West Virginia, Nevada, Nebraska, and Colorado.
From 1880 to 1904 North and South Dakota, Mon
tana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah were
given the right of suffrage in presidential elections.
The vote in 1908 will be increased but seven over
that of 1904. The reapportionment is made every
ten years, so that the only change from the electoral
vote of 1904 will be the seven votes from Oklahoma,
admitted last year.
In the Madison campaign, 100 years ago, only
the thirteen original States, with Vermont, Ken
tucky, Tennessee, and Ohio, participated.
Prior to 1824 no record of the so-called “popular
vote” for President was made. But from 1824 to
1904 the popular vote increased from 352,062 to
13,510,708.
In 1824 Andrew Jackson received 155,872 votes,
and his plurality over John Q. Adams was 50,551,
although Adams was elected President. The vote
of the nation as late as 1824 was less than the vote
of Kansas in 1904.
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