The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1907-03-23
THE GOOD WORK IN woMEHs CLUBS.
Among the fippant and ignoral

Among the Aippant and ignorant
it has been custom, and still is, even
unto this enlightened day, to sneer at
"the club women as one who despises
the Home" Those who have really
studied the matter, who have watch
ed the deep currents, and who have
had a part in the club movement,
know that a vast improvement in the
American Home has taken place
through the light and the leading
which our wives and mothers have
received in their club life. The best
wives and mothers that any of us
have ever known, and those who
have the happiest homes, have been
club women. In fact, large pro-
portion of our clubs have for their
professed object the culture of the
home. Even in so-called literary
clubs, many of the lectures and papers
are written upon home topics. Que
of the general meetings of nearly all
the great clubs is devoted each year
to the home. 1t has sometimes
seemed to many of us as though there
were danger that the matter might be
overdone. And yet such coarse wit
is lavished in the newspapers every
year upon those masculine" and
unsexed" creatures who frequent
clubs, instead of staying at home
washing, ironing, sewing and child
rearing, as all women ought to do.
1t appears as though these would
be humorists had conceived the idea
that there is only one way in which
to perform household and family du-
ties, and that all women know this
way by instinct. They must learn
that the conduct of a home, with its
varied departments, is fully as COM
plicated as the conduct of any other
business enterprise-perhaps more
complicated than any other. Also,
that as no two great business mana
gers carry on their affairs in precisely
the same way, so there are many diff
ferent methods Of conducting house
hold. There is best way of doing
washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning,
child rearing, purchasing, entertain
ing :. in fact, there are many best
ways. What is best for the dweller
in a city may not equally suit the
farmers wife what is best for the
large country establishment is utterly
impracticable in tiny city fiat. In
our women's clubs every possible
phase of the subject has been treated.
Modes of management on the same
iucome have been written out, to the
infinite benefit of thousands of other
women who have about the same
means at command. Devices which
have been employed by successful
mothers in training peculiar children
have been analyzed aud written out,
and have given hints to thousands OF
other puzzled and disheartened pa
rents.
There is nothing for helpfulness
like ''getting together" and compar-
ing notes; it is not only mentally
Illuminating, but it is 'good fun"
You may love your children to dis
traction, and adore your husband,
but if you have only their society
from weeks end to weeks end, you
are more than likely to become one
of those patient, self-effacing drudges
and ciphers who were the saints of
former generation. They were good,
their self-abnegation was heavenly
but they were not. to use the modern
phrase, Interesting = too often they
became to their children, as they grew
older, mere objects of tender compas-
sion = "Poor mother !" = as they
might have said Poor Ponto?"
The mother who has learned her
profession in the clubs wants no pity
from her children. She can discuss
with them their studies and debates
and can help them with both. She
is ever ready to help them in every
way, but they do not impose upon
her, nor look down upon her she is
their comrade, for she is learning how
to keep her health and youth and
control her ''nerves"-she laughs
with them, goes with them, reads
with them. She is not told that her
views are "old-fashioned )" her ideals
may be the old ones indeed, the
ideals of club women, whether they
live up to them or not, are, on the
whole, the highest that civilization
has evolved. But civilization has
evolved very few ideals that are high
er than those of Plato, Aristotle, and,
chiefest of all, the Bible. Those
ideals are old, very old, but we doubt
if we shall ever see them supplanted.
The clubs, on the whole, make for
these old ideals, aud in the practice
which the women there have in talk
ing and in writing, they learn to ex-
press those ideals as women have
never known how to express them
before. 1t is a great thing to have a
great faith it is still greater to be
able to tell others about it, and win
them over to the right point of view.
The typical club woman knows
that the home is the great central
fact of civilization. All women have
always felt this, now they can demon
strate the fact intellectually. They
have also learned to see clearly a
tremendous truth which, by inevlta-
BILE conditions, has been obscured
throughout the ages. This truth is
that the father is quite as much con-
cerned in the making of good home
as is the mother. There have been
good men in every generation who
have acknowledged and nobly illus
strated this truth = but the great
mass of mankind has acted apparent
ly upon the assumption that it made
| little difference what kind of father
was in the home, so long as the moth
er was pure and devoted. Justice
that mightiest of all divine attributes,
is slowly dawning upon the human
mind. Education must merely bring
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