The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-05-20
The Passing OF the Home.

A number of exchanges recently have
devoted considerable space to advising
women to enter the field as inventors;
citing many examples of successful in
ventions which were the product of
woman's brain. As soon as lovely woman
becomes proficient in this new line of
work she will be called upon to invent
something to take the place of home;
for the home is fast becoming a thing of
the past.
Every modern wealthy family has
''house" or residence" but only few
such families have homes. The business
man finds his club an ample substitute
for home. Here he takes his midday
lunch, though he be but ten or fifteen
minute ride from his residence. The
club parlor, where he can lounge, smoke.
and talk with other men, offers freedom
from restraint which his own richly fur
nished parlor never can offer. He
hunts around for some friend with
whom he can dine at hotel or at
! the club, and finding him not, heaves a
sigh and goes home to dinner. Here he
| finds a formal meal served in faultless
style. He does not linger long over his
dinner The rush with which he drives
his business extends TO his meals. There
is no happy gathering of the family circle
around the mahogany board-each one
casting off the world and bringing as a
zest TO the appetite a cheerful counte-
nance and bright story. He finds in
stead his wife and daughters fretful and
I tired by the strain of social life. Most
! likely his WIFE, knowing he cannot escape
pours out all her woes concerning the
| tboussnd-and-one trifies that agonize the
mind of the modern housekeeper. Go
| into any families you like and you will
scarcely find one in twenty where the
whole family spend the evening together
at home. Dinner over, the son rushes off
| TO tie club or some other undiscovered
country" the daughters are booked for
] some evening entertainment to which
their mother goes along as a chaperon,
and the father flies back to his office
or the club, or drops in at the theater.
There is something pathetic in
this mad struggle of the American people
| for money and for pleasure. Every mo-
ment must be crowded with excitement.
The modern woman devotes her morn
! ings to charitable work, COMMITTEES meet
| ings and shopping, and her
| afternoons and evenings to so
cial pleasures, and then she cannot find
time enough to accomplish all she wishes
! Instead of being the home maker and
being found at all times by the family
/ hearthstone, she announces on her cards
| that she will be "at home" one certain
day in each week you call then YOU
| will find her surrounded by n crowd of
friends, but if you call on any other day
you will not see her at all, but will be
greeted by the nurse or a maid instead.
II you are passing a friends house and
wish to run in and tell her bit of news
you are met at the door by servant and
told that madame is not at home to
callers, or else you are ushered into
drawing-room enveloped in q supernatural
gloom which chills you. Here you wait
for your friend to dress; then when she
does come down you find you are making
formal call. and she is surprised to find
that you have forgotten her Eat home"
day.
Many fine residences are simply starting
points from which the families migrate to
Florida in the winter and to Europe In
the summer.
Very few of the newly married couples
90 Immediately to housekeeping in houses
of their own. If they belong to the
wealthy class they hire suite of apart
ments in a fashionable flat or board at a
hotel. If the young man is a clerk and
the girl a teacher, bookkeeper or business
woman, they steal quietly to the ministers
some evening after working hours, and
both go to work as usual the next day
| There is no honeymoon and no hive
Both have carefully considered the cost of
taking a vacation and decided to wait I'M
til they get rich; and, poor deluded
mortals, that happy day never comes.
IL IL a common thing to find members
of family scattered to all parts of the
globe; and men will tell you with an air
of pride that they haven't seen the old
folks for twenty years-have almost for
gotten how my mother looks" But they
will tell you they are good to the old
folks; that they send them a check every
Christmas, and also hand over money
whenever they write for it,
With woman, we think, lies the remedy.
The woman who marries, or who il mar
ried, should consider home first and the
world afterward. Home should be the
resting place for the bread-winners, and
servants should not be left to welcome
home members of the family instead OF the
mother and daughters. A broad education
for women need not unfit them for becom-
ing houseksepers, but the results show
that it does make them dissatisfied with
domestic duties; that they turn from
home to clubs and business life, and that
the only ties which DOW bind the mem
bers of family are tho railroad ties,
with their iron bands, linking country
with country.
The President Is Responsible.
Secretary NOBLE has made good but