Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1906-01-17
HOME LIFE.
Changes Taking Place Paternai Des.
potism PASSING.


London Chronicle nation That :
always ready to criicise its most
cherished institutions cannot be in a
very unheaAny state. From this
point of view, the many columns OF
correspondence which we have printed
during the past seven weeks on The
Decay Of Home Life" are distinctly
encouraging While readers of all
classes are obviously interested in
the preservation of the domestic viz
tues, we are tempted to think. what
ever their opinions, that the English
home maintains its ground. Moreover,
the verdict of our host Of correspond
ents has been on the whole favorable.
Changes are undoubtedly taking
place The massing Of the people in
cities, and the larger freedom gained
by women are two main features
which distinguish cur civilization from
that of the Georgian era, aud both
have affected the English home. Yet
We should be slow TO admit that in
the long run the home has suffered
from either tendency. 1t is better,
of course, for a man 10 bring up his
family in a country cottage than in a
city Stun, and the domestic virtues
are cultivated with difficulty in the
thousands of one-room tenements
where the very poor still live. But
those correspondents who have EN-
phasized the deplorable facts of pow
erty have failed to consider that they
e.rc after all, exceptional. No seri-
Gus student of economic history would
deny that the lot of the poor has beer
steadily improved during the past cen
fury or two, and that, though very
much remains TO be done, the average
workingman is better off than his
great grandfather, in respect both
of lodging, food and clothes. In follows
that the conditions Of home life must
on the whole have been ameliorated
by the advance of industry, despite
the migration to the towns. After
all, the mass of the town dwellers do
not live in slums, but in streets
which, hoewver dreary to the artistic
eye, are clean and healthy, and com
pare most favorably with the foul
courts and alleys that were the rule
in old London and other cities. Home
life, so far as it is influenced by eX-
ternal circumstances, may flourish in
Tottenham or Woolwich, Poplar or
Fulham, or Hoxton, just as much, and
pr, badly more, than it did in the pur
lieus of the city hundred years since.
The change in the position of NO
men, again, has been felt in the
home, but it would be unsafe on the
evidence before us 10 say that the
home has suffered. rhe philosopher
may regret that so many married wo-
men should have to go out to work
in factories. instead Of staying to look
after their homes and their children.
The practical observer will recoenize
that under present conditions this is
inevitable, but that it does not follow
that these working women neglect
their homes Many London or Ian
cashire woman has solved the double
problem of earning her daily bread
in a workshop or a mill, and at the
same time of bringing UP a healthy
and honest family. 1t is a difficult,
but not an impossible task Tor a wo-
man Of character, such as most Eng
fish wives and mothers are. The same
considerations apply to the case Of the
educated woman Of the middle or up
per class, who has figured more
prominently in our correspondence
No doubt the home will decay when
the mother is entirely absorbed in