The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-05-31
Dorothy DIG Says
BY DOROTHY DIX
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer


should make the cultivation OF tact
the leading study in the curriculum.
It's all well and good for woman to
have all the higher culture in books
that she can get. She will need 1t all
in her business, but a knowledge OF
the differential calculus isn't in it in
importance with the knowledge of
how to manage the different pecu-
iIarities of ones family, and an ability
to read the stars is a poor thing When
compared with an ability to read the
moods and lenses at sight OF the peo-
pie with whom one has to live
1 should begin instructing girl babies
in the cradle-for you can't begin too
early-in the gentle art of getting
what they want by smiling for it in
stead of bowling for it. Then should
teach them how to walk around the
angles in life instead of humping into
them, and when they got into the
kindergarten class I should impress
upon their tender memories the 1olly
of beating and bruising themselves
knocking up against a stone wall, that
they can never hammer down, when
they might just as well climb grace
fully over it.
1 should follow this up with classes
on How to DO Things Without CIV
ing Offense," and "One Hundred Dr.
ferent Ways of Getting There Without
Treading on Other Peoples Toes, ana
no girl would go out CT my schooi
with a blue ribboned diploma until she
had learned-t to say mo- without maxi
ing YOU feel as if she had thrown
brick at YOU, and how to talk without
putting her foot in her mouth, as an
Irishman might observe.
A man who has no tact is a poor
laundering bull in the world emma
shop. but a woman without tact is
mistake in creation. All of us know
and dread her. for she is the person
referred to in the Bible where IL says.
WHEN 1 would do good, evil Is ever
present with me-"
hest She hurts where she wishes 10
soothe. She makes enemies where she
desires friends, and with the pest IN
tention in the world she can 90 more
harm in a minute than malice can IN
vent in a year.
wife her to come to see you, ana sne
picks out the time to arrive, uiidh
nounced, when the cook has left, ana
the children are down WIN tlie
measles, and your husband mas
crouch. Ask her to dinner, and she
manages to offend half the guests ana
throw wet blanket over the galety
she is the kind of friend who, with
out wishing to offend you. tens you
that you carry your age Wen, anu nc
nobody would know that you Were
forty-five unless they had grown up
with YOU as she did She remarks
how clever you We're TO put the 'apis
over the worn spot in the carpet anu
in the same breath that she praises
vour new diamond ring, says that she
always did think that small 1neXpen-
sive stones were in better taste than
costly ones
If there is a sore place in your
heart she touches it with unerrlnS
aim, and in any company you may
bet dollars to doughnuts that she Will
haul in every forbidden topic, and
discuss prison reform with the moth
er of a black sheep, and the lnlqulty
of divorce with woman just BACK
from Reno She is always, and every
where, a social blunderbuss that is la
BILE to go off at any minute, and that
is lust as likely to annihilate friends
as foes.
Now YOU can't prevent the woman
without tact from being born. She
is one OF natures plumbers, but the
| province of civilization is to correct
the blunders of nature. and that IS
why every girl should be given thor
ough course in diplomacy before she
| is turned loose on the world to Soothe
| it, or irritate it.
Just think what the possession of
tact means for the woman herself.
1t is the philosophers stone that ena-
bles her to make friends, hold hev
husbands affection, marriage her
her little world without friction or
| trouble.
| No woman ever yet ruled by force.
Every woman may rule by the use or
little diplomacy, and there is moth
| ing in the world more pitiful than to
see the havoc so many make of their
domestic affairs just because they re-
! fuse to recognize this palpable fact.
| Women never seem to have found
| it out, bur the greatest field of dtplo-
macy in the universe is the home, and
| if is tragical to observe how great IS
! the demand, and how inadequate the
domestic supply. OF course when you
| come right down to facts, there is no
more reason why a woman should ex-
ercise tact in trying to get along with
her husband than there IS why he
should not be a diplomat in dealing
with her IeculiaritieS-
| But facts cut no ice in the family
circle. There it is the condition, and
not the theory, that we confront, and
| every married woman knows that IL
there is any adjusting, and smoothing.
and adapting of one person to another
in the holy estate, it is the wife who
| has to do it.
Many women are either too selfish
or too stupid to do this. Thus we are
treated to the spectacle of families
in which there is continual friction,
and where the daily spat is as much
a matter of course as the daily dinner.
| Unless man is an actual brute, and
| few American husbands are that
there is no possible excuse for such
a state of affairs. Any woman not a
! fool, must learn in time what subjects
will precipitate an argument, what
acts will cause a row, and she can
avoid them if she will
If she has a grain of woman's in
tuition she must know her husbands
| little weaknesses and pet vanities, and
if she fails to stroke the fur the right
way she is wilIfully neglecting her
! opportunities. Any wife who has an
ordinarily good husband with whom
she can't get on peaceably, by the
proper exercise of diplomacy, is either
too big chump to live or else she
quarrels for the mere love of the
| shiRdy-
And why not use tact instead OF
| bludgeon in dealing with children and
servants? Why harp on their faults
and say so little of their virtues? Why