Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1870-04-09
she will remain content to listen to a
shepherd reed or cornstalk fiddle?
THE cRoAKERs AT FAULT.

Sne VIII remain content 10 listen 10
shepherds reed or a cornstalk fiddle?
THE cRoAKERs AT FAULT
These old croakers forget two things.
In the first place, that the grandmothers
of the period were once girls, as wild as
any girls that we have now; and, sec
ondly, that the greater refinement, the
higher education, and the nobler views OF
the modern girls are things thet the old
fogies, who have descended to us from a
former generation, are totally unable to
understand. That the girl of the period
is perfectly able to rough it, perfectly
able to live in a log house, milk the cows,
and tend the babies, we have no doubt,
for we have seen her do it on more than
one occasion when necessity required.
But if she should prefer the coarse asso-
Citations that accompany lifeeof what is
called roughing it to the refined and ele-
waiting influences that, in the nineteenth
century, have made our Christian homes
the nurseries of modern civilization, she
would deny her birthright, and prove
false to the intellectual opportunities
with which she has been so marvelously
blessed.
NO USE FOR THE STOWE MODELS.
When Mrs Stowe and her sister hold
up for admiration and imitation the
women Of her young days-days when
"a bride was married with sheets and
table-cloths of her own weaving, with
counterpanes and toilet-covers wrought
in divers embroidery by her own and
her sisters hands they seek to recall
times that have passed away, we hope
never to return As these ladies well
observe, those remarkable women of
old were made by circumstances" we
can only add hope that neither the
women nor the circumstances will ever
be reproduced on this planet. In their
own departments, for the tired muscles
of the weary worker, men have substitut-
ed muscles of iron, sinews of steel, and
nerves of brass, propelled by heart and
lungs that never tire while the coal fields
of Pennsylvania hold out; and shall we
condemn our wives and daughters to the
humdrum of the spinning-wheel and dis
taff2 No, indeed Even the sewing
machine is bad enough, and it won't be
long until some of us succeed in harness
ing the physical forces to it, so as to give
the tired limbs of the sewing girl holi-
day
REQUIREMENTS OF OUR CIVILIZATION.
1t is a singular fact that we often meet
people who, having come down to us
from the days of stage coaches, two shil-
ling postages and whale-oil lights, are
anxious to revive the habits and educa-
ton of these oldltimes in the days of gas,
telegraph and lightning-express trains
Their highest ambition is to have clean
linen, make good butter, and save money
points that are all very commendable
but that do not altogether falfill the re-
quirements of modern civilization
These people forget that wider civiliza-
ton involves wider necessities They
tell us to limit our desires, being igno-
rant of the truth that the extent of our
desires is the measure of our culture,
and that the advice is like telling a man
to cut off his feet when he wants boots
And so persistent are these sol diSdnt
sages in recommending to restrict our
desires and simplify" our tastes; to
con6ne ourselves to the qualification of
homely pleasures, which with them sig
nifes the obtaining of mere material
necessaries land pork and beans at that, |
that we often feel tempted to turn from
them in disgust, and to exelaim: T" Give
me the luxuries of life, and / will dis |
pense with the necessaries.
WORTHY wOMANHoOD WANTED.
These thoughts have been forced upon
us by the evident changes that must take
place in the education of our young
To-
we deprecate any system that would tend
to convert the latter into mere tenders of
much more should we con-
denim any system, the tendency of which
would be to degrade the former below
even this humble level, and convert them
into the machines themselves. We do
not want spinning machines, sewing ma
chimes, or knitting machines for wives;
we want women, and that all around us
THERE is ABUNDANT MATERIAL
for the production of good women, ma
terial which it requires but proper educa-
lion to develop, we feel perfectly salts
fed. All this twaddle about the degen-
sracy of modern women is the silliest
Kind of nonsense.
rms GIRLS AS coon as EVER ~ Ii
That we are in a transition state; that
passing from the rude culture of our fore
athers to the higher education that
waits us, we have reached somewhat
condition, no one can for a
doubt But the fault lies with
he times, and with the peculiar condi-
ions of human progress, and not with
he girl of the period. Beneath the ami !
ine-dyed garments Of to-day there are
learts as true and warm as ever beat Z
,eneath the linsey-woolsey Of a hundred .
ears ago; the eyes that luxuriate upon
be beauties that fill our modern homes
re as fond and bright as those that
Watched the shadows on the log walls Of
'ur ancestors; and the fingers that draw {
delicious music from the modern piano c
re no less def and gentle in the sick
Dom than those that spun the coarse
arments Of bygone years, and milked
be cows that grazed in long-past !
meadows. J