The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-05-07
HERE AND THERE
Bv META FoLCER TOwNsEND.

tocracy founded on land and slave
holding is giving way to other forces
of changing nature. Even yet it
is not simply money that rules. Not
yet is it true that "all doors swing
open on golden hinges"
| More than a generation ago George
! William Curtis lamented the fact that
| nowhere else in the world did money
| have such power as at Newport and
places of a like nature, resorts where
the lavish expenditure of money fixed
ones social status on a high plane.
! Down here it was otherwise.
In the South there was an interim
after the war, in which the old-time
| shareholders held their social pre-
eminence in a quiet, almost undis-
| turbed way. Then the change began.
| Sons and daughters of these men mar
1ied beneath them, according to the
| old standards. The stratum just be-
| low heaved itself upward till today
| the dominant class is a mixed one as
to ante-bellum conditions. Still it is
not simply money that makes the dif-
| ference. Nobody recognizes that more
readily than do the men and women
who are on the ascending scale.
Money will buy certain tolerance.
An entertainment may be given, and.
on the surface, the host and guests
seem equally pleased. but where there
is all display and no real gentlity-
gentlenesS of manner and Spirit-the
true note of fine social life is lack
| ing.
TO the constant changefulness and
unrest of our present conditions is to
be attributed, it seems to me, much
of the stirring after sort of culture
which is one of the fads of the day.
1t is a belittling of a noble word
to apply culture thus loosely. In
its true sense the term implies long
and slow process. The plough is
then the earth lies there under the
benignant skies while sun and rain
do their work. This is culture. Nor
can we hope to acquire it by any
quick, ready -to-wear methods.
Real culture, the things of the mind
and heart, have an appreciation in
our country. The mOneyed man and,
much more, the moneyed woman,
feel that these other things must be
added to their money.
Thence has sprung up system OF
veneering which is made to answer
for the real substance.
There is nothing more apparent
than the fact that while external con-
ditionS in the South are changing, the
people themselves are changing. The
/
men. Mr.. Bryce, writing in The Out
look of America Revisited, says the
south is more modern" That's the
word. 1t fits our women also. Ana
the American woman, as the southern
woman, is not a fixed quantity.
With this freedom that is given our
women there comes q change that
strikes an onlooker as being one not
altogether desirable. There is no need
of evadng important questions be
cause of mistaken delicacy. With
the new life opening out before Wo-
men the life of the outside world,
one of more varied interest and am
billions. there is coming an unwilling
ness to assume the care of large
families
We may jeer at the President
when he sets forth his views on race
suicide" but all our trifling with the
matter can not rob it Of a vital i'm
| portance. And it well becomes men
and women to give the question seri-
Gus thought.
The old-time Southern family was
of a piece with the English house
hold as to size. 1t was no unusual
thing for a woman to be the mother
of q dozen children. 1 daresay it
never occurred to one in a score of
mothers to rebel against what they
der of things.
To-day there is a steadily growing
tendency to the small family, and the
most speciouS arguments are used
in favor of the tendency. l refer es-
pecially to the South. OF course it is
foregone conclusion that the North
and West have long labored under
what q French critic calls the break
down in maternity" of the American
woman.
In spite of the arguments used in
favor of limiting the number of
children in the family, / believe that
any normally trained man or woman
WILL at first blush, have a feeling of
| revulsion against the whole thing. If
! this tendency obtained only among
the poor, or those least fitted to care
for and train family it might be
a more wholesome sign. But it is
| almost wholly among the rich and
| fairly Well-to-do that one notices the
| growth of this sentiment.
The editor of The News and OBJ
server not long ago commented on
the speech of Mr.. Roosevelt lately de-
| liVered before the Mothers Congress
! in Washington. Mr.. Daniels gave no
I uncertain sound in expressing his
sympathy and endorsement. TO one
| reader at least it seemed that such
| q course is the only right one to
| pursue. Shall not the leaders of
| thought, the molders of public senti-
ment, deal with q matter which may,
! in the long run, have more to do with
| the veal of the nation than any pres
ent political question can possibly
have?
| The family which impresses me as
| being the most nearly ideal is made
up of children. The father was an
| Englishman, q gentleman of the fin
est qualities, and the wife, noble
mate to him. Such a family, one fill
ed with love and courtesy, one in
which each child is expected to con-
slider the feeling and wants of the
others, can but constitute a notable
training for the larger field of life
Says DR.. Edward Everett Hale: u
would advise any one who can choose
! his place in the family, to be fifth,
counting either way" DR.. Hale him
self was the middle one of nine
| children.
"But your domestic woman, the
one who makes herself slave to home
and children, leads such a narrow
| life She ages before her time. She