The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-08-02
WHY THE GIRLS FAIL.

founding discovery that in the ignorance
which their young married daughters
display concerning the first duties of
marital difficulties with which that city
is burdened. This is important and
really it is quite true.
Freely translated their set declara-
ton means that the girls who have been
called upon to take their places as wives
have not had sufficient training in dish
washing, sewing, cooking and the many
other things which belong to household
affairs that girls should understand and
in which they should have training and
discipline. On the other hand they have
been taught how to dance, wig wag
with strange young men and have learn
ed to perfection all the arts and tricks
Of the professional flirt. And right
there is the source of the whole trouble.
Their parents have surrounded them
with these conditions, rearing them in
the luxuries of wealthy homes where
there has been no forethought as to the
more solid, sensible things Of human ex-
istence. They may have gone off to
boarding school for a while but the lack
of strict training when they were
younger by their parents has left them
SO deficient in consciousness as to the
respect which teachers and elders should
command over them that their school
course falls far short of what it was
intended.
In their homes the girls display not
the slightest desire to make life pleas
anter for other members of the family.
The chief end of their existence Is to
shirk anything the least bordering upon
work. If they happen to have a clerk
ship in some store they go to work with
deal of disinclination for duty. And
then in whatever capacities they find
exercise for their silly little capabilities
it is to spend every possible bit of time
avoiding the orders of their superiors
and to devote to having good time.
Their hours of duty are short, and
after quitting time they go home. tog
up in an old wrapper. friz their hair,
look sick and wild and the rest Of the
folks know them no more until supper
time when they come out of a dark
room to eat a few pickles. Then they
don themselves in their hurrah clothes,
powder and fix for his coming and the
earth sees no more of them until the
next morning. All the evening they
spend in the buggy beside some little
lad who pulls out a light check each
month and spends it all for livery bills;
or what is worse the youth hasn't any
salary except that which his rich and
foolish parents give to him. He distrib-
utes his money around on the girls as
though it were making him a consump-
tive to carry it In his pockets. So it
goes. There is short but furious
courtship, the young people are married
on the impulse of the moment and what
do they know about the burdens which
they are shouldering upon themselves?
1t is for them, poor things, to learn
in the bitter school Of hard experience
that there is something lacking which
cannot be brought forward to substitute
for happiness. They have found it out
all too late; and very often never learn
it until after there is a court house
scene, a divorce case and then it all
comes out how that the wife knowing
nothing about her home duties gave her
time and thought upon other matters
aside from those which sould concern a
good woman. She did nothing to make
the place that should have been the
home of her husband inviting but lived
for something else. He, finding the de-
fusion of married life, resolved to give
it up and once more take the struggle
for existence alone. This decision was
not reached without many a heart-ache
on his part--and all because Of a giddy
wife who had not been properly trained
by her parents.
These matters have their counter
part in many sections of the country
now and 1t is because of all this false
affection which young people cultivate
at the expense of more sensible attain
ments-the learning of things which
shall be Of no use that is the root of the
whole evil Talk about. the rum power
all you please, but there Is another side
to this unhappiness of which people
hear very little. and that side has been
touched upon. Kindly directions in the
household duties which should fall to
the lot of every woman at some time IN
her life, an occasional lecture, and once
in awhile a sound spanking would mean
an effective remedy for much OF this
trouble.