The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1882-05-20
Daughters. at Home.

VINO re1OlCou III Jne POSSESSION OF 1Ve Ial
daughters, built themselves a charmin.
house in which to cherish those fai
daughters, and presently grow old ant
die. Other wise couples innumerabl
doubtless builded other charming house
in the same year of grace, and the dis
tinction of the two here praised lay il
this: that they planned an inner home
and separate domicile, as it were, fol
every girl. Each had her pretty sitting
room, her bedroom, her own guest
chamber, to which she was free to invite
any friend whom she desired. To each
was intrusted the money to furnish and
decorate her own little apartment in her
own way. Neither father nor mother
ever made domiciliary visit to the
daughters domains, but came only as
eagerly invited and warmly welcomed
guests.
A like consideration inspired all the
dealings of these parents with their
children. Each girl had a fixed allow
ance, which she spent as she thought
wisest. Each was encouraged to ex-
press her own tastes, develop her own
talents, live her own life as far as pos
sible. while the strong family affection
acted as the centripetal force to correct
any excess of centrifugal tendency.
The result was such bright, cultiva-
ted, ndependent-minded, close-clinging,
original, entertaining, self-respecting
.much-loving frictionless household as no
story-book has ever described, and only
a happy few have ever beheld. They
were all too busy to be petty. too free to
chafe at limitations, too happy not to be
good. Having scope and outlook at
home, they were in no haste to marry.
Each waited for her True Prince, whom
having found, five other households were
established, as liberal and as wise as that
in which these maidens had learned that
the highest womanhood must 90 to the
highest wifehood and motherhood.
But the establishment which our
friends treatment of their daughters
caused, and the comment it excited, tes-
tilted to the rarity of giving unmarried
girls any distinct and individual place at
home. When one of her young visitors,
a clever and brilliant girl. was advised
by this successful mother to carry on her
studies, and obtain complete educa-
ton, she replied: ''What on earth
should do with complete education?
We are too rich to work, and in my
world that is the only motive for thor
ough culture"
That was twenty-five years ago, and
how is it with unmarried girls in wealthy
homes to-day A kindly Englishman
wrote, not very long ago: ITO set
women TO do the things which some
people suppose are the only things fit
for them to do is the setting the steam
hammer to knock pins into a board.
The skillful and ingenious operation
leaves them dissatisfied or listless, or
makes them, by kind of reaction,
frivolous. wicked and exaggerated carl
.catures of what God intended them to
be. Some outlet is wanted. Control is
good, but at a certain point control be-
comes something very much like par
alysis. The steam-hammer, as it con-
templates the everlasting pins head,
can not help feeling that if, some day
when the steam'is on, it might give one
good smashing blow, it would feel all
the better for it." And what is our
gentle and sympathetic authors advice
to the young girls who are saying to
themselves:
'Sure He that made us with such large dis
Looking before and after. gave us not
That capabilty and gOdlIke reason
10 fust in us unuS dr.
When fancy work, and visiting the poor,
and making calls, and going to parties
night after night to talk about the same
routine things with the same routine
people, and busting the parlors, and
reading books more or less worth read
ing, and waiting for Prince Charming
(who has taken the wrong turn,) and
painting cups and screens-when all
these thrilling and momentous interests
pail. why, then-piano practice! ''To
women" says Mr.. Haweis-'and how
many thousand are there in our placid
modern drawing rooms!-music comes
with power of relief" etc., etc., ETC.
q In the name of the Prophet fgs!"
The musical girls will have found out
their gift of deliversnce for themselves.
To the unmusical the piano is the aboIn-
ination of desolatiOns. In old days, and
under the old faith, religious life would
have called to these unemployed, ardent,
aspiring. capable young women. They
would have taught themselves to believe
that ascetic ministration was the ideal of
life and the climax of blessedness. The
new order asks the conservation of all
the powers, not the obliteration of any.
America stands for opportunity. In
NIL other lands, institutions have been
completed, fixed in certain order and
permanence. Here all things are plastic,
waiting the shaping hand of Time. Here
we say to ourselves that we have laid the
foundations broad and deep. But the
superstructure of our social system, the
strong and stately walls, the ornament
and finish, the beauty and refinement of
life, are yet to rise and be made perma-
nent, and that work has waited for the
fresh energies of women. e.,
Every daughter at home in house
hold which does not need her labor,
signing for something to do which shall
demand her real powers, may feel that
there, in her own place, she can teach
and preach and help by declining to pass
her days in frivolty, and busy idleness.
If she makes the young men and maid
ems whom she knows see that life means
something definite and purposeful to her,
and that there are room and use and need
for her under the sun, she win have done
much. u .'f..l. I'e- fI.
And mipht not dauOhterS at home helm