DeSoto times. (Hernando, Miss.) 1879-1898, 1890-12-04
IN W0MAN'S BEHALF.
WOMAN AND THE HOME.
Some Tendencies of Higher Education
1t Improves Instead of Lowers the
Status of Domestic Life.


Status of Domestic Life.
''The better trained women of the fu-
ture will have their sorrows, but half
the misery of our generation goes
through lack oi pursuit, unfitness for
any because of the defective mental
training we hava had. .. There is a
better time coming-I shall not see it,
but am glad to have seen it's dawn"
So wrote Mrs William Smith, more
tnan twenty years ago. from her own
standpoint of loving, helpful wifehood
and self-Support!ng, reliant womanhood.
Since these words were penned, SO
many college doors have been opened
to woman in both England and Amer
lea, and 50 many industrial avenues are
being opened out upon their paths that
men, especially those of the Mr.. Grant
Allen order of mind fearing that their
untried eyes may be dazzled by the sud
den flash Of light, are crying out in dis
may that this brilliant vista may unfit
women for domestic life with its hum
bier cares and joys.
1t does not seem to have been admit
ted in any court of justice that man is
better husband, father or citizen os-
cause he is ignorant, yet this theory
with regard to woman seems to lie at
the base of most arguments against her
superior education. One person states
that the cultivated woman has less
! heart than the LnCultivated, as if hCart
were quality to be trained out of seo-
/ pie as the green color is bleached out of
| head lettuce; another claims that she
has lost her tast9 for domestic pursats,
while third urges that she is less like
| ly to marry. And this, while educated
women all over the land are entering
| heart and soul into schemes for the i'm
provement Of the race, are reducing
housekeeping to something approaching
fine art while those interested in col
leges for women are deploring the fact
that useful women presidents and pro-
feSSOrS will allow themselves to be
drawn into matrimony to the manifest
detriment of the institutions over which
they preside. Rather should we find
cause for rejoicing in this fact that
higher education is not opposing itself
to nature but joining hands with it in
its nobler demands, proving that it
means not simply preparation for col
lege or school teaching, but training for
life with all its varied duties and inter-
eSts. Doubtless such education, by rem
dering women selt-reliant and self-sup-
porting, prevents their marrying for
home or living. which ignoble motive
has been more or less potent factor in |
promoting marriage; but while thus in
torfering with some marriages, does it |
not immeasurably raise the plane ofsI
married life?
An age that demands something mora !
of its male geniuses than that they shall |
60 through life with their eyes on the
stars, or on folio, while their feet tread |
ruthlessly upon the conventionalities of
life, or upon the senSibilities of their
fellow travellers, should grasp the equal
ly pertinent truth that any one-sided ed
ucatlon of women, whether purely in
tellectual Or solely domestic, or exclu-
siVely ethical is unsatisfactory and in
complete. Men should be quito as in
tolerant of Winsome Doras and Noras
who serve badly cooked dinners to their
households and forge checks, as they
are of feminine philanthropists and
blues who dine upon Africa, with ten
envelopes in the gravy, and sup upon
sonnets to the moon, while neglected
husbands and children browse at large
The principal reason why men are more
lenient toward the former class than
the latter, is that they are conscious of
being, to a certain extent, responsible
for the fact that Dora and Nora are ig-
norant play-things, the outcome OF
timc-worn masculine theory that pretti-
ness is all, while with regard to the evo-
luton of the female phiIanthropist and
blue, men have had nothing whatever
to do, never having in their widest {
dreams Of progress wished them to be. {
They know that they have, like David s
-opperfeld, kissed away the tears of
heir doll wives when the accounts I
would not come out right and that they &
lave Sncered and quizzed when they I
1ave seen women trying to learn how {
he accounts could be made to come out ]
light I
While ! write, the picture rises before
ne OF home whose mistress reaches r
'ut helping hand toward many I
schemes Of philanthropy, guilds for t
yorking-women, neighborhood guilds, 7
nd clubs for the enlightenment of t
woman in her own sphere of life, yet
Who finds the highest work for hand t
nd brain in the sweet inclosure of her e
wn walls, where sharacter and health g
re being built up for future usefulness i
nd enjoyment, A woman who is capa "
lie OF solving abstruse mathematical I
roblems, or of grasping still more in Il
olved questions of social reform. vet O
Tho brings her trained mind to bear up- W
n small and great questions of house il
old economy, who studies the hygienic a
roperties of food and insists that her g
hildren shall have no pudding until II
hey have eaten a certain amount of
leat, who reads political economy be- s.
luse her daughter is studying it at col b
'ge, who teaches her children noble
'ssons by means of notices painted up S
the walls by her own hands, and p
hose playful fancy decorates the wash 81
and OF her little girls with grewsome tt
ragon whose mission is to remind them II
their mOrninr and pvopipo- l,f,- A., I