Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1905-12-25

lure VI apartment HoteiS "AANii A-'
daZZles even old hOusekeepers. what
it does to young house-makers we
know at least enough to make us think.
Out of this glamour of wholesale, COM
munity style of living there Ifts one
cloud on which a recent euloglst Oh
the hotel has writ large the legend:
The Passing of the American home
No doubt the shabby, ill-kept, unlove-
ly houses anywhere, are better away.
They pass in the ordinary evolution.
Order. cleanliness, taste and education
cleave their way. We have but to
recognize and make place for them.
NO doubt, also, the household
drudge. the beshawled, addressed and
frowzy hOusekeeper who must stand
abashcd in presence of Il decent shop
or factory girl, and who finds herself
pushed to the wall by these rivals all
to often, is doomed, not by the hotel,
but by a natural process or eXpur-
CATION, to disappear from the ranks Of
self-respecting homemakers, and de-
scend to the lower levels where law and
the police have needful sway. These
shifts and changes must come. These
rude conditions and conceptions, these
Wretched adjuncts of home will right
ly and fieetly pass away.
And still the home must remain or
our religion will lose its human heart,
and our life will lose it's Christmas
charm. For if we are to have 4 true
Christmas, there must be true Christ
mas home for which there must be a
true Christmas woman. The angel of
h list no
motherhood to the women who are
chosen to glorify and guide our homes
on the way to perfectness of love and
the fulness of earthly joy"
Now, no one can have Il larger regard
than do we for the possible good of
social philanthropy. but sometimes we
are moved to question whether we are
not destroying more than we build. If
we have house and can afford it. we
make 1t altogether too nice to be used :
1t is to look at while we go out for
everything which should be grown right
there. How we used to look forward
with joy TO the winter evenings for
reading and for games, and for fellow
ship around the fireside and possibly in
the freight, but now we are fixing
reading rooms, and clubs, and GYM
naSiumS, and socials, and parties, and
what not to take us away from home
every night in the week. Our children
are being brought up with the idea that
all real life and happiness is outside of
the home and not in it,
Once we gathered our own books and
had our own library, which we read
ana enjoyed, but we cannot compete
with the Carnegie Offering. Once We
had Il few games and lot of fellowship
at our own hearthstOne. but now that
is all too slow. We must get out with
the crowd.
Don't you see that our sensibilities
are getting callous? 1t takes more to
make an impression. Once a very little
christmas tree, a very little gift, Il very
few flowers, very little pleasure We're
but now we must dress
our tree little better than our neigh
Dor. 1t must be little higher, a little
more spreading. until the green and
simple beauty is hidden beneath a mass
OF decorations. We mask the work of
God with the cheap tinsel of our own
buying at the bargain counter
We are even teaching the poor to
abandon their homes on Christmas
day and go with the mob to be fed
at the public table to which we have
been contributing our pennies on the
street corners; giving some one q
dlhner 1t may be, who would not else
nave had one, but taking away the
sense of responsibility and self-re-
Spect, and self reliance from a hundred
families, who, because they can get
for nothing, are not going
TO save cent: and we are growing a
race of invertebrates willing to live on
CHARITY. and having none of the spirit
or influence of possible home, In
a great many ways we are DESTROYING
mat winch is basic to the stability and
happiness of the worlds life and to hu.
man happiness.
And we are destroying all this
through our own destruction of the
home spirit in our homes, trying to
make things too complex and elabor-
ate, trying to keep up with the process
sion. Ana all this is manifesting it
sell IN our observance of our Christ
mas in the home. We have caught in
this the competitive spirit of the age
and are slowly losing the real Christ
mas. The pitiful greed of little
children for an abundance of gifts and
the way in which they value them:
What did you get?" as if this holy day
We're great grabbing the good Lord
rad let down from heaven.
But this is Il side of Christmas think
ing we do not like however salutarv
1t may be. We only speak i'm warning
OF one Of the chief dangers to America
today, the destruction of the home
which danger is real, and in which we
as people interested in the young life
OF the age must interest ourselves. If
we 90 not teach them and lead them
M right paths the home loses its hold
what is to become of them? The
nome influence is more important than
all our teaching in day schools and
SUNDAY schools, and if the home in
ilucnce is being lost. then it is time
1oi us to give heed to the danger.
But we look with hope to the sus-
tanned and sustaining power of Christ
mas. That is the one day which vet
remains which can redeem the home
from ITS danger if we use it Alright.
Then. if at no other time, our thoughts
turn to the home circle. Then do we
give up for few hours at least. the
struggle, and in the fret and in the