The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-04-03
MUTUAL BENEFIT EDUCATION.

women away from the domestic sphere
by teaching boys how to sew and
cook. Hereafter, in Manhattan, the
science of the frying pan viii be in
culcated along with the science of
mathematics, and an intelligent, edu-
Gated youth will be able to recognize
a mauve voille bolero with lace in
sets and entire doux at sight and know
it for what it is as easily as he does
q right angle triangle.
To the majority of people the limo
walton of teaching boys the household
arts will seem doubtful wisdom, and
woman, in particular. will be inclined
TO resent il. 1t is an invasion of the
one field of labor where she has been
permitted to work without anybody
questioning her right to delve in it,
and with a prospect of papa's pies III
valling mammals doughnuts she may
well look forward with apprehension
TO a time when, like Othello, her oc-
cupation win be gone. Worse still, it
is a deadly blow at matrimony. The
man who can sew on his own buttons,
and patch his own trousers, and cook
things just as he likes them, viii have
one less incentive to marry than the
man who depends on some woman to
rescue him from the depredations Of
laundresses and the nightmare of
boarding houses.
All of these objections, however, are
more than compensated by the daz
cling prospects of domestic bliss Of
fered to the woman who is lucky
enough to marry a husband who has
had a thorough domestic training. In
deed, it does not take a prophetic Wis
ion to see that New York will become
the Mecca of women in search of hus-
bands and that the matrimonial prize
Of the future will not be the million
aire, nor the swell, but the youth who
has taken the blue ribbon prize in the
cooking school.
Nor does this imply that women have
any intention of abandoning the cook
ing stove that has ever been their most
potent weapon and ally. 1t merely
means that women win find in the
man who has wrestled with bread that
wouldn't rise, and jelly that wouldn't
jell, and VINO has been up against the
pots and pans, a heart-to-heart SYM
pathy and comprehension that no I'M
culinary, half-baked man can ever
feel. Dickens says, in one of his sto-
ries, that no educated man ever looks
at even the back of a book like an
ignorant person does, and 1t is pre-
cisely the same way in domestic af-
fairs. The man whose whole expert
ence in housekeeping consists in offer
ing gratuitous criticism every time
anything is overdone or UNDERGONE.
can never behold a dinner with the
same exquisite perception of all the la
Dor and time and worry it took to pro-
duce it. that the man will show who
knows from personal experience of the
deceitfulness of butchers meat and
the caprices of the kitchen range.
As it is now, the average husband is
like the military experts who sit in
their offices, and theorize about how
japan ought to carry on a campaign
in country of which they know next
TO nothing and whose difficulties they
habitually underestimate. AS he fig
ures it out, all the domestic trials that
seem mountains to his wife are but
mole hills that she ought to be able
TO take with one hand tied behind
her. All that she has to do is to march
double quick on the enemy intrenched
in the kitchen, show a bold front, fire
off a torpedo or two after which he
expects white winged peace to hover
over the scene. II doesn't even occur
to him that the enemy is intrenched
in her own country, and armed to the
teeth with bombs in the shape of
threats to leave. and at the very first
hint of attack she is ready to execute
a successful retreat, leaving behind her
the breakfast dishes in the sink and
the clothes soaking in the tubs.
The general man has nothing but
contemptuous pity for the feeble fem
mime intellect that cannot manage two
servants with acquiring gray hairs
and wrinkles in the process, while he
bosses a hundred employees without
turning a hair. The man who has been
through the domestic mill on his own
account will never take that tone of
voice with his wife. He knows that no
rule that applies to other labor has
any bearing on the servant girl ques-
ton. Like the wind she cometh and
goeth as she listeth and no man or
woman knows when, or why, or for
how long she is going to list Nor will
a domestic husband make unfavorable
comments on the culinary achieve
ments of Sarah, and Hilda, and Dinah.
He will eat what is set before him,
asking no questions for sympathy
sake. and he will reflect when things
60 wrong that perhaps he would get
no better results in his own affairs if
he had to depend for help on ignorant
and unreliable people who neither de-
sired to learn their business nor to
keep their places.
OF how desirable husband would
be who could sew a hook on the back
of a bodice when one popped off at q
critical moment, and who took a real
heart interest in fashions, and was
able to discuss intelligently the sub
tie points of a creation and a confec-
ton, il is needless to speak. No
husband can ever hope to be All in All
to his wife until he understands chif-
fons. 1t is mems lack of comprehen-
sion of clothes that drives thousands
of women to tea drinking and gossip,
and with a husband not only able to
discuss, but IL need be to take a nee
die, and assist in making godet plaits
and French knots. the great question
of how to keep a wife at home may be
considered as good as settled
In all good truth, teaching boys how
to cook and sew is one of the most
practical and healthful suggestions
that has yet been made towards set
Ting some of the vexed domestic prob
lens. 1t is the first effort that has yet
been made to make men see life from
the woman's point of view. Most of the
difficulties between men and women
arise from their not comprehending the
troubles with which the other has to
cope, and, without doubt, the man who
practically knows how to cook and sew
will make a tenderer and a more pa
tient husband than the one who has
an illusion that meals are conjured on