The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1905-04-06
LEISURE CLASS IS NECESSARY

/ LEISURE GLASS is NECESSARY
''This nation has need Of women OF
leisure, wemen who have time to be
very busy about things that are with
ont money and without price, de-
clared college president recently.
No one has any wish to quarrel
with the quickening interests which
have come into women's lives, but it
is certain that if all the women in
the future are to be too busy to attend
to the thugs that are without money
and without price, if they are to be
hurried and hurried over the things
of the world, the whole Of life have
become incomparably the poorer.
'There are three ways in which
women are pre-eminent: They are
the binders together of society, they
are the beautifers of life, and they
are the preservers of morals, said
President Hoard Of Wellsey in one Of
| her addresses.
AS the beautifiers of life they are
indeed most essential. Theirs the
privilege and duty to make centers Of
sweetness and light where the things
of this world cease from troubling
and the weary one may rest. Theirs
the primary and essential function Of
furnishing Refreshments and inspira-
tion for those who are wearied with
the conflict of life
But how are they to do this if every
moment is devoted to some money
getting pursuit and they reach home
with every nerve in state of tension,
every muscle aching with WEAKNESS
and TO desire but to creap away into
corner with their bruised being?
1t may be taken as an axiom that
few women engage in labor outside
the home unless forced to do so by
stress of circumstances, and there are
| few women who do not prefer the
| home life, with its duties and privil-
eyes. But apart from these there IS
a rapidity increasing circle' ST women
who have become so absorbed in the
various activities of society,"" of
club life of athletics and the 101
"cults' that claim attention from
time co time that the type of woman
/ who greets you in her quiet drawing
room as one who has "long days of
response behind her and looks serenely
forward to others of the same tenor"
is becoming SO rare as to impress one
as all exotic.
| Leisure is not luxury, it is sim
rle, human need, as necessary to nor
NAL health as food and sleep and air
1t is so garcious and civilizing pos
session that no man should be will
ling to do with out it, and he
should command it, if possible, for
his woman folk, as one of the most
precious possessions he can give
| them.
Too much hard physical work,
whether undertaken from necessity or
for pleasure WITNESS the athletic
craze), is bad for wemen, it is asser-
ted by more than one critic. The
savage or peasant woman, who are
often beautiful in youth, develop into
unseemly coarseness after some years
of unremitting toll.
Not that woman violate any obliga-
tion of womanliness or detract from
its dignity by making themselves more
capable, but if they are forced to Ia
Dor to the verge Of exhaustion they
cannot fail Of losing some of the gra-
cious charm of freshness which is the
fruit of a beautiful leisure, of years
of abiding in green pastures and be-
side the still waters of life; of doing
the things that are without money
and without price. ''And beauty
born of murmering sound shall pass
into her face wrote Emerson of his
Lucy, and it is certain that one of the
most first absorb at the great nat.
ural reservoir and fountains of the
beautiful in life and character and SO
be able to transmits beautv to all