River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1915-02-25

| passed from the old life of open
fields within the doors to spin,
weave, compound salves and medi-
cines, knit, bake, and rear and
train her babies. If you had ask
ed a woman of that day why she
did not seek new fields of labor,
she would have thought you mad
and told you that when her lord
was gone on a chase or to war
she must be there to guide the
household, prepare the meat, and
care for her masters wounds on
his return. What would the coun-
try come to if she forsook her
toll? If you had asked the maid
en- spinning, she would have ans
wered you, according to Olive
Schreiner: GO away, 1 have no
time to listen. Do you not see
that I am spinning that | may
have a home of my own? / am
weaving the linen that shall clothe
my household in long years to
come. l cannot marry till my
chest upstairs is full. You can
not hear it, but as | sit here spin
ming alone. far off across the hum
OF my wheel I hear the voices Of
my llttle unborn children calling
to me, % mother, mother, m k e
haste that we may be; , and some
times when / am looking out
across my wheel into the sum
shine it is the blaze of my own
fireside that I see and the light
shines on the faces round it and
I spin on faster and steadier when
/ think Of what shall come. Do
you ask ME why | do not go cut
and labor in the fields with h G
lad l have chosen? Is his work,
then, more needed than mine? Do
you ask ME, whose hands are full
to bursting why [ do not seek for
LAHORE Who will give folk to the
nation if do not?"
Her last question, "Who will
give folk to the nation if / do
nOt?" strikes one of the two key
notes of the change-there is no
longer such a demand for woman
to give folk to the nation, and
these are some OF the reasons:
Infant mortality among all the
earlier ages was much higher than
now; there were unceasing casu-
alities from war and the chase;
daily occurrences of death by vio-
| - 81 H1o Ic Oe
sona1 enemies or at the hands of
the state, were common; countless
numbers of deaths resulted from
poor sanitation, lack of surgery
and medical ignorance; and there
were no inventions or Iabor-sav-
ing devices then known.
At that time it took fifty men
toiling with their oxen, to per-
form the brute labor done easily
and quickly today by one man and
steam plow; twenty men had
! to be born and reared to do the
work done today by one small
steam crane; iron implements that
our ancestors toiled long and lab
oriously to make are now poured
forth by machinery; one sunken-
chested chemist who discovers a
new explosive today, has more eff
feet on modern warfare than TWEEN
ty thousand troops, SO that a
veritable dwarf behind one Of
our big guns mOWs down whole
| ron Of xxyIo
sique the Greeks and Spartans
might have envied; through the
action of one well-ordered brain
some invention is wrought which
diminishes this social demand.
M ed lea proficiency, antiseptic
methods, the introduction of surg
cry, scientific sanitation, rapid
transportation of relief to famine
zones, are more changes that de-
crease this demand; so that to-
day a people may not only main
tain it's numbers but increase
them with comparatively small
expenditure of woman's time and
strength.
IL IA man OF today should be
greeted on his wedding day by
the old time good wish: "May
you have twenty sons and twenty
daughters" how do you think he
would regard it? Today the de-
mand for creatures in the bulk is
over-man must educate his child
SO that he is competent to dis
charge the complex duties Of
modern life; and to do this is
not only a difficult problem but
an expensive one, SO that this
again lessons the demand for child
bearing. Woman's mission has
then been changed to such an ex-
tent that millions of our women
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