HOUSEKEEPING AND HOME-MAKING.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 581, 9 August 1909, Page 3

HOUSEKEEPING AND HOME-MAKING.

I am lax in my domestic discipline (writes a ■country woman sternly in ' the "La'dits* Home Journal") and I have been severely blimed for allowing', iny husband to go his own gait and to bring the dog in at the front, door three ; times a day, clutter my house with fishing-rods and guns, and go fishing ; and hunting whenever he' chooses. I'would not recommend.my. lenient,:attitudo to others, but T do : wish'to talk a little to women about tho medium 'gait in housekeeping. Many': an ~excellent housekeeper is a very poor .homekceper, ; and Ihavo known women who made everything bend to the one ideal of neatness,, .and who in , consequence .of thejr. devotion'.to this ono id*al allowed their children to starve mentally and morally. On the other hand, I- have known, many,'.m.any_. women whose, poor, "spiritless' housekeeping has fostered in their children unambitious ideas and alarmingly common tastes. :■ The American people. ; aro suffering , just now from an epidemic of commbimess—a, general taste for.-cJieap ■■ ecutiment, a mania'for,'the humorous, , the lightminded and .for much ..that is' plainly , immoral, ' but, which 'the' spiriJ 'of the tinies clothes with respectability. I' am inteusaly sorry for any household which has for its head .a prior, housekeeper. There are. more of, these than wugecerally realise.: There are thousands of women .who do their work in : a poor, way, year inland year out, and still rather pose as being "put upon" by Fate and as longing all the time for higW things. There is actually nothing in He'aTon of earth.,higher-.tha.iv scrubbing the kitchen , table if it needs*'if, and vou are able , to;'do-it. Never imagine, when you. leave jit- coated with grease.and grime and , run away to your book or.'your piano or your, erribroiilery, that because you have naturally finer tastes than the.woman who gets} her scrubbingbrush, .her hot suds, and her cleansing material and goes after, tha't. table:, A,,hireliug may.scrub tie'table because she has to do ititq. cam her wages; but tho ivoinan w«.o has no "help" and sees' her tableyin-need of scrubbing leaves it so,: not because she is innately too fine" to do the scullery work, but because she'-ia innately too lazy to do .it, or.. because she actually/isn't able, or' because she has been wrongly taught in regard to".such things. ;.' . ;■; . : .-. •A sense,of art may be exercised in the kitchen'as fully as in tho studio, and to dread kitchen work or shrink from laundry work or iousecleiining is not at'all indicative of--re'Sned tastes. 'Homo is a safe sheltei for woman's work, and much of it'is d v ;ie unworthily, in , 'slipshod, mbii(jtoiious' "'ways' because of the fact that "nobody will see or know." ■'..-. . ■ •.•.":

It is a very trite saying that nobody works so _hard as the person who works' badly, and -this particularly applies, I; think; to the poor housekeeper. She is always tired, always worried, always ready to complain over, the abuses of women.: The poorest 7 house-' keeper I ever ..know,;' was. a, woman's-rights enthusiast—though -this by no ;neans suggests .that all woraan's-rights women are poor housekeepers. .:-...

Women.areVvery prone to tlie idea that' they .are -not able .to dp certain things.. -Their oscuse is that- they do not feel.like.doillg- them. 'They probably are not aware that in.ten minutes they could work off,this feeling and be all the better and happier for doing.so. ".Wβ have the'steepest flight of stairs at our house, and loften hear my. daughters'say.': "Oh, mercy, : I want something and it's upstairs—l'll try-to get along \yithput it!".-/j.This is pure degeneracy in-thera'j and I am sure I "raised" thein better..' ' ; .''' ,1 ■. '" . .

It is. a.habit, nothing more—this-dread of physical,effort. Women.for .a number of years have'been'.growing 1 into the idea that they have a superrial right to everything that,; is dainty and pretty,-and. easy; and there has.been a: lot, of discussion by, way of, medical advertising . which has fostered the idea in .>Yoman that she is a delicate creature and likely to hurt herself every lhinnte she turns around. Last winter I was in tho home of a young conple who have every chance in the world to be happy. The young man kuows his business of farming'thoroughly, and he isjambitious to have things aboutifliirn thrifty,. and pleasant. They have a family ;of,. healthy -cnildren, the wife is. a..slattern of, the type, that will sit all day long with "beds unmade and dishes unwashed,, reading . a novel or . working a piece of fancy-work: Tho man in this caBO does, all that hevcan, every effort that he can make he makes, and he never reproaches liis. wife, .but que . can seo_ how deeply it grieves him. He says,she is not well,'that her tastes are too-fine for housekeeping) but he knows the plain truth: the woman is lazy and she lacks the' moral stamina to overcome it- "'• " '.'■'' . . ■ -.: ...