The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1898-02-01
ideas for lMo,nen

ass.
Here are some. reflections from a lively
feminine philosopher %
social students are forever telling us
how women should acquaint themselves
with the art of ~housewifery; all women
too-not just those who expect to put
their knowledge into practice. House.
keeping theories. say the students. are
quite as important as housekeeping prac-
tices. and no woman's education can be
considered complete, nor her character
rounded out. until she is web schooled in
sueh things. She may never be called
mon to put her knowledge to the test, but,
he that as it may. the woman ignorant of
h~ousewifery in all its moods and lenses
is but a half-deyeloped creature. But
why not men as we'll? Why should not
they. just the same as women, know all
about the theories, if not the practices,
of the domestic arts? It would not only
mean still GREATER personal COM
fort to themselves, but it would
women. Just think what difference it
would make. How patient and forbearing
and sympathetic and all else that they
ought to be, but which they are not, men
would become under such changed condi-
tons. The prime reason for masculine
fault-fnding and lack of appreciation
where household duties are now concerned
is because men know nothing about such
atters-becau they have never realized
all the trials and tribulations which the
housewife has to put up with. Depend
upon it. ever so little a nibble of fruit
from the tree of domestic knowledge
would open their eyes
$50
How many men of not immoderate
means come home at night to find the
house in order, everything just as it should
be, their wives and daughters arrayed for
dinner. and with apparently nothing to do
hut to smile and look pretty, and how
many men realize all the care and labor
and oversight that it has taken to bring
about this orderly and seemingly indolent
state of things2 If they did they wouldn't
be so quick 10 c~riticise when, in spite of
everything, something goes wrong No
man likes to find his wife and daughters
otherwise than ready to receive him, just
as though their whole day, if not their
whole lives. depended upon him. but for all
that, men have been known to say under
the circumstances: 'eWeIl,is this all you've
been doing all day? Just sitting round
like this enjoying yourselves? Dear me,
what an easy time women do have!' 1t
became necessary last summer for the
wife and daughters of a certain suburban
household to tear themselves away from
everything and go to Europe, leaving the
husband and father in charge. TIL won-
an returned in the autumn to find the hus-
band and fathe a sadder but wiser man
He had kept house, and at last he re-
allied all the endless possibilities bound
UP in these two words. He was a
changed being. Never a captious critic
of his wife ways, he had. nevertheless,
from the heights of his masculine ignor-
ance, felt it necessary before that to give
her pointers from time TO time. He
doesn't do so now, His wife finds no
surer ~sympathizer and adviser in her do
nestle trials than he. for he has been
through it all himself and he knows just
hsw hard it is. If other men could but
be put through such a course of discipline
it would mean an IS carat increase in do
lnest;c comfort"
It would seem an easy matter to give
the ideal measurements of the human
frarsa. but it is not SO. as there are so
many things to. be taken into considera-
ton. The measurements differ with the
different races, and the different classes
as well. The artistic standards are given.
The head is taken as the standard of
measurement. The height should be eight
times the length of the head-the length
of the head taken to meal the distance
from the top of it to the lowest point of
the chin. The trunk should be four heads
in length; the distance from the trunk to
the knees, two heads: and from the knees
70 fha foot tu-n hQadc Tho arrn ch0I11d
be a head and a half from the shoulder
to the elbow, and the same from the Ell
bow to the hand. The length of the face
should be the same as the length of the
~hand-from the tip of the middle finger
to the wrist. These are the proportions
for the adult. They differ according to
the years of growth with children, and
are different also between the girls and
boys and men and women. The trunk
Of women is said to be longer in proportion
than that of men, says 'Harper's Bazaar"
DR.. Sargent of Harvard prepared for
the Chicago Worlds Fair two clay mod
els. founded on the measurements of sew
sral thousand students. The average
height of the young men was 5 feet s.
inches; the average net weight, 1873
pounds; chest measurements, "a to 81
inches. inflated. 1t is said that in height,
weight and strength this far exceeds the
average of any other nation, even Eng
land. The average for the young women
was-height. 5 feea 3 inches; the weight,
ia pounds. and the chest measurement
but 80 inches. The measurements were
not as good for the women as for the
men, and do not represent as well the
development of the American women.
While girls are pretty and round-with
the ~Eoundness of youth at sixteen-they
nevertheless, do not show so perfect a de-
velorrnent of form as when twe1fty-four
Or more.
Women have a tendency to put on too
much flesh. and should beware of it, as
it destroys the proportions and the looks,
as well as the pleasure of moving about.
A short woman cannot weigh much oyer
100 pounds and preserve the proper pro-
portion. while the woman who measures
5 feet 6 inches or more looks well when
she weighs $50.
1.-THE silk petticoat appears in all colors
and every conceivable design writes
Mary Katharine Howard in February
"Woman's Home Companion in an in
structive article on New and Dainty Lin
gerie." These uxuries are made in ev-
ary grade Of elegance. from the cheapest
-affetas to the handsomest brocades. Taft