Evening star., 1896-01-11

J. 8 ! ! !: ! ! !!
LGHNNW put off the corrup-
N MEM1 ton of the old hired
W3IN w girl, and is rising in
mH Y!h II our midst clothed in
the Immortality Of
W truth as revealed by
science and applied
by the best of human understanding.
That this is no prophetic vagary, born
Of Imagination fevered by the ambition
of the new woman, and fostering with the
carping cares of housekeeper, I mean to
convince you by series of stories setting
forth all the facts and relations of the
metempsychosis of Mary Ann, and, as a
beginning, I want to tell you how house
work is looking up.
Extended in scope to make place for the
inevitable mental activity of the in-de-
steele woman, and elevated in tone by the
high-sounding title, domestic science, or
household economics, housework has ad-
vanced to the dignity of a university
course. The University of Wisconsin, that
of Indiana, the Leland Stanford Univer-
sity tie University of Chicago, and, more
recently, the University of New York, have
all adopted course in domestic science
which receives credits-n other words
which places the study of housework on a
par educationally with civil engineering
ard Greek. Similar recognition is ac-
woman in Drexel Institute, Pratt Insti-
tute, the Boston Normal School of Cook
cry, and in st. Louis is a fiourishing do
mestic science school, which was founded
and brought to a state of assured success
by Mrs. John B. Henderson. At Buffalo,
N. Y, is still another school, and how
many more there may be modestly oper-
ating in various parts of the country do
not know.
Happy Though a Housekeepcr.
But the academic attention now accorded
housework is not all. There is a national
association of women organized for the
purpose of securing tG housekeepers past
the age and opportunity for going to school
means Of advancing science in the kitchen.
This is the National Household Economic
Association, which was born at Chicago
during the worlds fair, when a number Of
prominent women banded together under
the name 'The Columbian Housekeepers,"
to compare notes and make suggestions
concerning the solution of the eternal wo-
mans problem, How to be happy though
housekeeper."
This National Household Economic AS
sociation is divided into state and county
committees. that operate chiefly through
the medium of already established wo-
mans clubs, aiming to direct the higher
education Of the club woman to serve her
lower aims at home. The association has
an official organ-the American Kitchen
..
Estelle NJ. H. Merrill, a practical news
paper woman, formerly for eight years on
the staff of the Boston Globe. Mrs. Mer-
rill lately instituted an, inquiry among one
hundred womans' clubs in various parts of
the country concerning their activity in
the domestic sphere, and found every one
striving through different channels to re-
-ouce houSework to a science.
"Trying 1t on the Dog"
Now. of coursc, every mothers son who
No Nf
over the nonsense of the new woman, and
fails utterly to see how on earth it is pos
sible to introduce science among pots and
kettles. or what possible use there is in
putting Mary Ann through a university
course Truth to. tell, 1 have been just as
skeptical as a man in the matter myself,
Tor nave been extremely conservative in
my Kitchen views ever since-as possibly
you 1ecal!-I set out with a war whoop
transform the darkest Africa of scullery
INTO gf rious America of perpetual de-
light l expected to do this by going into
the kitchen yself for n week and merely
letting the light of my trained intellect
play upon the problem that three meals a
day and he attendant work propose AT
the end of the first day 1 was sick abed
and at the end of second day l shook
the dust of the kitchen from my feet con-
WINGED that there are heights and DEPTHS
and breadths and even a fourth dimension
to the kitchen problem which only the
blood of martyrs. commonly called hired
girls, can ever hope to fathom Thus when
the advantage of studying housework in
books and in the laboratory of the chemist
was first suggested to me 1 scorned the
IDEA as mt for the subject of an essay to be
read before woman's club, but adapted
to no mere serious reed of woman But
somehow domestic science seemed to have
marked me for its own. At all events dur
Ing the past six months have been unable
Ia m rrrrtf Cfrr1x
escape the missionary endeavcrs of persons
who are masters of 1t, the result being
that several months ago began trying It
on the dog-trying 1t in my own home, that
would warrant the intention have formed
of seeking t. induce other women to try 1t,
did not al authority superior to any pos
sibie to emanate from me-the authority of
men l have found, work out with mathe-
matical exactness the fact that scientific
methods must be adopted in the kitchen.
This conclusion is demonstrated with
reference to something that comes, next to
his stomach, near the heart of man-his
pocketbook.
How to Spend Money.
That eminent practical economist, Ed
ward Atkinson, has written down:
''The great need of this country is not to
know how to earn money, but how to
spend an inco ne, especially a small one"
In conversation with Mr.. Atkinson re-
Gently he supplemented this statement,
saying: Il find the most hopeless poverty
OF the american people to be poverty of
ideas. They seem to be born with just one,
and, by living to acquire just one more
the first to make moEey, and the last to
get rid Of it. AS result their lives are
seldom rich unless their pocketbooks are
inordinately so; they lack the wealth of
enjoyment to be had in lives economically
adjusted to the greatest variety of uses,
and this lack in the experience of men of
small incomes becomes practical poverty,
telling chiefly in poorly fed and badly sus-
tanned bodies. I think the greatest charity
of the day is to be accomplished in en-
abling men whose income is, say, $1,000 q
year, to know how to spend their earnings
wisely. and this charity can conceive to
be one especially dependent for it's success
upon the efforts of individual women,
Studying the subject and applying the
fruits Of their study in individual homes"
Although Edward Atkinson is recognized
at home and abroad having done more
than any other American to establish liv-
ing In this country on economic basis,
and any view he holds is therefore not
visionary, but truth worked out from his
experience, it is not necessary to accept