The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-05-22
From Laundry to ParIOr.

one OF our Colonial Danes in her
parlor lamented the contagion Of
cCarseness from contact with the vul-
gar. Especially instanced was the case
of her washerwoman's daughter, who
is a pupil in the teachers training
school, with a record of merit behind
her in the high school that made it
shockingly probable that some day this
girl from the laundry might teach the
children of the Dame in the parlor.
And the latter was filled with appre-
hension lest the culture of her chill
dren might be contaminated by con-
tact with the vulgarity of the washer
Woman's daughter.
But we see no escape for the chill
dren of our Dame. 1t is one Of the
chances one has to take who will live
in a republic. This appalling persis-
tence of washerwomen's daughters in
rising out of the laundry; this absurd
ambition of our waSherwomen to have
their daughters do something higher
than cleanse the linen of their betters;
this sacrificing devotion of theirs that
strains frugality to keep their daugh-
tiers in the schools that their rise may
be surer, are tendencies that are quite
inseparable from republican institu-
tons, alarming ashley may be to the
Danes in the par4ors. No doubt Wash
ington made a great mistake, not so
| much for himself as for the posterity
of the gentle, when he refused the
crown. for we might then now have
our dukes and counts and barons, our
duchesses and countesses and baron
esses. and. S their titles descended
from sire to son, so would the tubs go
down the line of washers bequeathed
by rubbing mother to scrubbing
daughter, and caste would have it's
wall to keep refinement immune from
vulgarity.
But Washington made the mistake,
and our Danes must suffer, for the
daughters of our washerwomen will
continue to desert the tubs and strive
to gain the parlor, although they bring
no boast Of ancestry with them and
can hang no portraits of CO.
lonial grandsires on it's walls. But
we apprehend that no great harm
will come to the children of our Dame
should the mutations of life put her
children under tutelage to the daughter
Of her washerwoman- She should re-
fleet that the ancestors even of some
of our Colonial Danes were not as re-
fined as they should be, nor is it sur
prising when we read of the stock from
which they were drafted to make the
colonies for ambitious lords and specu-
lative commercial companies. She
might reflect that, Notwithstanding
their want Of culture, they have some
quite refined and gentle descendants,
and it might occur to her that it is pos
sible that the same influence might
work out the Qualification of the de-
! scendants of her washerwoman
A little further reflection upon what
madam must have observed of the
actual conditions of life might enable
her to comprehend the very serious fact
that the refinement and culture of her
children will depend very much more
upon the natures with which they came
endowed into this world than upon any
notions with which madam may Undue
them relative to the inferiority to them
selves of her waSherwomen'S daughters.
for innately vulgar souls do come to
inhabit bodies born into refinement,
and the Christ was born in a manager
If the children of our Dame should
| happily be endowed with minds capa-
| BILE Of grasping the RELATIVELY Of things,
| they may see in the fact that the
| daughter of their mothers washer
woman had come to be their instructor
| one of the most hopeful, the most en-
! couraging features of our social con-
ditioEs. They might come to value
more highly the institutions of coun-
try that raised no barrier between the
laundry and the parlor other than the
| brain power possessed by the daughters
! Of the laundry. And the Dame herself
might find calm for her perturbed soul
! If she would but submit to the inevtta-
| BILE and see, In this magnificent uplift
of humanity that is ceaselessly going
| on in our land. q movement which she
should hail and help instead of i'm
pede and bemoan.