Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-03-03


aYS own, and a boarding
" house, the noes have
~ it unmistakably, but
when compared with
the ideal condition of life, it will be ad-
mitted that housekeeping is failure to
larger degree than is perhaps generally
known or admitted. If housekeeping-as
managed by the average housewife-is so
economically, carefully and effectively ad-
ministered that it pays the expected dlvl-
dends in comfort, health andhappiness it is
success, but when conducted In
shiftless, careless, extravagant
style that exhausts the pocket,
disturbs all peace of mind, and
ruins home comforts, then it is manifestly
afailure-destructive of domestic bliss and
deficient in the virtues that sustain the best
interests of marriage.
EMBRYO HOUSEWIVES.
1t is hard to see the rights of the case.
Girls are being continually preached to
that their business in life-the end of their
existence-is to marry, and keep house, and
rear a family, but up to the day when they
assume such responsibility they are by large
majority, engaged in some other calling.
They are filling places in stores, offices, ,facto-
! ries and mills. They are employed in dress
making, millinery, teaching and other pur-
suits in which they have exhibited great
dexterity, tact, and adataption.
Marriage is state of life to which they
expect to be called-.hey fancy it dream
| of felicity in which they long to take part
but of the housekeeping that goes with it
they know very little-they are not familiar
with its requirements, and they, very likely,
have neither the taste nor ability that COM
mand success in its pursuance. II by some
method of prescience or medium of spiritual
manifestation they could see the life of a
housekeeper laid out before them they would
be very likely to shrink from it with horror
and disgust. But In the absence OF knowl-
edge and the blindness of faith they enter
in, and blunder all their lives long, unless
BY wisdom of experience, adaptation and
absolute determination they decide to
master their problem and make their lives
sublime by martyrdom and sacrifice to the
domestic gods.
BORN NOT MADE.
For housekeepers who are an eminent sue
! cess-like poets-are born not made. In a
training school for nurses, it is the testi-
mony of the authorities. that they can train
| almost any woman into moderately eff
cient nurse, but the real ones, the ideal
ones, the treasures, are born and not made
Training added to their natural skill, in
! structlon sharpened their innate capacity,
| and knowledge made more available their
genius, for the work, but it was their in
nate capacity and power aided by intelli-
| gence that made their cminence in their pro-
! fession. The same is true of teachers. All
educated persons can perhaps teach after a
fashion, but those eminent are those whose
abilities are most adapted to the business
and find it the best field for their exertions.
The same is true of preachers, of doc
tors of lawyers. All men might be edu-
Gated and trained to take their places
| in such professions in some sort of way,
but only those fitted by nature and
Unborn tastes for such pursuits achieve
| eminence and success. Poets are born, not
made. All the teachings of theschools can
not produce a Homer, a Dante, Shake
speare, Milton, Byron, Robert Burns
| or Tennyson. Oxford and Cambridge and
| Yale and Harvard combined, with all their
prestige of learning and skill in teaching,
cannot put brains into clod, or fire the
soul of a puttyhead, or furnish the divine
spark for even their most favored pupils.
WOULD CROWD JAY GOULD.
Business ability, long headedness, and
| foresightedness in speculation are not
taught in brokers' offices or stock exchanges
else all, or most, would be equally smart
and capable of amassing millions and be-
coming Jay Goulds or Hetty Greens.
The same may be said of housekeepers.
| Those who are success in good housekeep.
ing have the Unborn gift. They are possessed
of the capacity for mastery OF its problems,
1 81 onf Ne he
power to conquer its dificulties-cross its
mountains, and tunnel or surmount its
rocks. Every woman-and likely every
| man-can learn to keep house after fashion
| Just as every man can hew wood and draw
water and make garden and run farm or
factory, in some sort of way. But only few
| women succeed as eminent housekeepers, as
| inspired cooks, as efficient heads of home
administration, as great masters Of domestic
science.
| AS, through the progress of civilization,
housekeeping grows more complex, it be-
comes more difficult problem for the aver
age woman. When, century ago, our
first families lived in a cabin with one
room and a loft, and ate their food from
wooden bowls, housekeeping was simple
affair, though even then the housekeepers
with faculty who were forehanded and fore
sighted had reputation beyond the CON-
mon. But now the way OF living imposes
such heavy burdens upon housekeepers that
to simplify housekeeping is the thing most
urgently demanded. and there is constant
call for knowledge by which its loads may
be lightened. The foremothers are con-
stantly held up to the women of to-day on
the score of the work they accomplished in
the way of weaving and spinning, in addition
to the other labors of the house, but whal
was their housework as compared with that
of the middle-class homes OF to-day.
NO USE FOR COOK BOOKS.
Boiled cabbage and a dish of bacon served
| upon slab of wood, with luxurious tin
cup for the whole family to drink from,
meant no such amount of work as that con.
nected with even a plain family dinner
nowadays, that is more luxurious in its ap.
pointments, than that served upon kings
tables in olden times by a. retinue Of
servants
The housekeepers of the present are
slaves to custom. Those with small incomes
aim to live exactly as do people with large
ones. They want as many frills and as
much style as their neighbors, even if they
die in the struggle to keep up appearances
A boarding house''-abused as it is-has
in it the idea of housekeeping being in the
hands of those best adapted to it and most
capable of conducting it successfully. We
have in our mind woman who was born
housekeeper. When thrown upon her own
resources by death and misfortune, she faced
poverty with courage. "I did not at first, u
she said, ''know which way to turn to make
living. The only thing 1 really knew
was housekeeping, SO l took boarders. y
And it may be said that hers was the ideal
boarding house, or as near to it as is per.
mitted to be in this world of imperfection.
| ha a ruha1lv, he