The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1877-10-04

One of the most popular songs in our
language, and one that, more than any
other, finds response in the heart, is
that sweet ballad of the man without a
home - Home, Sweet Home What
has always rendered it peculiarly touch
ing was the homeless condition of its
author. That state of American socie-
ty which could find especial cause for
sympathy in this misfortune of the
writer seems to be fast becoming a
thing of the past-at least as concerns
our city life-and if John Howard
Payne had belonged to the present
generation he would have found host
of voluntary co-suferers, who know
how it is themselves. For we have
for some years been verging into a con-
dition of things which bids fair to soon
make us a Nation of boarders. The
Anglo-Saxon instinct which we inherit,
and which to-day makes every English
man feel that :. his house is his castle,''
has weakened on American soil, and
one of the bulwarks of our National life
seems to be sapped. .sF For home and
country" is watchword than which
none other can SO nerve the arm and
fire the heart to brave deeds; but who
would fight for boarding-house, or
even French tfatp Long before Fitz
Greene Halleck wrote, men had fought,
as ambition and the hope of glory
could never induce them to fight, for
their :. affairs and fires Our whole
literature is crowded with the sentiment
that clusters around the ingleside, and
yet that homely institution has largely
gone out of our life of to-day. Many
of our streets are long lines of boarding
houses, and the " fiat SYSTEM" which
is only one remove more tolerable, is
in full and luxuriant blossom. 1t has
become the rule, rather than the excep-
ton, for young married people-espe-
cially in the middle and higher grades
of society-to begin life by boarding,
as a matter of course. The hearth
stone is still the rallying point of the
more lowly, but it.has always been
found that neither extreme of society is
the best conservator of its institutions.
The middle classes should uphold them,
not in hired lodgings, but at their own
firesides.
This state of things that has come
about is as unnatural as it is unnational.
There is implanted in every man and
woman an instinct for home. The
young man, just starting in life, looks
forward to the day when he can take to
their common home the one who has
promised to share life with him, and
feel that, however lowly the spot, here
at least he is supreme, in possession as
in affection. This home, seen in the
bright future, is an incentive to labor,
when yet his own support is his only
care. Infinitely greater are its attrac-
tions when realized and frightened
with the presence of its divinity. 1t is
the glimpse, at the end of the long
days work, of the quiet home that is
all his own that lightens that work and
dignifies it with a motive it never before
had. On the other hand, the young
girl who is about to go forth from the
maternal care might be expected to
look for repetition of that pleasant
home life which has been around her,
with herself no longer a subordinate
member of the family circle, but its
mistress and joint head. In her own
home alone she can find opportunity for
that domestic life which is woman's
highest privilege and glory, and which
is the outgrowth of centuries of civil
ization. In the busy round of the
homo lifn Sha fnds lIoI Sroatoot asof..1
ness and enjoyment, and gives scope to
tendencies that would elsewhere be
sti1ed Marry a girl off and set her
down in boarding house, and her life
is at once rendered barren. There is
absolutely nothing for her to do that
any sane woman would not soon tire of
doing. The senseless frivolities of
dress and fashion and gossip go to
make up her days, if there is a fair in
come, which in this view is rather a
misfortune. There can be no more
useless member Of society than a
woman thus situated, with her instincts
and impulses thwarted, and her life
turned aside from its normal course.
Yet the young wives are in a large
degree to blame for this boarding epi-
demic. A desire to live in society, and
with an appearance above their means,
is an incentive to such a life. The
housekeeping life, which would have
its charms for them if on more gen.
erous scale, seems drudgery as it pre-
sents itself to their limited means. The
endless comparisons and grades that
society in a large city sets before them,
frequently renders them discontented
with their position on the ladder. So
the home, with the thousand comforts
that ameliorate its, duties, is sacrificed
to the glitter and sham luxury of a sort
of life in public, and its conservative