The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1895-05-08

|
PEELED to go from store to store for differ
ent purchases, at her word, as by the
rubbing of Aladdin's lamp, the great de-
partment store arises and from it she
may furnish her house from garrett to
cellar. These things have come because
| she has asked for them, or because men
| have anticipated her unspoken wish.
| Thousands Of men are cudgellng their
brains this very minute endeavOring to
imagine what will be her demands in tn,
way of wash silk, dotted null, henrietta
and serge; so that when she goes as go
she will, year hence, to rectity that
sad condition in which, Notwithstanding
her authority, she finds herself seminar,
nually-that of having nothing to
wear''-she will find precisely what she
was just beginning to think she might
want, her Supreme Highness, the Queen
of the Dinner Table.
The question Are not some women
wiser, better, and better informed than
some men who vote, and therefore ought
not all women to vote?" is no more per-
tinent than the question, care not some
women stronger, more capable and in
better health than some men who pillow,
and therefore ought not all women to
ploww The question is rather whether
she cannot do beJter--whether it is not
better for society that she shall remain
in a sphere where she can exert "A better
and more potent influence? Artemus
Ward wished the angular woman, who
brandished her umbrella at him dan
gerously while she talked of ''woman's
SPEAR to remember when she went into
the spear business that he was not
pickerel. Very many such women have
needed the admOnition, but there is an
other thing to be rememb ered, which is
the very wide and charging sphere
which woman has apart from public life
and it's duties.
No one at this day would oppose wo-
mans entrance into public life. She
has already proved herself capable of
doing many things wisely and we'll. AS
teacher. a nurse, a physician, an edi-
tor and much more she is making her
calling and election sure. And society
has no right to demand IN advance that
if she enters professional life she shall
never marry, though the matter Of the
relation of marriage to her profession
should surely be considered by her be-
fore she enters upon her professional
career. But, whatever her plans and
her performances, she should never for
get that the woman who has home and
keeps it we'll has no narrow sphere in
life. | sometimes have thought, as |
have heard women make causGic allu-
sions to what was once thought to be
"woman's sphere" as though some tre-
mendous social and physiological up
heaval had left all such opinions to be
studied IN their fossil remains in the
strata of an out grown past, that by i'm
plication they are slandering their own
mothers. And | have sometimes con
jured up an imaginary face to place be-
side the speaker's-a dear, old, wrnkled
face, with gray hair and white cap and
spectacles-and, viewing it with the
face before me, with features too hard
to wrinkle easily and with wrinkles care
fully cared for, with false frizzes and
lOrgnette, accom- panied by masculine
voice and a stride, have said that if tie
old system with all it's defects was not
better adapted than the one designed to
be forced upon us to the making of
sweet mothers and grandmothers (and
that meaus the making of good hus-
bands and sons and fathers) then appear
ances are deceitful beyond the widest
stretch of the pr0verb, and the re is need
of a revision of the statement which has
come to us on authority hitherto
counted good that system may be
judged by it's fruits -COngregationali t.