The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1886-04-16
JAPANESE HOUSES.


Why They Are Far Ahead Of Americas
Houses In Real Beauty.
1t is getting to be very embarrassing,
this civilization. especially to women.
We are accommodating so much. our
establishments are becoming SO compli-
Gated, that daily life is an effort. There are
too many .'things." Our houses are get
ting to be museums. A house now is a
library. an art gallery, a bric-a-brac
shop, furniture warehouse, q crock
cry store, combined. 1t is great es.
Enlistment run for the benefit of ser.
wants. plumbers. furnace-men, grocers,
tinkers. Regarded in one light. it il .
very interesting place. and in another, it is
an eleemosynary institution. We are
accustomed to consider it mark of
high civilization; that is to saw, the
more complicated and overloaded we
make our domestic lives. the more civ.
ilized we regard ourselves. Now per-
haps we are on the wrong track alto
gether. Perhaps the way to high civili-
cation is toward simplicity and disen-
tanglement. SO that the human beings
will be less slave to his surrounding
and impedimenta, and have more leis-
ure for his own cultivation and eniov-
ment. Perhaps life on much simpler
terms than we now carry it on with
would be on really higher plane. We
have been looking at some pictures of
Japanese dwellings,. interiors. How
simple they are! how little furniture or
adornment. how few things" to care
for and be anxious about! Now the
Japanese are q very ancient people.
They are people of high breeding. pol
ish, refinement. They are in some
respects like the Chinese, who have
passed through ages of cy-
cles of experience, worn out about
all the PHILOSOPHERS and religions then
on, and come out on the other side OF
every thing. They have learned to
take things rather easily, not to fret,
and to get on without Il great many en-
cumbrances that we still YEARLY carry
along. When we look at the Japanese
houses and at their comparatively
simple life, are we warranted in saving
that they are behind Us in civilization?
May it not be true that they have lived
through all our experience. and come
down to an easy modus rirendi? They
may have had their bric-a-brac period,
their overlOaded-establshm age,
their various measles stages of civiliza-
ton. before they reached condition in
which life is "A comparatively simple
affair. This thought must strike any
one who sees the present Japanese craze
in this country. For. instead of adopt
ing the Japanese simplicity in our dwell
ings. we are adding the Japanese eccen-
tricities to our other accumulations of
odds and ends from all creation, and
increasing the incongruity and the COM
plication of our daily life. What help
less being is the housewife in the midst
Of her treasures! The Drawer has had
occasion to speak lately of the recent
enthusiasm in this country for the '.cul-
tivation of the mind" 1t has become
almost a fashion. Clubs are formed for
this express purpose. But what chance
is there for it in the increasing anxieties
of our more and more involved and
overloaded domestic life? Suppose we
have clubs-Japanese clubs they might
be called-for the simplification of our
dwellings and for getting rid of much of
our embarrassing menage.-Charies
Dudley Warner. in Harpers Magazine.