Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1878-11-11
WHAT WOMEN NEED.
Some Of the Causes Of their Bad Man
agement and Worse Manners.

the consequence which springs hom
having acquired something, is a toler-
able amount Of administrative capaci-
ty. Housekeeping is administration
on a small scale. Il includes the
faculty Of getting the most for ones
money, and managing servants and
children. If it were likely to be a
mans oacation to the extent to which
it is likely to be a woman's, he would
undoubtedly be prepared for it by
some sort of apprenticeship. He
would have to learn in some subordi-
nate capacity the proper mode of buy
ing and preparing food, and of procur-
ing and taking care of furniture and
clothing, and Of ruling servants. He
would be trained to receive company
by some experience of the art of en-
pertaining both in its material and
aesthetic aspect. No one would ever
guess, however, from an inspection Of
an average school course, hal a girl
was 30 be the head of that most com
pick result of civilization, a modern
household, with its thousand duties,
responsibilities and relations. No one
would ever suppose hal the very end
and aim Of a nations existence, the
main use Of its armies and navies, and
commerce, and police, and manufac-
lures, and inventions, was the multi
plication Of well-ordered p%arlors, with
agreeable and efficient women inthem,
and yet this is strictly true. All our
tOiling, and fighting, and travelling,
and producing ends in this. When a
man has set up a happy home he feels,
and the whole community agrees with
him, hat the best work of his life is
done.
1t is not only good administration,
however, in the ordinary sense of buy
ing and managing and enforcing disci-
pline, that women are expected to con-
tribute to it. They are expected to
make it attractive to the outside world
by good manners, and, in fact, are ex-
peeted by their cultivation of manners
to restrain or couAteract the tendency
to brutality and ~coarseness among
men, which seems an i%nseparable ao-
compartment Of the regime Of compe-
tition. The foundation Of good man
ners is undoubtedly tact and quick
sympathy, and these cannot be impan-
ted by any didactic process but a
great deal can, nevertheless, be done
at school to aid in the formulation of
manners. For example, there is no
such hindrance to good manners as
business and pretense-that is, an I'M
comfortable and restless desire to pro-
duee the impression that you are
something other, if not better, than
your natural self.
Now, business and ~pretense, the alb
sence Of modest stiffness and hui
mility," are all over the country the
curse of girls schools. The evil
reaches its last limits in the city high
schools ; a street-car full of the older
girls of one of these institutions, eager
for the notice of the passengers, talk
ing in loud, ''hollerin'' voices, conf
dent to the last degree in the power of
their own attractiveness, ignorant of
what reserve means, and anxious that
every word they say should be heard
by everybody within ten reds, is, per-
haps, as disheartening a spectacle of
the kind as our civilization presents,
because it indicates the absence Of all
moral and social training from the best
seats of education we have. But the
root Of the evil as well as the evil itself
is to be found in a large number Of our
girls schools. The daily attempt in
which so many of them are engaged to
cover ground that cannot be covered,
to make a show Of instruction which
cannot be given, and which teachers
and pupils know is not given, and
which has no real adaptation to the
practical needs of life, which every
girl secretly intends TO forget as soon
as she is married, naturally creates an
atmosphere Of sham in which good
manners cannot grow, or can only grow
in rare natures. No woman's manners
are so good if she is not simple, after
passing some of her best years in try
ing to impose on people as the possessol
of accomplishments which she really
doest not possess.
One of the commonest defects Of
woman's domestic manners is, as re-
CARDS women in moderate circum.
stances, a,false shame about their mode
of life. Not one of them in a hundred
has been prepared by training to meet
anything in the shape of an unexpected
visit or intrusion with cheerful court.
esq, or even calm fortitude. On the
contrary, the school influence in nine
cases out Of ten, has helped to give t
the discovery by a stranger that the!
do not always dress and eat as they
seem to do on gala days, the air of cal
amity which the strongest nature can
not be expected to resist. The result
has been, both in the United State
and in England, almost 10 extinguisl
simple and informal hospitality, Al
average woman, among plain people
is crushed Unexpectedly by a mar
dropping in unexpectedly TO a meal
and sits at the table in silent and Aus
tered pain, whereas her preparation
! ought to have prepared her to NEE
=. such a crisis With smiling front, IL no
/ with positive enjoyment. Part of tn
drill of every school ought to be tn
reception Of a wife in an old gown,
. dinner Gf earned benf and eabbag
. gfqp unlocked for gnest, thoughtlessl
S brought home by a reckless HUSBAND
The Man Who Beat sayler an
GOss.
Dan Plat