Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-10-08
Wednesday October 8, 1918.
Music requires, indeed, code of
rules just a. poesy requires sys-
tenn of vefs5dcation.-Th ibaut.
Farmers Wives"

Boston Transcript under the caption
Farmers Wives" In several par
ticulars we cannot agree with the de-
auctions which we beliece are found :
ed on false premises; yet there is
much of truth in the claim that in
yention for the household has not
bone labor of the farm. But to talk
this over more inteligently, let us
first read what the Transcript and its
Atoted student Of psychology has
said
Every recurring census report bears
sdnvincing and even sensational testi-
mony to the drift of population from
tfe soil to the busy and crowded
haunts of men, and unless some means
OF checking the movement can be
found We shall in time become a ma
ton of consumers instead of produce
ers. 1t is this that accounts in no
small degree for the high cost of liy-
ing. Why should not meats and
fruits and vegetables be high when
there is a constant thinning of the
ranks Of those engaged in our funda-
mental industry? 1t is easy to un-
derstand the cry, Back to the landih
There is a general feeling that in the
waiting and too much neglected soil
there are opportunities to be inn
proved and responsibilities to be as
sumed, but this is something that we
usually recommend to our neighbors
instead of making the venture our
selves. We realize the problem but
few of us are willing to take the risk
or make the sacrifice involved in its
solution.s s
Many minds are at work upon the
task of making the agricultural indus
try more atkractiveto farmers and to
farmers families, and many are hop
ing that reaction will soon set In.
In order to know how to bring i
about it is necessary to understand
what has caused the wide departure
from conditions once regarded as nor
NAL. Herbert Quick, a student of do
nestle psychology, in the current
number of Good Housekeeping, finds
the force most active behind the de-
sertion of the rural home to be not
the discomfort of the farmer but Of
the farmers wife, and in these days
very likely the farmers daughter He
does not hold the woman responsible,
for If he does not applaud her attitude
he regards 1T as natural and inevitable
under conditions that have too long
prevailed.
The farmers wife is more deserving
ofsstmpathy today than she was fifty
years ago In fact in those days she
was a person to be envied and not a
candidate for sympathy at all. She
was not worried about her sphere. The
details of housekeeping were regarded
as accomplishments. She could Sc
cure help for her duties, for the inn
migrant girls of that period did no.
scorn the farm, they liked it, but THAI
Is true no longer. There was joy in
service. The housewife was not con-
scious of her drudgery. Today she is
painfully SO and the tax on mind and
nerves and spirit is constant. depress-
ing and exhaustive. One reason for
this. says Mr.. Quick. is that there has
not been the same advance in the
means OF Tightening her burdens that
have become available for her hus-
band. Mechanical devices and new
forms OF power have to a large extent
taken the place of muscular force.
Farm work is at once more interest,"
ing, more easy and more productive
but only TO a limited extent has the
woman of the house been thus con :
sidered ,,s- ~
This is not entirely due to the lack
OF invention in her behalf The
farmer himself is not held blameIess.
He wishes his farm equipment 50
complete that his appropriation is ex-
hausted before he gets to the domestic
branch of his establishment. But,
says his critic, the farmer who can at
ford to provide himself with a gas en-
CINE to cut his wood and thresh his
grain can afford running water ho*
and cold in his house. If he can affor /
an automobile he can afford a bath
room. If he can afford complete
harvester he can affofd electricity to
light his house, do the laundry WORK.
run vacuum cleaner and perhaps
cook his meals. All these things
@ouiu De IdctofS Oh larger content, no
doubt. But even these would not
satisfy the aspirations and social
longings of the new woman, for even
on the farm she is TO be found. Rural
communities are not what they once
We're. They are more mixed and even
more polyglot. They are assem-
blages rather than communities, for
those who constitute them to a large
degree lack common interests and
common points OF view. 1t is a ser-
Gus problem which we fear even
labor saving machinery will not en-.
tirely solve.
Probably Mr.. Quick was dealinz
with wider area and more varet
population than the Maine field pre-.
sents, but let US consider our in,
diyiduaI native localities. In the ma.
tive section of the editor women werr
weaving, not only rag carpets blu
'-homespun' SO years ago. The,
were drying apples and pumpkins
day after day; they were hand pick
ing beans for market, and huskinI