New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1883-11-28
What Ais Our Young Girls.

There is a great deal of chin-music
constantly going around about the
bang. It is not the bang, however,
but piano-playing, rs now observed,
that is running our young girls and
bringing the grey hairs of their fathers
and mothers and beaux and the next
door neighbors in sorrow to the grave.
Show us girl who can play the piano
from morning till night and we will
show You a girl that isn't good for
much else. Show us q girl that can
play a fugue from Mendelssohn and
knock all the con expressions and con
amore out of a symphony in f minor,
and we will, generally, show you
girl that cant tell q tea biscuit from
jew sharp and who, if called upon to
dust around and get q meal for tired
father or a hungry mother, would have
to give it up and could only wiring her
hands and go in corner and weep.
The piano is all right; but there is no
emergency in the piano business, while
there is in Kitchen work and house.
keeping. ''Music hath charms to sOOthe
the savage breast but man, big, strong
hearty, robust, human man, when he
is hungry, hath void that the strains
of Mozart will not fill. a stomach that
kathleen Mavoureenn in six flats will
not lull. In these remarks, let it be
borne in mind, the writer has not lost
sight of the fact that there are few
choice flowers in the sweet bouquet of
girlhood whose talent comprehends
and blends the combination of musical
art and practical womanly knowledge
with grace, a fitness as delightful as
it is rare; but, rs we observe, these
phenomenal minds are rare in woman
or man either-and in nine cases out
of ten the everyday woman who ex-
poets to run domestic establishment
and put in six solid hours day on the
piano, will have to make an assign.
ment for the benefit of her creditors.
The girl who sings "Thc Harp that
once thro' Tara's halls from morn to
dewy eve must expect to mingle her
sweet notes with the just and indignant
wrath of a hungry husband when he
comes home at night. All good hus-
bands love to see music in their wives,
but the average fair-haired dry goods
clerk, the day-laborer, the machinist
and the mill-man, who have to work
hard and sweat for their dollar or two
dollars a day, these men, we say, while
they admire music, prefer to see it in
their wives as it is played on the me-
lodious floor-mOp and the airy ironing
board, and they would rather, far rath-
er, when they hear their wives at the
piano singing "In the cleaning" and
there is no supper ready at O'clock
they would rather see them singing in
the pantry, the kitchen and the dining
room. The craze for piano playing is
making more rich music teachers and
old maids than it is happy wives and
homes. We do not object to music
Indeed, if it were possible we would be
glad to see every young girl and wife
in the land know how to play the piano.
1t is the evil tendencies of the thing
that are objected to; the natural causes
that arise to influence young girls SO
that they will think because they can
play operate nonsense on the piano
they can turn the world upside down.
There is u big demand growing for
girls who can get more music out of
broom-sticks and bakc-ovens than pi-
amos and thirty-two-stop organs. This
demand is increasing in the United
States every day, and after awhile it
will get SO that a young man will break
the engagement or keep away altogeth-
er from an otherwise good girl when
he learns that she has made scientific
study of the art of paving ivory-that
she can execute an intricate fantasia or
paralyze n romanza and make sonata
look sick while the steak on the broiler
is burning and making the house smell
and the buckwheat batter on the bread
box has turned sour Williamsport
Breakfast Table.