Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1909-12-24
Outdoor Living for Women.

God knoweth WHY
Edward Bulwer Lytton
~os.o~
Outdoor Living for Women.
Three facts strike even the observer
who stands in the midst of them. the
facts of sanitariums, of summer rasortS
and of apartment hotels. Various raa
sons are assigned for the widespread
nervousness and the tendency to gpt
away from the strictly domestic life
which these three institutions betray,
The servant-girl difficulty, the wider
horizon opening upon women in bnSi-
ness and professional fields, and the rest
leSsness of a revolutionary age, all are
assigned as causes. One cause, perbans
has received less attention than it de-
serves; these things may happen he
cause the strictly domestic career shuts
a woman off too much from the outside
World-not only from the social world.
bat from the world of nature
As at present constituted. almost all
w0manly activities take place within
doors. Housekeeping is an indoor func-
ton. sewing also. Children are soothed
and reproyed and husbands are inter
viewed behind curtains. Dinner parties.
receptions. entertainments of almost ali
kinds are given in the house Indeed,
the socially active woman, like the strict
ly domestic woman, spends most of her
hours in heated rooms and under arti-
fetal light. Her lungs know too little of
the clean oxygen filling the wide spaces
out-of-doors; her muscles have too little
exercise; her nerves are too seldom
Soothed by the impersonal companion
ship OF trees and rocks and fields; hence.
in some cases the sanitariumS; in others
less desperate, the plunge into the coun-
try for the summertime to recognize that
the human animal has oyer-indulged the
desire for shelter-he has sheltered him
self against sunshine as we'll as against
storm, against sweet air and safety as
we'll as against cold and danger. The
alterations just enumerated are but a
sign of the general mistake Because
of her more sensitive nervous organiza-
ton, and her work and play are more
thoroughly walled in, woman is the first
to break under the strain. She needs
outdoor life as much as any man or
boy How, then, without becoming I'M
Womanly, without exposing herself to
undue hardships, can she secure that
communion with nature which is a neces-
sity?
This is a question more easily raised
than answered. But if it can be serious
ly raised and recognized as important
doubtless its answer will come in as
many varying forms as there are women
IN the homes which at once shelter. con-
fine. and glorify them. Some solutions
are already offered. A recent writer on
country homes, for example, has sug-
gested that houses be built 20 look ont
wards. He proposes to greatly increase
the number of verandas, TO have glass-in
winter verandas upon the east and south
sides OF the house, where they may be
Hooded by sunshine The movement
from town to country, now we'll estab-
ilshed, and the growing habit of living
IN the country at least nine months of
the year is another partial solution. If
living out-of-doOrs should come to be re-
garded as important in itself, more sew
ing, will be done under the trees, more
cooking in outdoor ovens, and more
drives and walks for the entire family
Planned as part of the social and family
llte. When women realize that over
strained nerves are expensive and disas-
tr0us, and that plenty of outdoor living
summer and winter, is the best panacea
Tor this evil, they will, if they are true
10 the genius of their sex, devise plans
LOT making out-of-doors homelike, and
SO OF living at home even while they live
under the open sky.-Harper's Bazaar.
-o+:.o~
Child's Respect Is Worth Earning.
OF course, the individuality of the child
mas many practical limitations. His lib
e:ty, as Montague acutely remarked,
GiIuS Wnere the liberty of others begins.
Bnt the point is, let him find out, 50 far
as practicable, these limitations for him
self, using our authority over him not
so much to drive or coerce him into right
conduct. as to prevent him from carrying
ms little experiments too far. so rs to
result in injury TO himself or others.
children are astonishingly quick to grasp
TINS point of view and to respond when
confidence is placed in them, and it is
surprising at how early an age they may
pe' so to speak, put on their honor, and
now much more lasting are the impress
SONS made upon them by mild calamities,
which they feel they have brought upon
themselves, than by even severer punish
lhents which they attribute solely to the
wrath of vengeance of outraged .authori-
y: Let the punishment fit itself to the
'rlme just as far and as completely as
POSSIBLE: then no sense of injustice Will
Treat the child more as an equal-not
as hopeless inferior There isn't so
4acA need of coming down to his level as
u giving him an opportunity to come up
Z" {ours-which will not require such a
LL!ghttul effort on his part as you some
fIlUpe