The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1879-05-21

dwelling place was ham; but the pronuncia.
ton was 20 broad It was m easy transition
to make of 1t our modern word home, and
there il no word in other languages to stand
Ior the ioea awakened when the English
speak this simple word. ekias ~
The attempted revival of classical archi-
lecture failed in the seventeenth century.
because the English were 20 thoroughly
attached to the plain but comfortable and
home-like mansion. The new style of archi-
and Lord Chesterfield probably spoke for
many beside himself when he said of the
new house of friend: THAT as he found It
ali in convenience within, Notwithstanding
its beauty without, the best thing he could
DO would be to hire lodging across the
street and look at his new treasure"
It has been often asserted that the Puritan
influence during the seventeenth century
put q stop to all building from classical de-
signs and discouraged the architects who
sought to improve and beautify English
houses. II it De true. we'll could the build
ing of the outside afford to wait while the
owners Of the pointed hats stood for some
thing infinitely more precious than the ar
chitecture born to flourish under the in
1uence OF Rome. That something in the
Puritan influence, SO nearly akin to the
atmosphere of the Quakers, that guarding of
the family, without which the State can not
be safe, is the vital principle of true home
making. When recently studying statistics,
was not surprised to ind that the average
length of life among the denomination of
Friends was longer by considerable per
cent. than in other sects. 1t was consistent
with the quiet, the peace and order that
their discipline enjoins in the home as we'll
as in the church.
With firm faith that the world does
move, still we realize that many wrongs are
yet to be righted, many aids now denied to
be IN the future placed in the hands of
osv, @f = - TT
duty of making the home, over which every
woman desires to preside. Her duties have
been assigned to her, but the way in which
these labors are to be accomplished has not
been settled to Der satisfaction, at least.
Fitzherbert, one of the first writers on
defines the duties of the farmers wife:
Her business is to winnow all
manner of corn, to make malt, to wash,
to help her husband fill the muck. vain,
the farm cart, drive the pillow, load the hay
or corn, and always go to the market and
to these small ways OF killing time" she
was expected to furnish the average, at least
seven more human beings, to swell the num-
Der of England's working population, and
in this regard she seldom disappointed the
expectations of the most sanguine. That
was IN the seventeenth century,
in England. How is 1t in the
nineteenth in our own country? Fresh
from school, our American girl of the oppu-
lent class. finds herself mistress of a house
whose furnishings, together with ITSELF
requires for its keeping at least three pairs
of well-trained hands If she has plenty of
money, she finds 1t very difficult to
superintend the work that must go on
beneath her roof Her knowledge of sew
ing Is most likely confined to lace-darning
on the various kinds of fancy work. or the
properties of food, and the various meth
ndo pf n oh <,f
the necessary precautions against the army
of enemies to perfect housekeeping, of the
constant warfare against dust, and moth,
and spiders, she is not 'forewarned," and
so Is unarmed. She has no trained service at
her command. and if she succeeds in train
ing her help into a valuable assistant, it is
but little time until this aid goes to dis
play her knowledge of domestic affairs in
her own home. This is in keeping with the
genius of our republican insti
buttons, and not to be condemned,
but it complexities the domestic problem.
But if our young American housekeeper Is
poor, but in education and refinement the
peer of the English nobility, how is it them
| Very likely she tries to initiate Hercules
she undertakes to do everything with heI
own hands. She makes her own dresses,
not as did her mother or grandmother, but
after Worth's latest model. She trims bel
hats. She struggles bravely with the mys
teries of cooking, and learns at the hands ol
that most expensive teacher, experience
In the meantime she suffers with the keen
sensitiveness of q woman when her bread il
heavy and her cake rises but to fall. In hel
despair she feels that she will, in the matter
| of housekeeping, never equal her nusband'i
| mother; and alas, there are times and sea
sons when she doest not want to. She looks q
! the piles of neglected music, the silent piano
which perhaps came with the wedding gifts
or she remembers the dusty easel slowed
away, tbs hardened drying oil and the I'M
finished canvass-the picture she was ono
sure would soon be finished. She Is full o
anxiety to do her whole duty to the chile
whose little hands have opened the mys
terious fountains of mother love ia her heart
but she unclasps the clinging arms to ruff
the aprons; she has no lime for the sweetes
duties OF motherhood, the watching and al
recting of the child's unfolding powers il
calmness and quiet. With true american
instinct, she keeps her interest in the IN arcf
| of events, with now and then a glance q
paper or magazine, and she tries to keep NJ
her social duties, making and receiving calls
At what fearful cost she does ell this man,
OF us know, and it becomes still less and les
wonder when foreigners declare that Amer
lean women, so fair in youth, suddenly fade
and often become physical wrecks. Still
more pathetic Is the story when the smok
from her heme-fire curls up from some wild
| prairie or lonely farm in wooded district
| sN@> $500
great extent, reached the homes of tn
farmers, and lightened the work of thsi
wives. As the years go on the universe
ambition seizes the children, and they ar
sent from home to school. At what cost tn
| agricultural colleges are filed only tn
patient mothers know, who take up III
additional home burdens, and it is no
strange that in the statistics of insanity tn
largest proportion is found to be among tn
wives OF farmers. 1t is the sad story of ovel
worn bodies and unfed minds.
That universal love of home, next to tn
love of kindred, and associated with it, hoy
1t has been sung, and how touchingiy POI
trayed through all time. Charlotte Bronte
in the character of st. John Rivers, has mad
the love of duty stronger than the love 10
sweet Rosamond. He has renounced tn
happiness of life on earth for the hope of 10,
IN the life eternal, and is about to leave hi
native land for the work Of q missionary i
Hindoostan. Believing he has conquere