The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1908-11-26
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highest side Of life is the spiritual.
then the arts and the love Of beauty
are the antechambers to the spiritual.
They are the flower and fruit Of CIV
ilzation, while material progress and
power are but it's stock and root. It is
fortunate that we are to have as first
lady Of the land one who sees these
things. Mrs. Taft does not believe in
government aid to music and the arts.
She believes rather that the people
should take these things up for them
selves. Her value will be as an infu-
ence. Her mere advocacy of higher
artistic standards will call public at
tention to our needs in this line. The
genius and spirit of the American peo-
pie may be counted on to do the rest.
Financier Of Her Household.
The Tafts have always been poor
There has never been more than the
salary to live on, and Uncle Sam does
not pay his officials such muniicent
wages that they become pampered
sons Of luxury. If they are honest, as
some of them are, and refuse graft, as
some Of them do, they may possibly
die with as much money as they started
with, but not more. What with social
duties and calls for charity, it makes
the average official salary hump to
keep up with the game. It has been
so with the Tafts. Both of them are
inclined to charity, especially the SEN
ior member Of the firm, who gives to
everybody that asks as long as he has
cent in his pocket. It is probably
for this reason that Mrs. Taft has been
the financier Of the household. She
knows how to economic and yet to
give to worthy purposes. She cannot
afford a secretary, as do most Of the
Washington women, and frankly ad-
mits it. Yet so carefully has she
financed her household that she has
done her share Of entertaining and has
kept up her end of the social game,
which is no simple or inexpensive
thing at the capital of this land Of the
free and home of the trusts.
Perhaps the most winning side of
Mrs. Taft's character, however, is that
which she shows to her children. OF
these there are three-Robert, eighteen,
who is a sophomore at Yale; Helen,
seventeen, a freshman at Bryn Mawr,
and Charles P. Taft, Jr., who is very
much at home. Charlie is the really
celebrated one Of the trio. He is a
chum Of Quentin Roosevelt, has the
same steam engine activity as his IA
Their, which sometimes goes into sur
prising and perverse channels, and
generally is a healthy, 1rrepressible
American boy. Miss Helen, named for
her mother, but resembling her father,
will probably leave college at the end
Of the present year and become a
White House debutante, as were Nellie
Grant and the two daughters of Presi-
dent Roosevelt. 1t is not every girl
that has chance to have her coming
out occur in the nations executive
mansion, and it is an opportunity not
to be overlooked. AS for the eldest
son, Robert, he is an honor man in
college, as were his father and grand
father before him, and, like them, too,
is going to study law. In the Taft
home each of the children has his or
her own room and keeps his or her
own separate account. It is a family
Of wholesome enjoyment, laughter,
good fellowship, common sense and in
dividual freedom, typically American,
as should be the family of him who is
made temporarily the symbol of Amer
icanism.